Situation

Praktika is an EdTech startup that uses AI avatars to create a personalized language-learning experience for non-native English speakers. It had already found product-market fit and was preparing for a Series A round. As Marketing Lead, I was responsible for developing unit economy benchmarks and establishing user acquisition at scale to achieve ROI-positive growth.

Task

Translate high-level growth requirements into concrete numbers, set benchmarks, and plan and execute scaling while maintaining ROI KPIs – establishing the revenue base needed to close Series A.

Action

• Digitalized ambiguous growth and revenue goals into measurable targets
• Built a unit economy model for each platform (iOS and Android) and geography
• Set benchmarks at each key funnel step – cost per install, trial, and subscription – broken down by platform and geography
• Identified where scaling room existed and how large it was
• Created a forecast and scaling plan across Meta Ads, Google Ads, and Influencer channels

We chose cost per subscription trial as our proxy metric – fast to measure and easy to optimize across all channels. We started with influencer collaborations, used winning creative concepts as inputs for performance channels, and scaled all channels week by week against the initial forecast.

Result

• Achieved a 5× increase in revenue while exceeding profit KPI targets
• Secured a $30 million Series A led by Blossom Capital in less than 3 months
• Executed 50+ influencer collaborations worldwide

Situation

Toloka is a crowdsourcing platform by Yandex that connects businesses with a distributed crowd to complete micro-tasks – data labeling, image recognition, content moderation. As Head of B2C Marketing, I was responsible for acquiring, engaging, and retaining workers.

Task

Increase margins by reducing acquisition costs without sacrificing revenue. To enable ROI-based acquisition decisions, I needed proxy metrics that could predict worker quality early – before full performance data was available.

Action

We defined worker quality along two dimensions: relevance (acceptance rate of completed tasks) and productivity (tasks completed while active). Working with the Analytics team, we identified money-per-hour (mph) as the best efficiency metric. The higher the mph, the higher the ROI.

I mapped average acquisition cost against average mph for each cohort, segmented by language, country, and device – creating a ranking system to reallocate budget toward the most efficient segments rather than applying a flat acquisition cost to all cohorts.

Result

• Worker acquisition budget decreased by 44% while revenue remained unchanged
• Shifting from fixed to variable acquisition cost increased the share of high-quality workers by 21%
• Higher worker quality improved client satisfaction scores

"Maria achieved great results in the acquisition, retention, and engagement of ML data makers thanks to her strategic thinking, data analysis skills, project management skills, understanding of marketing tools and technologies, strong work ethic and attention to detail, and continuous improvement mindset."

– Dmitry Stepanov, Founder & GP at AAL VC · Forbes 30 Under 30 · Senior to Maria at Toloka

Situation

Toloka's margins depend on how long workers stay active and how many tasks they complete. To reduce acquisition costs sustainably, I needed to strengthen retention – meaning I needed to understand who the high-retention workers were and why they behaved differently.

Task

Strengthen product-market fit to grow worker engagement and retention, enabling a reduction in the acquisition budget while keeping revenue stable.

Action

I coordinated five teams – User Acquisition, Analytics, Attribution, Product, and Development – around the problem, then ran cohort analysis: retention by percentile, task volume dynamics over time, and the share of tasks completed by new vs. existing workers.

I then conducted qualitative interviews with core users – the highest-retention, highest-output workers. Key findings:

• Core users treat Toloka as a primary income source and are driven by bonus payouts
• Predictability matters – workers commit to large projects only when they know the scope upfront

Based on these insights, I tested three hypotheses: shifting budget from acquisition to bonus payouts, prioritizing key projects at the top of the task list, and communicating project conditions and volume clearly upfront.

Result

• Retention on projects with clear conditions increased by 65%
• Average tasks per worker increased by 21% after introducing the bonus system
• Key project labeling time decreased by 34% after prioritization
• User acquisition budget for major language segments decreased by 26%, revenue unchanged
• FTE for user acquisition operations decreased by 70%

"Maria achieved great results in the acquisition, retention, and engagement of ML data makers thanks to her strategic thinking, data analysis skills, project management skills, understanding of marketing tools and technologies, strong work ethic and attention to detail, and continuous improvement mindset."

– Dmitry Stepanov, Founder & GP at AAL VC · Forbes 30 Under 30 · Senior to Maria at Toloka

Situation

Toloka's key client requests (from big tech companies) arrive in large bursts rather than gradually. This created two specific cost problems: over-scaling campaigns too rapidly during demand spikes, and over-acquiring workers during gaps between large requests.

Task

Build a forecasting and acquisition optimization process to smooth costs while maintaining 100% fulfillment on all key client requests.

Action

Client requests follow repetitive annual patterns driven by the clients' business nature – making volume distribution across language segments predictable. I focused on three things:

• Mapping request volume by language segment to forecast demand spikes
• Understanding request types and client business requirements
• Building a shared planning and reporting system between Marketing and BizDev so both teams operated from the same data

Result

• User acquisition budget decreased by 22%, revenue unchanged
• Maintained 100% fulfillment rate on all key client requests
• Built transparent Marketing–BizDev collaboration with plan vs. actual fulfillment reporting
• Provided margin visibility by language and request type, enabling BizDev to prioritize higher-margin deals

"Maria achieved great results in the acquisition, retention, and engagement of ML data makers thanks to her strategic thinking, data analysis skills, project management skills, understanding of marketing tools and technologies, strong work ethic and attention to detail, and continuous improvement mindset."

