Client case study · Digital marketing agency
How Growth Lab freed its senior talent to say yes to bigger projects
A nine-person agency was paying senior-level talent to do work that didn’t need senior-level skills. Here’s how three remote specialists gave Growth Lab its bandwidth back.
Jan 2026
Working together since, first hire still in place
3
Active placements, September 2026
+3
New positions in progress
9
People on Growth Lab’s own team
VirtueStaff placed three remote specialists with Growth Lab Advertising, a nine-person digital marketing agency, starting in January 2026: a web and tracking specialist, an email marketing technical specialist, and a video and design specialist. The agency’s engineer now spends his time on complex client projects, and three more positions are in progress.
About Growth Lab
- Founded by CEO Mandy Holman
- Team of nine
- E-commerce, B2B, and local clients
Growth Lab Advertising is a digital marketing agency built on a simple promise: every client gets a senior-level marketer on their account. The team runs data-driven SEO, paid advertising, social media, email, and content for e-commerce, B2B, and local businesses.
The challenge
Growth Lab’s full-stack software engineer was drowning. Much of his week went to tasks like setting up ad and call tracking, work that helped to have technical know-how for, but didn’t need an engineering degree. Meanwhile, the creative strategists running client marketing didn’t have the time or the technical background to take it on.
Hiring a second engineer made no sense. The truly complex projects only came up every few months.
“We don’t need another you. It was a no-brainer to bring somebody on that would be way more cost-effective, and wouldn’t cost us $100,000 a year to do these little tracking requests.”
— Mandy Holman, CEO and Founder, Growth Lab Advertising
The same pattern showed up in email marketing, where hours were disappearing into DNS records and technical troubleshooting instead of strategy.
The team
Growth Lab brought on three skilled, role-specific hires through VirtueStaff:
| Hire | What they own |
|---|---|
| Web and tracking specialist | Handles day-to-day tracking setup and technical requests, working side by side with Growth Lab’s engineer on Slack throughout the day |
| Email marketing technical specialist | Builds and troubleshoots the technical back end of email campaigns, then hands them off for review and launch |
| Video and design specialist | Started in video editing and now designs emails and creative for the whole team |
The results
Bigger projects, faster. After an initial month of training, Growth Lab’s engineer hands day-to-day work to the tracking specialist and spends his time on complex projects. Before, the agency had to tell clients it couldn’t start for a month or two.
“Now we can actually say yes to those projects, which is nice for us, because a lot of times those extra projects come with extra revenue.”
— Mandy Holman
Technical headaches, gone. Before the email specialist joined, one team member logged 20 hours in a single week on the phone with an email platform’s support team. He sorted the issue out quickly, and the team hasn’t had a technical email problem since.
“[He] just has the magic touch. Everything he sets up just magically works as you would expect it to work.”
— Mandy Holman
A hire who grew into more. When Growth Lab’s graphic designer went on leave, the video specialist took on design work on top of video. He learned email design, and now he’d rather keep doing it.
“He completely rose to it. He just was a sponge.”
— Mandy Holman
Treating remote hires like the rest of the team
- Direct manager: Every hire reports to a direct manager, with regular syncs and standing weekly one-on-ones.
- Quarterly reviews: Remote hires get the same quarterly reviews as stateside employees.
- Fully included: They’re invited to every meeting, company party, and team birthday lunch.
- Flexible hours: Hires who collaborate closely overlap with their U.S. teammates. Project-based roles can work whatever hours suit them, as long as the work gets done.
“We literally just treat them like a stateside employee. They’re part of our team, just like everybody else.”
— Mandy Holman
Deciding which roles go remote
Keep stateside
- Client-facing roles
- Roles that drive proactive account strategy
Great fit for remote
- Behind-the-scenes, project-based work
- Work with a clear outcome: the tracking works, the video looks great
- Support that frees up strategists, like influencer management
Mandy’s advice for other agency owners
“Track your time for an entire week, then see how much of it was actually strategic and how much anybody could have done. It’s way more than you think. With all that time back, what could you do to actually make your business grow?”
— Mandy Holman, CEO and Founder, Growth Lab Advertising
What’s next
Growth Lab is building out its team with VirtueStaff, with three new positions currently in progress.
“I love the three that we have with you. I’ve not had a single issue with any of them. They’re awesome.”
— Mandy Holman
Growth Lab Advertising name and quotes used with permission. Figures as of September 2026.
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