Simon Heaton

Senior Director of Growth Marketing and Data

Buffer

Jul 2026 - Current (2 months)

I lead Buffer's Growth Marketing and Data teams. We own all facets of Buffer's growth, data, and go-to-market strategy, including: • Growth and go-to-market strategy. Creating and executing the strategy that drives market awareness, user acquisition, activation, lifecycle marketing, and product adoption across the funnel. • Technical marketing capabilities. Owning data modelling and reporting, marketing engineering, performance marketing, SEO, LLM optimization, conversion rate optimization, GTM engineering/AI op and marketing automation. • buffer.com. Owning the site end to end: its vision, technical strategy, UX and design, and iterative experimentation. • Experimentation. Having built and now leading Buffer's marketing experiment fram

Mentor, Growth and Marketing

Antler

Feb 2023 - Current (3 years 7 months)

I mentor startup founders who are part of the global equity fund and business accelerator looking to establish and scale growth and marketing functions.

Director of Growth and Product Marketing

Buffer

Oct 2022 - Jul 2026 (3 years 10 months)

I led the Growth Marketing and Product Marketing teams, as well as Growth Data, at Buffer. My teams are responsible for all facets of our Growth and Product Marketing strategies, including: • Creating and executing Buffer’s growth and go-to-market strategy to drive market awareness, user acquisition, early user activation, and product adoption. • Responsible for Buffer’s technical marketing capabilities including data modelling and reporting, marketing engineering, performance marketing, SEO, LLM optimization, and marketing automation. • Responsible for buffer.com, including its vision, technical strategy, UX and design, and iterative experimentation. • Implemented and currently lead Buffer’s marketing experiment framework and process for a

Director of Growth

Buffer

Jan 2022 - Oct 2022 (10 months)

Reporting to the CPO, I led the cross-functional Growth team at Buffer, focused on developing and scaling growth initiatives related to user acquisition, activation, and monetization.

Instructor, Reputation Marketing and Content Marketing Strategy

Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa

May 2020 - Aug 2021 (1 year 4 months)

Formally an instructor in the Digital Marketing Certificate program at the Telfer School of Management in Ottawa.

Senior Growth Lead, Acquisition

Shopify

Jan 2020 - Jan 2022 (2 years 1 month)

Led the Acquisition Program team in Shopify's Growth organization, which drove customer acquisition via strategic marketing programs. Responsible for: • Developing and executing growth marketing and lead generation strategies. • Addressable market expansion and diversification to drive predictable customer acquisition. • Vertical-specific program development for developing awareness, consideration and acquisition of strategic priority segments leveraging cross-channel capabilities. • Market penetration and development programs to grow the share of the market among customer segments. • Designing propensity models, reporting structures, and measurement frameworks in close collaboration with the Data Science team.

Professor

Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology

Apr 2018 - Dec 2021 (3 years 9 months)

Part-time professor at Algonquin in the School of Business and the School of Media and Design. Former programs include: • Brand Marketing and Brand Management Strategy • Marketing Channels and Logistics • Marketing Management

Growth Marketing Lead

Shopify

Jul 2017 - Jan 2020 (2 years 7 months)

Led an integrated team of growth marketers who achieved double-digit growth in ARR, triple-digit growth in global user acquisition, as well as notable growth in new user activation and referral activations annually. The team built marketing programs designed for awareness, acquisition, and activation with specializations in: • CRM lifecycle, digital channel, and content marketing strategy. • Conversion rate optimization, lead generation, and nurturing. • Data analysis. • Search engine optimization (SEO). • Email marketing, segmentation, and CRM automation. • Digital media, paid social media, and search engine marketing (SEM). • Growth marketing, A/B testing, and optimization. Responsible for: • Managing four separate technical marketing

Content Marketing Manager

Shopify

Jul 2015 - Jul 2017 (2 years 1 month)

Built and led a content marketing team that drove consistent growth against acquisition and activation targets. Our team developed and scaled new content properties from 0 to 3M+/month traffic, which resulted in substantial growth in monthly leads acquired. Led a team of content marketers who specialized in: • Digital and content marketing strategy, as well as CRM lifecycle activations. • Content optimization. • Lead generation and nurturing. • Content creation and idea generation. • Data analysis of content marketing programs and distribution tactics. • Search engine optimization (SEO). • Marketing automation.

Digital Marketing Strategist

Banfield

May 2014 - Jun 2015 (1 year 2 months)

Clients included: National Arts Centre, Iridium Communications, Canadian Medical Association, Hydro Ottawa, Partnership for a Drug-Free Canada, SoundExchange, as well as several federal government organizations. • Developed comprehensive digital, branding, and content marketing strategies for a variety of clients (B2C, B2B, non-profit, government, and private). • Assisted the Creative team in clarifying/ communication objectives and strategies through research and determining key insights. • Developed and implemented social and search media strategies. • Performed the management and data analysis of client digital advertising, web, search, and social media properties/campaigns. • Provided creative copywriting internally and for client proje

About

Detail

Timeline

Résumé