– Dmitry Stepanov, Founder & GP at AAL VC · Forbes 30 Under 30 · Senior to Maria at Toloka

Situation

Buddy AI is an AI-powered language learning app that teaches children English through personalized, game-based conversations with a virtual tutor. As Digital Marketing Director, I was responsible for improving acquisition, retention, and monetization to drive sustainable growth toward fundraising targets and break-even.

Task

When I joined, the app had active users in two primary geographies. After reviewing the unit economy, there was no path to scaling while meeting ROI KPIs. Two factors were blocking growth:

• Currency depreciation in existing geographies made unit economics unsustainable
• Apple's ATT / IDFA changes degraded attribution quality, making optimization harder

Action

I built a unit economy model to map key user flows, product metrics, and which product changes could unlock growth. I then developed three core hypotheses:

• LTV will increase ≥10% through regular progress emails to parents – parents are the subscription decision-makers; showing their child's progress gives them a concrete reason to renew
• LTV will increase ≥5% by adding a product value video to the paywall – the paywall is often parents' first real product touchpoint
• Media buying at target ROI can grow ≥20% through geo-specific creative localization

I led a full-stack team – data analyst, frontend and backend developers, media buyer, and creative producer – plus outsourced designers, video editors, localizers, and local market advisers.

Result

• LTV increased by 32%, driven by:
  • Subscription retention growth of 29% (average across geographies)
  • Conversion to subscription growth of 17% (average across geographies)
• Scaled user acquisition in LatAm by 1.5×
• Successfully launched the product in Turkey

Situation

Scentbird is a subscription-based fragrance service in the United States. In 2017, it was an early-stage startup where ROI-positive growth was critical. I joined as a media buyer responsible for Meta user acquisition.

Task

Meta was Scentbird's primary acquisition channel. My objectives: reduce CAC, scale user acquisition while maintaining ROI KPIs, and automate routine operations to reduce FTE.

Action

Working with a $5M+ annual Meta budget gave us a structural advantage – the volume made even small improvements compound quickly and supported running multiple A/B tests simultaneously. I implemented three systems:

• Audience grid – ranked target audiences by CAC using historical data; fixed audience sets for 6-month periods to ensure full segment coverage and prevent overlap
• No-code automation – built rules to immediately pause underperforming ad sets and scale budgets on winning ones in real time, rather than waiting for manual review
• Structured creative management – established benchmarks, defined clear testing and rotation rules, tracked creative burnout

Result

• Audience grid reduced FTE for Meta channel management by 13%
• No-code automation reduced CAC by 16% (validated by statistically significant A/B test)
• Structured creative management increased the share of successful creatives 4× (from ~6% to 25%)
• Combined: 27% CAC reduction, unlocking the ability to double Meta spend within 3 months while maintaining ROI KPIs
• All results achieved without changes to the business model, monetization, or core product metrics

"Maria is a great professional in the performance marketing field. She began working in my team at Scentbird as a Meta Ad Manager and grew to UA Group Head. She has successfully met her KPIs for three consecutive years with a top marketing budget under management of $2M/month. Maria has a solid mathematical and statistical background and a deep understanding of digital marketing channels and Ad Tech. She has a great ability to manage multiple projects and uses a very systematic approach to the team's benefit."

– Oleg Popov, VP of User Acquisition · Scentbird

Situation

Scentbird's growth is directly tied to active subscriber base growth. I was responsible for the full performance marketing stream – Scentbird's primary growth engine – plus marketing-side growth prediction models.

Task

Build a growth forecasting and planning framework that could predict active user base growth, model revenue growth per channel, plan budgets, monitor ROI KPIs in real time, and forecast fulfillment demand for the warehouse team.

Action

I broke the problem into five components: LTV calculation, weekly channel reporting, budget allocation modeling, growth forecasting from historical data, and warehouse communication. I owned the reporting and budget allocation components directly.

For budget allocation, I built CAC-vs-volume curves per channel, factored in spend constraints and ceilings, and used Excel Solver to calculate the optimal allocation across the marketing mix – balancing growth and ROI. I then compared plan to actual weekly and adjusted acquisition operations accordingly.

Result

• Active user base grew by 20% during the pandemic (February 2020 – February 2021) with all ROI KPIs met
• Forecast model accuracy reached 5% – beating the 7% target
• Established a transparent planning process with the warehouse team, enabling supply to be planned ahead of demand
• All five framework components integrated into Scentbird's core business planning process

"Maria is a great professional in the performance marketing field. She began working in my team at Scentbird as a Meta Ad Manager and grew to UA Group Head. She has successfully met her KPIs for three consecutive years with a top marketing budget under management of $2M/month. Maria has a solid mathematical and statistical background and a deep understanding of digital marketing channels and Ad Tech. She has a great ability to manage multiple projects and uses a very systematic approach to the team's benefit."

– Oleg Popov, VP of User Acquisition · Scentbird