ElevenLabs Marketing Teardown: How SaaS CMOs Can Learn from $200M ARR Growth

I’ve studied SaaS growth stories for years.
But ElevenLabs’ trajectory made me pause.

In just three years, they’ve sprinted from zero to ~$300M ARR.
Not by chasing vanity metrics. Not by burning cash. They cracked a very different code.

Two Polish engineers with nothing more than a dubbing problem built what’s now a voice AI empire.

Their secret isn’t just their tech.

It’s the reimagination of entire workflows, not just point solutions.

It’s the combination of individuals and enterprise customers. One drives virality, and the other sales.

Then, it’s their marketing playbook – our primary focus.

So, in this teardown, let’s decode the repeatable plays SaaS marketers can borrow today.

ElevenLabs Growth Story Timeline

Before we dig deeper into marketing, content, SEO, and PR lessons, let’s take a quick look at ElevenLabs’ impressive journey over the last three years to put things in context.

Cool story so far, right? But here’s what really matters: how they pulled it off. Let’s open up ElevenLabs’ marketing playbook.

ElevenLabs Marketing Teardown – Lesson A – Stories Sell

While researching ElevenLabs, I stumbled upon Mati’s interview on the 20VC podcast with Harry Stebbings. What struck me wasn’t just the metrics or milestones—it was how every pivotal moment in their journey came wrapped in a compelling story. From their founding moment to achieving $300M ARR, ElevenLabs has mastered the art of narrative-driven growth. Let’s check a few stories:

Story #1 – The Birth of ElevenLabs

Mati grew up in Poland, where foreign films were dubbed with a single, flat male voice narrating every character. It made him painfully aware of how broken voice could feel. 

In high school, he met Piotr — the kind of classmate who solved competitions for fun. Their friendship grew around side projects: building a crypto analyzer and experimenting with public-speaking feedback apps. Nothing stuck.

Years later, Mati went to Palantir, Piotr to Google. Both learned how to scale technology at world-class companies, but the itch from their school days lingered. When they reunited, the idea crystallized: what if AI could finally fix the voice problem? That was the moment ElevenLabs was born — not from a spreadsheet, but from a story about bad dubbing, a friendship rooted in ambition, and experience forged at Palantir and Google.

Impact: This story gave ElevenLabs an origin that investors, journalists, and users could repeat in one sentence: “Two friends from Poland, ex-Palantir and ex-Google, set out to fix bad dubbing with AI.” That clarity helped ElevenLabs stand out in the noisy AI market and become instantly memorable.

Story #2 – Building Up on the Aha Moment

In beta, an author surprised the ElevenLabs team. Instead of testing a short passage, he pasted his entire 500-page manuscript in small chunks, generated narration, stitched it all together, and published a full audiobook. Listeners couldn’t tell it was AI-narrated. Reviews came in glowing. That was ElevenLabs’ aha moment: proof their tool wasn’t just for demos, but production-ready.

The founders doubled down on that use case. Soon, ElevenLabs voices narrated high-profile works — even Melania Trump’s audiobook. Then came platform validation: Spotify announced it would accept audiobooks narrated by ElevenLabs. What started as one author’s hack became a core growth engine, turning AI voice from novelty into mainstream publishing infrastructure.

Impact: The audiobook narrative gave ElevenLabs both social proof and market positioning. Authors trusted it, celebrities amplified it, and platforms legitimized it—a chain of stories that carried more weight than any press release.

Story #3 – Influencer Success Guiding Referrals

ElevenLabs doesn’t just pay affiliates—they showcase their success. Stories of creators earning thousands of dollars in commissions attract more affiliates and teach them how to compellingly position ElevenLabs’ library of tools as seamlessly integrated in creator workflows. Its growth through narrative and guidance.

For instance, check this success story – Greg Preece (100K+ YouTube subscribers) became one of ElevenLabs’ top affiliates by integrating AI tools directly into his content creation workflow. He uses ElevenLabs’ Speech to Speech feature to fix audio mistakes seamlessly, reducing his video production time by 90%. With a 22% commission on paid subscriptions and evergreen link placements, his affiliate revenue compounds monthly as old videos continue to drive conversions.

