Spencer To Lead All Operations as Fast-Growing Digital Marketing Agency Continues Expansion

SmartBug Media^® — a leading Intelligent Inbound® marketing agency that assists businesses in generating leads, increasing awareness and building brand loyalty through inbound marketing, digital strategy, design, marketing automation, revenue operations and public relations — announced that it has promoted Jen Spencer to its newly created role of president. Spencer will report to the CEO and oversee all operations, executing on SmartBug’s growth and market expansion strategy, which is focused on delivering superior, cutting-edge service to the company’s customers and partners while continuing to invest in the people and culture that make SmartBug^® a great place for employees to work and develop their careers.

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A pioneer and role model in the shift to remote work since its inception, SmartBug has realized accelerated growth since its founding. SmartBug has been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies for the last five consecutive years as well as the AdWeek Fast 75 for the last three consecutive years. The company is the highest-rated agency partner in HubSpot’s global partner ecosystem. SmartBug has also become a top partner to Klaviyo and a leader in email and SMS marketing for e-commerce companies as a result of its acquisition of Worth eCommerce earlier this year.  Furthermore, the company is well-regarded in the industry as an attractive destination for marketing professionals seeking long-term career growth and a positive company culture.

“Jen has been a high-performing leader since her arrival at SmartBug and has changed the trajectory of our growth. Given our explosive growth and plans for the future, appointing Jen to the newly created role of president is a natural step in the evolution of our business,” SmartBug Founder and CEO Ryan Malone said. “It’s also an especially proud moment for me to have a female president leading our company because as a father of two daughters, Jen serves as an exceptional role model to them as well as the many other talented women and all young professionals at SmartBug, who can envision their own career paths reaching to the highest executive-level positions.”

SmartBug was founded in 2008 as one of the country’s few fully remote marketing agencies, with an ongoing commitment to providing employees with challenging careers along with the flexibility to spend more quality time with their families and make lifelong memories. Moreover, SmartBug has always been an attractive employment choice for women who want to strike a healthy balance between their career aspirations and their personal lives. Currently, more than half of SmartBug’s leadership roles are held by women. Consequently, Malone has been named to Comparably’s “Best CEOs for Women” lists for the last three years in a row.

Spencer’s demand generation and sales enablement expertise enabled her to build and execute a direct go-to-market strategy at nettime solutions that resulted in a successful exit in 2014 to Paychex. She then joined Allbound as a founding team member and was responsible for generating the company’s first $2 million in annual recurring revenue by implementing an inbound sales and marketing program that disrupted the partner relationship management space.

In her first full year as SmartBug’s VP of sales and marketing in 2018, Spencer implemented a sales and marketing program that resulted in 70% year-over-year revenue growth, earning SmartBug the title of HubSpot’s Global Partner of the Year. She then served as the company’s chief revenue officer, uniting its sales, marketing and client services teams to build high-growth solutions for SmartBug’s deep roster of clients.

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Spencer is also an influential thought leader in the sales, marketing and revenue operations space, regularly speaking at B2B conferences as well as serving as a mentor for revenue leaders through Pavilion’s Rising Executives Program. She also started and hosted a weekly podcast called SmartBug on Tap for several years before launching the new Intelligent Inbound Podcast^® aimed at challenging the status quo for inbound marketing with inspiring stories from some of marketing’s most innovative and successful players.

“It’s important to me that we continue to deliver exceptional intelligent inbound marketing services and partner in our clients’ success,” Spencer said. “As a former two-time client of SmartBug and then as an executive-level leader within the organization, I understand the intricacies and challenges that we face day to day as a very successful, high-growth agency. My goal is for SmartBug to continue to innovate and lead by example so that we remain attractive to top talent and continue to exceed expectations as an industry trailblazer.”