Breaking the Marketing Mold: Anastasiia Karlova Of PlantIn On 5 Innovative & Non Traditional Marketing Strategies That Can Engage Audiences Like Never Before
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Personalized experience in everything — onboarding, emails, offers, reminders. Catch users’ pains and dive into segmentation based on how you can solve it and support your user in it.
Traditional marketing methods are no longer sufficient in today’s dynamic and fast-evolving market. To truly engage and captivate audiences, businesses need to think outside the box and adopt innovative and non-traditional marketing strategies. What are these strategies, and how can they transform audience engagement? I had the pleasure of interviewing Anastasiia Karlova.
Anastasiia Karlova is Head of Marketing at PlantIn, a Ukrainian tech startup that developed the app for plant recognition and care. PlantIn now is one of the biggest gardening software in the world with 24 million users worldwide. Anastasiia has been leading the marketing team for 2 years and has powerful experience with paid user acquisition.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! To start, could you share when and how you got started in marketing?
I started my career in marketing 7 years ago, while I was an economics student. I took a marketing internship at Nestle, and liked the marketing immediately. I was a brand assistant in the confectionery department and had great mentors that helped me to learn a lot. A year later while studying on a mobility program I got a chance to work in Startup Accelerator, doing marketing strategy for a small startup. I was instantly drawn to the dynamic environment. This experience led me to pursue a career in the app industry, and five years later, I’m still energized by the same sense of innovation, growth, and fast pace that first captivated me. First I worked in a small app studio, where we launched five apps in a single year, gaining valuable insights into development, analytics, and user acquisition. Then I joined PlantIn, part of Genesis — the largest IT product ecosystem in Ukraine. Starting as a performance marketer, I quickly advanced to User Acquisition Lead and eventually became Head of Marketing.
What has been the biggest shift in the marketing industry and can you give us an example of how it impacted you?
The biggest shift in the marketing industry in recent years has been the move towards more personalized and data-driven strategies at the same time when data privacy and consents for data sharing became a strict rule to follow.
When we just started actively promoting PlantIn in 2021, a huge Apple update came in. User-based analytics for iOS apps faded, as well as clear targeting, so we started to adopt and went to innovative methods of user acquisition. We started implementing a web-to-app approach to our social paid marketing back in 2021, and it was a new way to get users to the app through web campaigns and full-funnel analytics. Only in 2024 it became mainstream, but several years ago it gave us a strong competitive advantage on our market — while our competitors were fighting with Apple limitation, we not only grew up, but also laid the foundation for our paid marketing for the next few years.
Can you explain why it’s essential for businesses to break away from traditional marketing and embrace new strategies?
Breaking away from traditional marketing is essential because it aligns with the shifting landscape of consumer behavior and the increasing demand for personalization and “wow-effect” from the brand. Innovative strategies can give you advantages on every step of the classic marketing funnel — from consideration to brand awareness, loyalty and generally cost-efficiency of your marketing activity. Marketing evolves so dynamically, that’s why if you stop in your innovations or don’t consider them necessary — you have a risk of being forgotten or outdated.
Could you share and briefly explain the first major change you made to break the trend of traditional marketing that was not so common?
In digital marketing, where you can measure everything, the impact of every extra step was deeply studied and every marketer knows the rule — simplicity is the best. Less funnel steps, less forms to fill, less actions before the payment or other main action.
But after privacy changes from Apple in 2021, we tried the idea of a web-to-app advertising funnel instead of the usual app funnel. It meant that we added an extra step for users — between the ad and App Store there is a landing, which helps us to have web attribution and use Web campaigns on Meta, instead of App Promotion campaigns. Surprisingly, the conversion rate to install and to purchase in the app didn’t drop because of one extra step. All the industry (and PlantIn later as well) went further — not only one extra step, but 10–30 question quizzes before payment and the product itself. It seemed very strange from the traditional marketing point of view, but it worked well. It’s another approach to marketing — not product-centric, but user’s pain and problems centric. That means, if you disclosed the user’s problem right and offered a great solution even before the product — you still have the attention and you didn’t tire him, you just warmed him up enough before the purchase and product experience and you can expect higher motivation in the end.
What specific results did you see after implementing this change?
I think, implementing this change of user acquisition strategy towards web-to-app funnel determined our next opportunities and chances, and that was very important from a long-term perspective. Also, from other benefits and achievements I can highlight:
- Implementing a web-to-app funnel with landing helped PlantIn app to grow at least 30% each year and became 2nd app in our niche worldwide.
- We got 1st place in the Education category ranking in the US and other countries, that means we were the top downloaded app that day.
- This funnel enabled creative testing, automatization, and marketing insights that drove our marketing till today.
How do you ensure that these new marketing strategies resonate with your target audience?
We tested a lot during implementation of the web-to-app funnel to make sure our user’s expectations and our promises match. For example, we tested around 200 landing pages during the first months to find the one that recall with our creatives and product the most. I think marketing is a big playground — and you always should have an ability to test your hypothesis.
