Overview
You own a portfolio of enterprise marketing teams using Knak's platform. Your job is ensuring they adopt the tool, get value from it, renew their annual contracts, and ideally expand (more seats, additional features, or new use cases). You're part product expert, part account manager, part strategist helping them optimize their campaign creation workflows.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Retention + expansion CSM |
| Sales Motion | Account management - upsell/cross-sell within existing customers |
| Deal Complexity | Consultative - understanding workflows and proving ROI |
| Sales Cycle | Renewals are annual; expansions happen quarterly |
| Deal Size | Expansions: $10-30K incremental ARR |
| Quota (est.) | 95%+ net retention, $150-250K expansion ARR/year |
Company Context
Stage: Growth stage (167 employees, customers like OpenAI and Google)
Size: 167 employees
Growth: Scaling the customer base while maintaining high-profile clients
Market Position: Niche tool in MarTech - need to prove ongoing value to avoid churn
GTM Reality
Your Book of Business: Likely 30-50 accounts (varies by account size)
Expansion Motion: Usage-based upsells (more seats as teams grow), feature upgrades, or expansion to additional marketing teams within the same company
Renewal Cycle: Most contracts are annual; you start renewal conversations 90 days out
Support Structure: Likely a shared technical support team for bug/implementation issues; you handle strategic conversations
Competitive Landscape
Churn Risk: Customers might revert to native MAP tools if they don't see ROI, or if budget gets cut
Expansion Opportunity: Marketing teams that see value will want to bring in adjacent teams (events, product marketing) or add more users
Your Job: Make sure they're using Knak consistently and can articulate why it's valuable when renewal time comes
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Account Check-ins (40%) | Renewals/Expansion (30%) | Onboarding (15%) | Internal (15%)
Key Activities
- Onboarding new customers: When a deal closes, you're running kickoff calls, setting up integrations with their MAP, training their team on Knak's features, and making sure they start building campaigns within the first 30 days. If they don't adopt early, churn risk goes way up.
- Quarterly business reviews: Scheduled check-ins with key stakeholders (Marketing Ops, Demand Gen leads) to review usage metrics (how many campaigns built, time saved, user adoption), discuss roadmap requests, and identify expansion opportunities.
- Adoption monitoring: Watching login data, campaign creation volume, and feature usage. If an account goes quiet (haven't logged in for 2 weeks), you're reaching out to figure out why.
- Renewal conversations: Starting 90 days before contract end, you're confirming they'll renew, addressing any concerns ("it's too expensive", "we're not using it enough"), and negotiating terms. Some renewals are smooth; others require executive escalation or pricing concessions.
- Expansion pitches: Identifying accounts where usage is growing and pitching additional seats, premium features, or expansion to other teams. This often requires building a business case ("you've created 200 campaigns this quarter; adding 5 more seats would unlock X more capacity").
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Some accounts adopt quickly and love the tool; others struggle to change their workflow and barely use it. You spend a lot of time trying to drive adoption at low-engagement accounts.
- Renewals aren't always straightforward - budgets get cut, stakeholders leave, priorities shift. You'll have contracts that were "definitely renewing" suddenly at risk because a new CMO wants to reevaluate all tools.
- Marketing teams are busy and often cancel QBRs or skip check-ins. You're chasing them for meetings to make sure they're getting value.
- Expansion opportunities take time to develop - you need to build trust and prove ROI before they'll add more seats or features.
- You're sometimes the punching bag when something breaks or a feature isn't working as expected, even if it's not your fault.
What Success Looks Like
- Net retention rate above 100% (expansions outweigh any churn)
- Renewals happening 30-60 days before contract expiration without last-minute fire drills
- Customers becoming advocates - willing to do reference calls, case studies, or referrals
Who You're Working With
Primary Contacts:
- Marketing Operations Managers/Directors (day-to-day users, your main point of contact)
- Demand Gen / Campaign Managers (end users who build campaigns in Knak)
- Occasionally CMO or VP Marketing (economic buyer for renewals and expansions)
What They Care About:
- Is Knak saving them time, or is it just another login?
- Are their teams actually using it, or do they keep reverting to old workflows?
- Can they justify the cost at renewal time - do they have metrics to show ROI?
- Will Knak's roadmap address their future needs, or are they outgrowing it?
Requirements
- 2-4 years in customer success, account management, or sales (preferably in MarTech or SaaS)
- Understanding of marketing automation platforms (Marketo, Eloqua, Salesforce Marketing Cloud) and how marketers use them
- Comfortable analyzing usage data and building business cases for renewals/expansions
- Strong relationship-building skills - you need to stay top of mind without being annoying
- Ability to manage 30-50 accounts at various stages (some are thriving, some are at risk, some are ready to expand)