The world’s best SaaS marketing teams aren’t building marketing engines.

They are building media engines.

Few companies embody this philosophy better than ahrefs, the fully bootstrapped marketing intelligence suite pulling in $100m+ ARR with just ~140 employees (!)

Today we’re going deep on how they systematically generate fop-of-funnel acquisition through a carefully architected ecosystem of educational content and free tools.

Enjoy.

— Tom

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Ahrefs’ radical generosity engine

Chess Move

The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy

Ahrefs' incredible efficiency ($1m+ ARR per employee) isn't just a story about content marketing.

It's a story about radical generosity-at-scale.

While most SaaS companies see "giving away value" as a reluctant concession to earn attention, Ahrefs has engineered an entirely different approach:
→ a comprehensive media and software ecosystem that delivers as much free value as possible.

• Their content offerings don't feel like marketing – they function as standalone media properties prioritising education

• Their lead magnets aren't PDF checklists – they're fully functional tools that deliver immediate business value

• Their free tier isn't a free trial or usage-capped teaser – it's genuinely useful software that users can rely on indefinitely

The result: A customer acquisition engine powered not by aggressive conversion tactics but by organic education and compounding goodwill.

Let’s unpack exactly how it works.

Breakdown

The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways

1.  Create media, not marketing

Most SaaS companies create content that exists solely to hard-sell their product. Ahrefs instead built legitimate media properties that would be valuable even if they never sold a single subscription.

Their YouTube channel (620,000+ subscribers) operates as a standalone media outlet – with recurring shows, featured personalities, and in-depth case studies that educate viewers regardless of whether they ever use Ahrefs' product.

Their podcast is hosted by CMO Tim Soulo, who brings on some of the internet’s most prolific marketers to give a “free 2-hour consulting call, disguised as a podcast interview”.

Their blog includes a research publication featuring original studies that leverage Ahrefs' massive proprietary dataset. This serves multiple strategic purposes:

• Positions them as an industry thought leader and community contributor

• Naturally demonstrates the power of their product without explicitly selling it

• Creates highly citable content that generates thousands of backlinks from other sites

Perhaps most tellingly, their weekly newsletter curates valuable content regardless of source – even highlighting competitors' articles when they provide genuine value. Trusted curation over self-interested promotion.

Rather than hosting a user conference focused exclusively on their product, they created "Evolve" – positioned as an industry event tackling broader digital marketing trends.

This approach extends to their international strategy, with dedicated media operations in Japan, Latin America, France, and Germany - each creating tailored content for regional audiences rather than simply translating existing materials.

What makes their top-of-funnel marketing strategy truly differentiated is their willingness to heavily invest in these properties primarily to build audience trust, with downstream revenue as a secondary outcome.

2. Free standalone tools as high-value lead magnets

Ahrefs didn't just reimagine content – they reimagined the concept of lead magnets.

Rather than reports or cheat sheets, they built an extensive suite of fully-functional software tools that deliver immediate business value.

A high-trust conversion bridge between media content and product adoption, that once again requires no payment from users to generate value.

The beauty is that these tools don't feel like marketing – they feel like products that could reasonably charge subscription fees on their own merits.

Strategic placement of these tools throughout the content ecosystem creates natural user journeys:

• Read an educational article about a specific marketing problem

• Encounter a free tool that helps solve that problem

• Experience immediate value without spending a penny

• Develop trust in Ahrefs' expertise and technology

• Eventually consider exploring their more advanced offerings

They apply the same philosophy to their partnerships and influencer collaborations.

Ahrefs focuses on driving awareness to the free tools rather than pushing for paid conversions.

By creating tools that remain permanently useful, Ahrefs can promote them (organic, partnerships etc) to establish a foundation of trust that pays dividends over time.

Long-term goodwill over short-term revenue.

3. Product-led growth through generous free tier

Ahrefs has architected their core product around the same ideas governing their content and tools: give away genuine free utility permanently, not just as a temporary hook.

Their free tier (called Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, or “AWT”) doesn't expire after 14 days like typical SaaS trials. Instead, it provides permanent access to a limited but legitimately useful subset of their platform, including:

Their take on the ‘Freemium’ model creates several strategic advantages:

• Ahrefs becomes part of user workflows.

• Trust builds over months (even years) of reliable free value.

• For many smaller businesses, the free tier provides all the marketing tools they need, so they become happy net promoters.

• If their needs eventually outgrow the free tier, Ahrefs is the natural upgrade path.

This approach reflects a fundamental belief that product quality and genuine utility will eventually drive conversions more effectively than limited-time trials or aggressive selling.

If the free product is garbage, you’ll never see any upgrades.

If it’s awesome - people upgrade on their own accord.

Free media → Free tools → Free tier = 👇

Rabbit Hole

The where: 3x high-signal resources to learn more

How ahrefs weaponizes big data in their marketing ↗

[2 minute read]

Ten years ago, SEO tools competed on features. Today, they compete on data scale and intelligence.

This ‘Big Data’ page is a mind-bending demonstration of their unmatched intelligence capabilities.

How Ahrefs saved US$400M in 3 years by NOT going to the cloud ↗

[8 minute read]

A viral Medium article by Efim Mirochnik, Ahrefs' Global Data Centre Lead, breaking down:

• Why greater performance becomes possible with owned hardware

• The sustainability advantage of 5+ year hardware lifecycles

• Exactly how they calculated $400M in savings

About Yep: The search engine Ahrefs built for content creators ↗

[2 minute read]

How does an marketing intelligence company build a search engine from scratch?

Well, they already have a search engine inside their product (i.e. whenever you search for data about another website).

The ahrefs team leveraged their existing web crawler (running 24/7 since 2010 !) to power Yep, a search engine with the audacious goal of redirecting 90% of ad revenue back to content creators.

If you found it valuable - please share it with a pal! It only takes 12 seconds 🙏 

See you cats next week.

— Tom

P.S. If you're interested in learning how to use free internet data (using ahrefs and other tools) to make stronger, data-driven, strategic arguments, you might enjoy StrategyHub – where I teach exactly how to develop an "information advantage" to maximise your impact and accelerate your career.