Elithair Istanbul

Acquisition was already operating at scale. But volume alone wasn’t a reliable indicator of commercial value.

Different markets had different potential. Marketing needed better visibility into what happened after a lead entered the commercial journey, while Sales needed stronger support from the activities happening upstream.

For Arabic-speaking patients, there was another opportunity: moving beyond language localization toward a growth strategy designed around the market itself.

At the same time, the growth organization was evolving. Different capabilities, new hires and increasing complexity required clearer priorities, stronger feedback loops and a more consistent operating model.

The challenge wasn’t one campaign or one channel.

The connections between the parts of the growth system needed to become stronger.

One of the first changes was how we evaluated acquisition.

Instead of treating lead volume and cost per lead as the primary indicators of success, we started looking further down the funnel.

• Which markets were producing commercially relevant demand?
• Which campaigns generated leads that actually progressed?
• Where were we creating volume without enough downstream value?

Those questions increasingly influenced market prioritization, targeting and performance decisions.

The objective wasn’t to stop generating volume. It was to make that volume more commercially meaningful.

The 53% improvement in lead-to-confirmation rate across the MENA region reflected a healthier relationship between demand generation and downstream commercial performance.

Growth became less about how cheaply we could acquire a lead — and more about what happened to that lead next.

One of the most important shifts was how we approached Arabic-speaking markets.

Localization wasn’t enough.

We started building communication around the market itself — its questions, concerns, language, decision journey and the trust required when considering a significant healthcare procedure.

That changed much more than copy.

Existing international assets could still be repurposed when relevant, but they were no longer the automatic starting point.

Landing pages became increasingly customized around the audience and journey rather than simply localized by language.

Arabic social channels developed their own content direction and identity as the regional audience grew.

The wider social operation recorded around 90% follower growth over the engagement, alongside substantial increases in reach and engagement across major platforms.

The goal wasn’t simply to build a larger audience. It was to build relevance within the market.

Healthcare conversion doesn’t happen only on a landing page.

Marketing can create interest. What happens after someone submits an inquiry determines whether that interest has the opportunity to progress.

The first conversation mattered.The way concerns were understood mattered.Follow-up mattered.And the ability to establish confidence throughout the journey mattered.

We increasingly treated Marketing and the patient conversation as parts of the same growth system.

Rather than adding another patient-level KPI here, the impact is reflected in the overall improvement in lead-to-confirmation performance.

Trust isn’t something you add at the end of the funnel. It has to exist throughout the journey.

Improving acquisition quality required understanding what happened after Marketing handed over a lead.

I worked closely with Sales leadership and agents through workshops and working sessions to understand recurring patient questions, objections, lead-quality patterns and what the commercial team needed from Marketing.

Those insights travelled back upstream.

Sales feedback could influence targeting.Patient questions could influence content.Lead-quality patterns could influence campaign decisions.

Marketing could increasingly evaluate its work against what happened beyond lead generation.

The relationship became less about one department handing leads to another and more about both teams contributing to the same commercial journey.

Before making major structural changes, I spent time understanding the capabilities already inside the organization.

Different people had different strengths, development needs and levels of experience.

I used team capacity mapping to understand those capabilities before changing the structure around them.

Once the operation became more stable and the strategic direction clearer, responsibilities could be better aligned, additional capabilities hired and performance expectations made more visible.

But structure alone wasn’t the objective. The goal was creating an environment where people understood:

• What are we trying to achieve?
• How does my work contribute?
• How is performance measured?
• Where do I need to improve?

Marketing became less about executing individual activities and more about operating as a growth team.

That required processes and systems. But more importantly, it required belief, ownership and culture.

Building capability wasn’t only about hiring the right people. The challenge was helping new team members reach productive performance faster.

We redesigned the feedback cycle around that objective.

Instead of relying only on periodic performance reviews, new agents received structured daily and weekly feedback.

Call transcripts were analyzed using AI to identify specific strengths, weaknesses and coaching opportunities.

This gave agents much faster visibility into where performance could improve while allowing managers to focus coaching around actual conversations.

AI wasn’t the strategy. Faster, more specific feedback was the strategy.

AI made the feedback faster. The operating system made it useful.

The organization already had substantial data, reporting and process infrastructure. The opportunity was making it more useful in everyday decision-making.

Working across Growth, Performance, Analytics, IT and Sales, reporting became increasingly connected to the questions teams actually needed to answer.

• Where are we losing quality?
• Which markets are progressing?
• Where is performance changing?
• What should we do differently?

Analytics became part of the operating rhythm rather than simply a historical record.

The objective wasn’t more dashboards. It was better visibility for better decisions.

Performance marketing remained an important acquisition engine, but the growth system expanded beyond it.

SEO helped capture high-intent organic demand.Social developed into a stronger market-specific brand and demand channel.Influencer activity became more systematic.Content became more closely connected to patient questions and market needs.Landing pages became more audience-specific.And insights from Sales increasingly influenced what happened upstream.

The objective wasn’t to find one channel capable of carrying growth. It was to build multiple growth engines around the same commercial journey.