Impact: By turning successful affiliates into case studies, ElevenLabs creates a self-reinforcing growth loop—success stories attract more affiliates, who in turn create more authentic content, driving more users and generating additional success stories.

This affiliate program also works extremely well in amplifying the so-called positive reviews of ElevenLabs as well as in earning backlinks.

Stories are foundational for compelling narratives. The magic happens when they become an integral part of content that pulls the right audience into demos, trials, signups, users, buyers, and ultimately loyal customers. Let’s look into that next. 

ElevenLabs Marketing Teardown – Lesson B – Nail SEO, AEO Content, Conversion, Adoption, and Cross-Sell

ElevenLabs’ website draws millions of visitors over hundreds of thousands of keywords every month. Reaching these numbers in just three years calls for a content and SEO mastermind. Kudos to the marketing team at ElevenLabs. 

Source – Ahrefs

And time for us to decode some compelling content plays that ElevenLabs is using to fuel that growth:

Play #1 – Create Content At Scale that Drives User Sign Ups

Think gunshot, bear roar, even fart sounds. They’ve built entire libraries around “[XYZ] sound download” keywords. The first few downloads are free, but users must sign up eventually. A clever way to bring creators in the ElevenLabs ecosystem.

Source – Ahrefs

In fact, we studied this strategy in depth. ElevenLabs didn’t just build a sound effects library. They used programmatic SEO at scale to create more than 150 accent pages, hundreds of voice persona pages, and nearly 3,000 sound effect pages. 

ElevenLabs displayed a blend of finesse and programmatic seo to turn their content engine into a durable SEO moat. You can read all about their programmatic SEO plays and content creation at scale here.

Play #2 – Go Global, Feel Local

Dedicated landing pages for text-to-speech in French, Hindi, Japanese, and more—complete with local voice samples. Same core product, but packaged in accents and languages that resonate worldwide.

Source: ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs’ main page for “Text-to-Speech” acts like a hub to 76 language-specific landing pages, which act as spokes. This hub-and-spoke strategy is a classic approach for topical authority in the eyes of search engines and achieving international SEO scalability.

Using a similar strategy, we helped Datacipher turn localized landing pages into first-page rankings across 33 locations and score a major enterprise lead. For more information, you can check out our Programmatic SEO Case Study here. 

Play #3 – Think Outside the Box and Win Even on Competitor Brand Names

When it comes to branded keywords — searches that specifically include competitor names — ElevenLabs plays offense, not defense.

They don’t just rank for “ElevenLabs.” They rank for Suno AI, Uberduck, 15 ai, and more.

Most SaaS marketers shy away from using competitor names in content, worried it might “promote the other guy.” ElevenLabs flips that logic.

Because here’s the trick: when users search for those tools, they stumble onto ElevenLabs too — positioned as an alternative or even a complementary solution.

So when those creators actually need voice AI, guess who’s already top of mind?

While that was unconventional, a conventional content play that all SaaS businesses must try is writing listicles that target the following type of keywords to bring business, not just website traffic:

• [Competitor SaaS] alternatives
• [Your SaaS] vs [Competitor SaaS]
• Best Tools in [Your SaaS Category]

ElevenLabs has executed this play well. They’ve built pages that rank for “Speechify alternatives,” “Synthesia alternatives,” “Natural Reader alternatives,” and more. These listicles enable them to intercept users who are in shopping mode—already comparing tools or seeking the best fit.

Interestingly, they’ve also gone after “ElevenLabs alternatives.” On the surface, this looks counterintuitive—why help people leave? But in reality, it’s a smart defensive SEO move:

1. They control the narrative when users search for substitutes.
2. They keep competitors from owning those search results.
3. They get a chance to re-pitch ElevenLabs as the strongest option while showcasing awareness of the wider market.

