Episodes

Dragos Marica: The Revenue Engine

Dragos Marica, Associate Director of Performance Marketing at Directive, on why efficiency is the side effect of silos, how AI discoverability is SEO done a bit better, and why curiosity beats credentialism.

Apple Podcasts Spotify
 ·  The Business of Marketing  · S5 E89  · 29 min
Read the interview

"If 80 per cent of your revenue comes from one platform, that is a risk."

The Conversation with John Horsley

Ten years in performance marketing, seven of them recorded across Maple Forest, MG OMD, Publicis, EssenceMediacomX and now Directive. Dragos Marica on why efficiency is the side effect of silos, why AI discoverability is traditional SEO plus a contextual layer, why brand is the long-term revenue engine even inside a performance discipline, and why younger marketers should ignore the current playbook and go break things.

Dragos Marica began in 2017 knocking on doors in Craiova, offering to run Facebook ads for local businesses. He moved to London in 2018 for his first agency role at Maple Forest, then stepped up through MG OMD (managing half-million-pound biddable budgets on UK Government Business, Education and Defence accounts), Publicis Groupe and EssenceMediacomX (where he was Account Director on Google Consumer Apps across EMEA). Since May 2023 he has been at Directive, promoted to Associate Director of Performance Marketing in June 2024.

In this conversation with host John Horsley, Dragos argues that the so-called performance obsession is really a silo problem. When marketing, sales, product and finance stop running against each other, LTV and CAC run through the whole system, and efficiency stops being a target and starts being an outcome. He explains why Reddit and LinkedIn are now the surfaces feeding LLM citations, why AI discoverability is mostly just traditional SEO done better, why brand has to come back on the investment agenda even in a tough economy, and why his advice to younger marketers is to break the current engine, test what replaces it, and keep what works.

Key Takeaways

  • Dragos' career spans ten years of performance marketing, seven recorded: Marica Advertising (founder, Romania), Maple Forest (paid social), MG OMD (half-million-pound UK Government budgets), Publicis Groupe, EssenceMediacomX (Account Director, Google Consumer Apps EMEA) and Directive (Associate Director, Performance Marketing).
  • Efficiency is a consequence of integration, not a strategy. When marketing is set narrow KPIs, it optimises for them and ignores the downstream. Integrated teams optimise for LTV, CAC and pipeline, and efficiency shows up naturally.
  • AI discoverability is traditional SEO plus a contextual layer. The companies generating demand through ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude are running fundamentals well. Reddit and LinkedIn are now optimised surfaces feeding LLM citations. Old content that still ranks has to be refreshed, or it starts to work against the brand.
  • Creative is at the epicentre of the next phase. Traditional paid search volume is dropping or getting more expensive. LinkedIn and Meta are absorbing that demand in B2B. A strong performance-creative strategy is now the lever.
  • Brand is back on the agenda. LTV/CAC ratios are compressing, easy wins are disappearing, and discoverability is the right word for what companies are not investing enough in. Advice to younger marketers: go in, break things, test, and keep what works.

Topics Covered

  1. 01 From knocking on doors in Craiova to Associate Director at the world’s largest independent B2B agency
  2. 02 Why efficiency is the side effect of silos, and how integration fixes accountability
  3. 03 AI discoverability: traditional SEO, Reddit and LinkedIn citations, the refresh-or-rot rule
  4. 04 Performance creative, LTV/CAC compression, and why B2B is migrating to LinkedIn and Meta
  5. 05 Brand as long-term revenue engine and advice to younger marketers: break things, test, keep what works

Key Exchanges

05
01 Has performance marketing made the industry more accountable?

Every pound into paid has to show its LTV and CAC. The CMO no longer lives in its own world. The CFO is also included.

Dragos argues the discipline is more integrated, more measured and more accountable than it was five years ago, because silos are breaking down. Marketing, sales, finance and product increasingly operate as one front, which forces every pound of paid media to show its contribution to LTV and CAC, not just to clicks and leads. Efficiency is the side effect of that integration.

02 When marketers confuse efficiency with growth.

Set a marketing department against leads and they will do everything in their power to get leads. They will not care what happens further down the funnel.

