Meet Samsung Food
If you don’t know about Samsung Food yet, you most definitely should. Leading innovation in the consumer FoodTech space, Samsung Food combines recipe collection, meal planning and grocery shopping into one streamlined digital experience.
Available on iOS, Android, and the Web, the platform uses machine learning to deliver smarter food solutions with personalised meal plans and detailed nutritional insights. With its cutting-edge smart cooking device integration, Samsung Food is also at the forefront of the connected-cooking experience, seamlessly linking each step from recipe discovery to meal preparation.
Siân is one of the best growth/marketing people I've had the privilege to work with. I hired her to provide maternity cover as our Head of Growth for Whisk/Samsung Food.
We have a broad marketing strategy and it very quickly became apparent that Siân *really* understood each of the channels. We hired Siân to continue delivery of an existing strategy but she was able to improve what we did in almost every channel in a short period of time - significantly exceeding expectations.
She's also a great leader - she was excellent at communicating strategy and results to our team of over 100 people, and also represent Growth/Marketing internally to our various stakeholders. I'd hire Siân again in a heartbeat and recommend her to anyone looking for a growth/marketing leader.
Nick Holzherr CEO & Co-Founder, Samsung Food
Stepping In As Samsung Food’s Fractional Head of Growth
Covering maternity leave, I stepped into the role of Fractional Head of Growth for the business. This presented a unique opportunity to work on an outstanding product and lead a high-performance Growth Team—an experience I immensely enjoyed. Discovery and Onboarding With my experience in multiple Fractional Head of Growth roles, along with the creation of Fifth Mark's Digital Growth Intelligence Programme, I possess a proven framework for rapidly assessing a business's context, maturity stage, growth model, strategy, culture, and team. This, combined with my experience working across 50+ high-growth businesses, enables me to identify the most salient opportunities for growth while ensuring continuity in strategy and team leadership.
Refining the Growth Model to Maximise Return on Marketing Investment
Effective growth should always be designed around a profitable Growth Model. At Samsung Food, I was presented with an initial growth forecast—a solid foundation to build upon. From this, I analysed the dynamics of the business's performance across channels, surfaces, and use cases. Collaborating closely with the data analysts, we engaged in retention rate modelling to predict the outcomes of different growth scenarios on monthly active users (MAU).
This process allowed us to identify the most impactful growth initiatives and plan scenarios for marketing investment for maximum MAU growth.
Refining The Lifecycle Marketing Strategy to Improve User Retention Rates
I’m a true believer that exceptional user retention is what separates the top 1% of ventures. At Samsung Food lifecycle marketing was a core strategic focus from day one. As a team, we formalised the retention strategy across activation, engagement, and reactivation to increase user retention rates.
Our approach leveraged proprietary machine learning models to offer personalised recipe recommendations and predict behaviour patterns indicative of user churn. This enabled us to design tailored campaigns aimed at supporting user retention across the entire user lifecycle.
Taking a Retention-Driven Approach to Digital Paid Media Strategy
Upon my arrival, a multi-channel paid media strategy was already established. To optimise the approach further, I guided the paid media team towards acquiring users based on their potential for long-term retention, rather than focusing solely on the lowest cost of acquisition.
By creating more budget liquidity, the team was able to trade dynamically across channels and conduct optimisation testing to reduce the overall CPA.
SEO and Content Optimisation
I oversaw the team undertaking an ambitious and extensive technical SEO initiative to maximise the global SEO visibility of Samsung Food's content. By integrating AI into the content production processes, we improved efficiency and reduced costs without sacrificing quality.
Leveraging Data Insights for Strategic Growth
Samsung Food benefited from a team of talented data analysts. Recognising the potential for a more integrated approach, one of my initiatives was to strengthen the cross-functional relationship between the growth team and the data analysts. This collaboration aimed to create an insights flywheel, further fostering a culture of continuous testing and improvement.
Team Leadership
As part of the Senior Leadership Team, I managed a talented team of six. Collaborating with the CEO of Whisk, we assessed strategic growth opportunities and I supported organisational planning. This period was pivotal for aligning team efforts with long-term growth trajectories, ensuring seamless continuity and focus on meaningful MAU growth.
The Results
- As a team, we delivered +80% YoY MAU growth
- Fostered synergy between growth and data teams to create an insights flywheel
- Refined the growth model to maximise Marketing investment
- Increased the Growth Team’s commercial focus around MAU growth
- Advanced an SEO project to increase content reach and reduce costs via AI
- Led the paid media approach to prioritise long-term user retention, whilst reducing CPA
- As a team we refined The Lifecycle Marketing Strategy to improve user retention rates
- As part of the leadership team, I led a dynamic team of six across SEO, Content, Paid Media & Retention