Source – Ahrefs

That reminds me of a piece we had written for a competitor in the same domain, targeting the keyword “ElevenLabs Alternative.”

We documented the full strategy in our SaaS SEO case study, where we demonstrate how the piece ranked #1 globally for the keyword, outperforming ads.

Alongside this, they target “AI voice generator for [use case]” keywords (e.g., games, YouTube, TikTok, celebrities). These capture solution-seeking intent—users who may not be familiar with ElevenLabs yet, but are actively looking for a voice AI tool tailored to their specific workflow.

Source – Ahrefs

For a client in a similar B2B SaaS space, we employed a similar pain-point SEO and product-led content strategy to generate over 500 user sign-ups. You can check out the full story in our B2B SaaS Content Marketing Case Study.

Play #4 – Showcase All Jobs Your Tools Can Get Done (Pain Point SEO)

Most SaaS companies only optimize for branded terms or category keywords. ElevenLabs goes wider. They rank for thousands of “how to” searches tied to real user pain points:

• How to change voice
• How to remove background noise from audio
• How to make an AI voice
• How to transcribe audio to text
• How to deploy conversational AI

Source – Ahrefs

These aren’t just feature descriptions; they’re jobs users need solved. By creating content that answers these problems, ElevenLabs turns everyday frustrations into entry points for product discovery. We also refer to this strategy as pain point SEO.

Play #5 – Dominate AI Searches, Not Just Google or Bing

Search for any AI voice software on ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini—whether it’s text-to-speech, voice cloning, or dubbing—and ElevenLabs almost always shows up in the list of recommended tools.

How does that happen?
In one of our analyses, we traced where AI search engines like ChatGPT pull their SaaS recommendations from. The sources weren’t random. They leaned on:

• Third-party SaaS listicles
• SaaS websites (use cases, case studies, product and pricing pages)
• Wikipedia pages
• Review sites
• Reddit threads
• YouTube videos
• News mentions

ElevenLabs ticks all these boxes when it comes to sources, but besides being present in the right place at the right time, how you present yourself also matters.

With that in mind, we have created a 13-point checklist to optimize your existing SaaS blogs to dominate AI searches. Fill in the form below to download it.

From this, we developed an AI Visibility Checklist — a framework to measure whether a SaaS company appears where AI engines look.

Play #6 – Think Adoption, Not Just Signups

ElevenLabs doesn’t stop at driving free signups. They obsess over adoption — making sure users actually succeed.

Their YouTube channel is stacked with tutorials: how to create custom AI voices with ElevenLabs, how to dub videos in 29 languages automatically, and many more. Step-by-step walkthroughs remove friction for creators who’d otherwise get stuck.

This is reinforced by quickstart documentation, product and API guides, which rank for queries like “how to use ElevenLabs API.” Together, they turn post-signup confusion into ‘aha’ moments — ensuring users don’t just try ElevenLabs, but stick with it.

👉 Lesson for SaaS CMOs: Don’t celebrate signups. Create adoption content that enables users to become productive quickly. That’s what compounds into ARR.

We barely scratched the surface here. For a comprehensive breakdown, our case study on Elevenlabs’ product adoption provides the details.

And it’s not just theory. We have run the same play for clients, such as building a full-scale library of helpdesk articles and tutorial videos that turned product adoption into stickiness. You can take a look here – Triangle IP Helpdesk.

Play #7 – Cross-Sell by Reimagining the Workflow (Audiobooks Example)

As Jason Lemkin noted, ElevenLabs does not just offer point solutions; they redefine entire workflows, which is one of their secrets to exponential growth. Marketing is one of the most important growth levers here.

So, ElevenLabs transforms a single-feature visit into a complete workflow discovery. When creators come for audiobook narration, they get exposed to the full platform suite.