Narrow KPIs produce narrow behaviour. If the only number marketing is measured on is cost per click or cost per lead, qualified leads, opportunities and revenue become someone else’s problem. The industry needs a revolution in how goals are set across marketing, sales and product, so that everyone works to the same downstream metrics. That is when performance marketing earns its name.

03 AI discoverability and the return of SEO.

It is traditional SEO plus a contextual layer. Done a bit better.

The companies generating B2B demand through ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude are not doing anything exotic. They are running SEO fundamentals well, with content designed to be parsed and reproduced by a language model rather than clicked. Citation sources have moved. Reddit is now a primary LLM source, and LinkedIn is climbing fast. Old content that still ranks has to be refreshed, or it starts to work against the brand.

04 Creative is now at the epicentre.

LTV to CAC last year, three to one. This year, two to one. That is significant.

Traditional paid search is either getting too expensive or returns less than it used to, as buyers migrate to LLMs. LTV/CAC ratios are compressing across the board. B2B marketers are moving spend into LinkedIn and Meta, where they are discovering they have been under-investing in the platforms that create the demand. Performance creative, not performance targeting, is the lever now.

05 Advice to younger marketers entering the industry now.

Go in. Break things. Test, test, test. Continue with what works.

Do not try to learn the old ways of working. The industry is being rebuilt. The job of someone entering performance marketing in 2026 is not to inherit a playbook but to build the next one. Curiosity beats credentialism. Follow the platform shifts, the way Dragos followed social from pitching Facebook ads door-to-door in Craiova to running EMEA Performance at EssenceMediacomX and now at Directive.

S5 E89Season & Episode
29 minDuration
10+ Years in Performance Marketing, Seven Recorded
B2B Now at the World’s Largest Independent B2B Specialist

"Reddit. LinkedIn. These are the surfaces feeding the LLMs now."

Hear Dragos on
The Business of Marketing
Season 5 Episode 89 29 min
Apple Podcasts→ Spotify→ Dragos's full profile→ Dragos on LinkedIn→
Read the full transcript
Lightly edited for readability.

John Horsley Your career journey into performance marketing.

Dragos Marica Seven years recorded. Two or three freelancing before that. I started knocking on doors. Hey, do you need help with your social media? It was 2017. Back in Romania. I was doing everything myself. As I grew I felt I needed to do more. That was the point I moved into paid media, and that was the moment I left my hometown for London. First time I entered the big advertisers field and could make real impact. Now I am at Directive, the biggest B2B independent agency in the world, helping clients turn ad spend into revenue and profit.

John Horsley Has performance marketing made the industry more accountable?

Dragos Marica Everything is more integrated. Not just platforms, departments too. The CMO does not live in its own world anymore. The CFO is also included. Every pound into paid has to show its LTV and CAC. Performance marketing is more measured and more accountable than it was.

John Horsley Many companies say they want growth but optimise for cost per click or cost per lead. Does the industry confuse optimisation with actual growth?

Dragos Marica Yes. That is the side effect of silos. Set a marketing department narrow KPIs and they will hit those KPIs and not care what happens further down the funnel. Qualified leads, opportunities, revenue. If you do not push them to look at all of it, they will not. Efficiency needs a revolution in how goals are set across marketing, sales and product.

John Horsley Do companies need to build an engine internally?

Dragos Marica Yes. Companies are leaner now. Departments are more entangled. Not all of them are there, especially enterprise, which can still lean into old silo structures. But awareness is there. The best moment I saw this was in 2022 at Manning with the UK Government contract. No limits on what we could contribute to. Everyone had that mentality.

John Horsley Automation, data and AI. Human strategy versus the algorithm.

Dragos Marica Coexistence. You can automate some deliverables but that will not replace your entire strategy. Prompting an AI to build a strategy does not cut it. But AI does make things faster. Use it, stay mindful of the rights you might be stepping on, know where the information is coming from.

John Horsley Are marketers too dependent on the big platforms?

