How Domitille de Saint-Exupéry (CMO at Lemlist) Turned $1.2M into $31M in New ARR

#332 | Dave is joined by Domi de Saint-Exupéry, CMO at Lemlist, a bootstrapped $40M ARR sales engagement platform, to break down exactly how she turned $1.2M in marketing spend into $31M in new ARR in 2025. Domi shares the full breakdown of every channel, agency, influencer strategy, and partnership play that drove results. This includes how they went from $0 to $500K in paid ads, why partnerships are the most underrated B2B growth channel, how they built a micro-influencer program, and what AI use cases are actually working (and which are overrated). If you want real numbers and real playbooks, this one's for you.Timestamps(00:00) - Introduction: $1.2M in spend, $31M in new ARR (02:15) - What Lemlist does and how the company got to $40M ARR (05:30) - Going from $0 to $500K in paid ads: what triggered the shift (09:45) - How to execute paid ads well: outsourcing vs. in-house, and scaling by channel (16:00) - LinkedIn ads creative: why "on-brand and safe" was the wrong approach (20:30) - Mistakes made in paid: Snapchat, Spotify, and channels that didn't work (24:00) - The micro-influencer playbook: how to find, brief, and measure creators (33:00) - How influencer content compounds with paid ads and outbound (the Julio story) (38:30) - Partnerships: why $450K went here and why it's the most underrated B2B channel (47:00) - AI in marketing: what's overrated (content generation) and what's actually working Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - the AI platform for marketers. Build your own AI agents or pull from a directory of 50+ pre-built ones for marketing use cases. Their new Virtual Teammates can join meetings, complete tasks, support campaigns, and keep your website optimized. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive.Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, letting modern marketing teams build fully custom sites that perform in AI search with no developer needed. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand gen agency helping high-growth cybersecurity and enterprise software companies show up earlier in the buying journey, combining AEO, modern paid advertising, and a dedicated go-to-market engineering team. Podcast listeners get two free media planning sessions to find out what channels are driving the best ROI. Learn more at compoundgrowthmarketing.com/exitfive. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more