The Cross-Sell Journey

An author visits for simple text-to-speech but discovers an end-to-end production hub:

• Character Voices: Multiple AI voices from the Voice Library make stories more immersive
• Global Reach: Multilingual TTS creates Spanish/Japanese editions, expanding audience reach
• Integrated Production: ElevenLabs Studio handles editing, music, sound effects, and transcription in one place
• One-Click Publishing: The ElevenReader app distributes to hundreds of thousands of listeners instantly at zero cost

As a result, a single-use visitor becomes a multi-product power user. 

More use cases lead to deeper engagement, resulting in higher spending over time.

While ElevenLabs has nailed website content, some of their high-growth channels are the ones where their customers already show up every day, such as YouTube, Discord, Substack, TikTok, etc. And that’s what ElevenLabs nailed again. Read on.

By the way, if these kinds of breakdowns are your jam, you’ll love our weekly newsletter. It’s packed with growth plays SaaS teams can actually use.

ElevenLabs Marketing Teardown – Lesson C – Meet Your Target Customers Where They Hang Out the Most

One of the highest growth channels for ElevenLabs is affiliate marketing. While analyzing their backlink profile, we observed ~5,600 backlinks coming from YouTube videos alone. 

Source – Ahrefs

Digging deeper into the YouTube descriptions, we found these are affiliate links — tagged with affiliate IDs that track referrals and payouts. This shows a deliberate strategy: ElevenLabs understands that its target creators and developers don’t just read blogs; they also watch tutorials, tool breakdowns, and creator workflows on YouTube. 

These affiliate-driven mentions also contribute to the broader backlink profile ElevenLabs has established, further compounding the momentum behind their growth.

Instead of waiting for those creators to stumble upon the product, ElevenLabs seeded a network of affiliates who actively promote the tool in their content.

Source – YouTube – Google VEO3 Tutorial

And this isn’t just theory — remember the affiliate success story we covered earlier, Greg Preece one?

👉 The loop is clear: Affiliates drive users → success stories validate affiliates → more affiliates sign up → even more users join. ElevenLabs meets customers where they already hang out (YouTube) and fuels growth through a repeatable cycle.

Another Channel: Substack

The same playbook is applied on Substack, where ElevenLabs has ~1,000 backlinks across newsletters focused on language learning, audiobooks, and AI commentary. These aren’t mainstream like Every or Not Boring — but they’re trusted by early adopters (authors, educators, indie creators).

Examples:

• My 4 Favorite AI Tools For Language Learning (~2.7K visits/month)
• AI Audiobooks & Learning (~55 visits/month)

Source – Ahrefs

Most anchors are branded mentions, with some affiliate links, indicating that ElevenLabs also incentivizes writers. Casual inclusion in “favorite AI tools” lists builds authenticity that traditional PR can’t. Micro-mentions at this mass level are challenging for competitors to replicate. 

But what came next was even harder to engineer, i.e., the viral moments that spread on their own.  Learn from ElevenLabs on exactly how they made it happen.

ElevenLabs Marketing Teardown – Lesson D – Create Viral Moments

Sometimes, the most powerful PR isn’t tied to dollars — it’s tied to delight.

When ElevenLabs shipped the “first AI that can laugh,” they didn’t pitch it to journalists. They just put out a blog post, sent samples to creators, and let the internet decide.

The result? Thousands of people joined the waitlist overnight. Not because of an announcement in a glossy magazine, but because they had heard about it and wanted to try it themselves.

And then came Gibberlink — a quirky hackathon demo where two AI voice agents recognized each other and switched into a secret sound-based language. It was so strange, unexpected, and amusing that it briefly went viral. 

The clip spread across Discord, Reddit, X, and YouTube — not because ElevenLabs bought the reach, but because the demo was too wild not to share.

That’s the kind of viral story users carry forward. Not “AI startup raises $80M” but “hey, have you seen the AIs that talk in gibberish?” or “AI that can laugh.”

👉 Lesson for SaaS CMOs: If you want word-of-mouth, don’t just announce — demo something people can feel and share.

With that said, viral moments get people in the door. But it’s clear messaging that makes them stay and that’s what ElevenLabs got right.