Dragos Marica Yes. And it depends on the company. Startups ramping up, paid media suddenly makes sense. Fine. But if 80 per cent of your revenue comes from one platform, that is a significant risk. Diversify. Any company relying on one platform or one source for a significant slice of revenue should rethink.

John Horsley We are moving into a world of zero click. How well do clients understand AI discoverability?

Dragos Marica Everyone wants to do it. Most fail to realise it is traditional SEO plus a contextual layer to make content visible to AI overviews and LLMs, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude. Done a bit better. There are companies generating real leads and revenue on the back of it in B2B. You will not see traffic the way you used to. You see the business outcomes.

John Horsley Citations now come from Reddit, LinkedIn.

Dragos Marica Correct. Reddit was not a focus for people prior to 2025. LinkedIn is climbing fast for citations too. That means a transformation event inside enterprise: SEO and content teams need to combine. Old content is being optimised again and resurfacing, so information needs to be refreshed, or you confuse the customer journey.

John Horsley Performance marketing for long-term growth versus short-term lead volume.

Dragos Marica Same discipline as the last ten years. Invest where you have data. Take measured risks. Our internal example: we increased investment in content and SEO and exploded our AI visibility. Was it a risk? Not really. We knew that was the future. Twenty per cent more, then up, then up again. Step by step.

John Horsley Is iteration and experimentation happening enough?

Dragos Marica Yes, and it is forced now. Open Google Search Console and see clicks dropping year on year. That is why everyone is suddenly asking how to be visible to the AIs. The journey is transforming. People are adapting on the back of the change itself.

John Horsley Companies genuinely using data to learn versus companies using data to justify.

Dragos Marica Some see ChatGPT referral traffic up a thousand per cent year on year and double down on that huge opportunity. Others over-report and stagnate. The latter wait six months or a quarter when they should pivot the budget now. Pivot now.

John Horsley Creative thinking inside performance marketing.

Dragos Marica Most important moment of a company when it comes to paid media and creative investment. Traditional Google search is getting too expensive or returns less. Search behaviour is migrating to ChatGPT and Claude. Last year our LTV/CAC was three to one. This year, two to one. Significant drop. A lot of B2B is now moving spend into LinkedIn and Meta and realising they were under-investing there. Creative is the epicentre. You need a really good performance creative strategy to capture demand and drive it where you want.

John Horsley Brand versus demand in a tough economy.

Dragos Marica Depends on the company. Digital-media-wise, companies should invest more in brand than they did. The low-hanging fruits are gone. Discoverability is the word. Companies are not investing enough in it. Long-term revenue engines.

John Horsley Without brand you have nothing.

Dragos Marica Depends. A platform like Loveable hit overnight demand when nobody else had the solution. Any investment in brand at that moment would have generated significant return because it was balanced with timing. In an over-competitive industry where nothing new happens, LTV/CAC crumbles, see the supermarkets. Tesco and Ocado have had to become inventive in how they invest in brand.

John Horsley Tech brands building community.

Dragos Marica Most powerful way to stay relevant. Communities built through real people’s stories make a huge impact. LinkedIn starts to pick up from an SEO perspective. Reddit the same. People-centred assets are generating growth.

John Horsley Advice to younger individuals breaking into performance marketing.

Dragos Marica Toughest moment to enter the market. Current playbooks are built for a world that is fading. So: go in, break things, test, test, test, continue with what works. What worked in paid media last year will not work next. It never has. Follow the people’s journey and you will find your spot. That is how I started. I went to businesses asking if they wanted me to post their shoes on Facebook. They said yes. That won my first contract.

John Horsley Quickfire. A brand doing great digital marketing right now.

Dragos Marica UK Government. I worked that contract. Real thought in every piece. The NHS campaigns, recruitment campaigns, social awareness work. The energy and value put in is fantastic. Every time I see an ad from that side I resonate.

John Horsley One marketing metric people obsess over too much.

Dragos Marica Clicks. Likes and clicks.

John Horsley One skill every performance marketer should develop.

Dragos Marica Analytical skills. They are a must right now. Marketing is moving in the direction Wall Street moved, toward quantitative work. You need to be able to read the data.

Keep Reading