Can you share an example of something you tried that didn’t deliver expected results or ended up becoming a financial burden, and what you learned from that experience?
I don’t have an example of failure that became a financial burden, but one that didn’t deliver expected results — yes, I have.
2–3 years ago UGC content became a thing. Every product and company started using creators, micro and macro influencers, so at PlantIn we decided to go there too.
We collaborated with several huge influencers from the TikTok plant community but faced a problem of measurement ROI of that collaboration. Also, it seemed working poorly even in organic reach, not talking about conversions (app installs).
After that, we tried several creator’s marketplaces, where you can find creators for your need for TikTok ads (Spark Ads). That idea failed as well — we didn’t get expected reach and conversions. After some time, we realized that UGC content with a person who talks about our product is not our format and we have a lot of other formats we can invest in.
Great. Now, let’s dive into the heart of our interview. Could you list “5 Innovative & Non Traditional Marketing Strategies That Can Engage Audiences Like Never Before”?
- Personalized experience in everything — onboarding, emails, offers, reminders. Catch users’ pains and dive into segmentation based on how you can solve it and support your user in it.
- User’s problem/pain centric approach instead of product centric approach. You’re not selling products, you sell relief, emotion, dream, feelings, identity for your users.
- Data-driven approach — measure everything and turn into insights. Does one extra step make it better or worse? If we use creator in our creatives will it lead to conversion uplift on the payment?
- Product and Marketing alliance. These teams cannot be separate anymore. They should have one goal written in different metrics — CAC/LTV. But not in creative approach to campaign or feature invention. If these teams have one approach, you’ll find all your company on the same page when going to any kind of innovations.
- Short and catchy content. Doesn’t matter what is your primary channel of communication — OOH, digital, influencers, it should grab the user’s attention during the first 3 sec and be clear enough to get the general message to the audience .
What challenges might companies face when transitioning away from traditional marketing strategies, and how can they overcome them?
Companies transitioning from traditional marketing might face several challenges, including:
Resistance to Change: Teams accustomed to traditional methods may resist new strategies. To overcome this, demonstrate the benefits of innovative approachesе through clear metrics and detailed plans.
Skill Gaps: Adopting new strategies often requires different skills. Address this by investing in upskilling employees or hiring experts with experience in the new areas.
Data Overload: New strategies generate a lot of data, which can be overwhelming. If you chose the way of data-driven marketing, data would become your main tool and source. Use data analytics tools and set clear objectives to focus on actionable insights and avoid analysis paralysis.
By addressing these challenges proactively, companies can navigate the transition more effectively and leverage the benefits of modern marketing strategies.
How do you measure the success and ROI of these new marketing strategies?
Innovative marketing approaches mainly are data-driven and digitalised. That makes measurements and ROI more clear than ever. Invest in an analytics team and strong connection between marketing and product data, so everyone will be on the same page.
Looking forward, how do you see the role of innovative marketing evolving in the next 5–10 years?
In the next 5–10 years, I see innovative marketing becoming even more personalized while covering all requirements in data privacy. AI, powered by Meta and other networks that deliver ads, will enhance personalization by analyzing massive amounts of data tailoring offers in real-time based on user behavior. AR could transform how users interact with brands, making marketing more immersive and engaging. From virtual try-ons in e-commerce to interactive product demonstrations, AR will allow consumers to experience products in their own environments, creating deeper connections and increasing purchase confidence. Of course, we need more time to get AR tools widespread and ads-covered, but I think it can happen really fast. Probably, marketing became even faster in driving users to buy on emotions or last minute offers, as competition became more severe.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitant to move away from traditional marketing methods?
My advice would be to start experimenting with new strategies, showing measurable results to build confidence. Look at competitors or industry leaders who have successfully adopted innovative approaches and learn from their successes. Remember, that sometimes to stay in your place you’ll need to run twice faster — so if you are not embracing challenges now, they will overwhelm you later.
Can you share any upcoming initiatives or plans you have for further innovating your marketing strategies?
We will work on personalization of our advertising and onboarding experience for sure. This is what nowadays called Product Marketing becomes important when the upper funnel is more-less calibrated. Also, we move into automatization of some of the processes, so marketers can concentrate on more creative work and not on manual ads uploading.
How can our readers follow your work and learn more about your approaches to modern marketing?
You can follow me and connect on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anastasia-karlova/
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur and Thought Leader with over 25 years of business experience. He has founded, operated, and exited multiple companies and now builds into a handful of high impact CEOs. Chad has launched multiple online communities, including a recent leadership development platform, and also serves as a strategic advisor for Authority Magazine’s thought-leader incubator program.
To learn more and connect with Chad visit: chadsilverstein.io
Breaking the Marketing Mold: Anastasiia Karlova Of PlantIn On 5 Innovative & Non Traditional… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.