ElevenLabs Marketing Teardown – Lesson E – Say What Moves the Needle

ElevenLabs deliberately flexes its brand messaging: fun & empowering for creators, technical for developers, and reassuring for enterprises. This segmentation lets them capture everyone from a YouTuber making sound effects to a Fortune 500 company deploying global dubbing workflows.

Creators

Developers

Enterprises

Put it all together—the stories, SEO, adoption, channels, viral sparks, messaging—and it’s no wonder ElevenLabs scaled so fast. That’s the kind of win we aim for our B2B SaaS clients by marketing their SaaS products in the age of AI, alongside search engines like Google and Bing. Let us show you how.

Concurate – Your SaaS Product Marketing Partner for the AI Age

Once, a competitor of ElevenLabs challenged us: “Rank for the keyword ‘ElevenLabs Alternative’ — I’ll only pay if you win.”

We didn’t just win. We crushed it.

• #1 organic ranking in the US, UK, and Canada
• Top 10 rankings in Germany, Brazil, and Australia
• 46 keyword variations on Page 1
• 28,800+ impressions in the first month
• 247 high-intent clicks from comparison searches
• $0 on ads, just consistent organic traffic
  

How? Beyond analyzing the top Google results for gaps, we took a different approach: we signed up for every tool and included real audio samples. Readers got clarity. Google rewarded helpful content.

You can read further about it in our SaaS SEO Case Study.

Another client in the video AI space came to us with a different problem — none of their blogs were ranking. We dug in and found the issue: an HTML tag forcing Google to index only their homepage. A small fix unlocks a big opportunity.

We have countless stories like these. But what matters is writing the next one with you.

👉 Book a call today — let’s turn your SaaS into the next growth story.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How to Make Funding Announcements Work Harder for You?

ElevenLabs didn’t always get this right.

In the early days, they treated landing a TechCrunch article as a big win. The team paused everything, prepped endlessly, waited for the piece to drop… and nothing happened. A few new followers. No spike in users. Just another startup headline lost in the noise.

That moment taught them a vital lesson: funding announcements without substance don’t move the needle.

So, they changed tack. From then on, every funding announcement was bundled with a product milestone. The round was no longer the story — the product was the story. A new research model. A feature that creators could use right away. A customer set that proved adoption in a vertical.

The result? Instead of vanity headlines, they got real adoption and credibility. Investors loved it. Users loved it more.

How ElevenLabs Handled Announcements

2. How Do You Get Your SaaS to Come in Top Ranking Listicles?

One option is outreach — pay or trade your way into existing listicles.

But there’s a stronger, organic path: publish your own listicles.

• Cover categories your buyers search for.
• Include tools that already surface in Google top results, AI overviews, and AI recommendations from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, etc.
• Optimize so your listicles rank in the top spots.
  

Do this consistently, and over time, other writers will reference your content — and your SaaS will naturally start showing up in their listicles too.

3. Which AI Voice Tools Are Dominating AI Searches?

Speechify and Murf AI consistently dominate AI searches because of their broad adoption and ease of use. Following closely are ElevenLabs, WellSaid Labs, and LOVO, which stand out for realistic voices and specialized workflows. These tools capture the majority of visibility across AI search engines and platforms largely because they solve real user problems with intuitive interfaces and high-quality audio output.

And because generated voice quality matters, one of our round-ups had 15 original AI voice samples. When we wrote this round-up, we selected the tools that dominated AI searches, topped Google’s results, and provided AI overviews, and that’s how we know who is nailing it.

4. Are There Any Other Marketing Teardowns that I can Read on Concurate’s Website?

Yes, absolutely – Fetch marketing ideas worth copying from:

1. Gong Content Strategy Analysis
2. CrowdStrike’s Content + SEO Analysis and AI Search Visibility Analysis
3. Drift’s Coin a New Term Marketing Strategy
4. Loom – From Almost Bankruptcy to $1.53B
5. Starbucks Marketing Strategy
6. Grammarly’s Email Marketing 

and more in Concurate’s blog section.