Kinsta’s rise from niche WordPress hosting provider to global cloud platform has been built thanks to a focus on product, technical reliability, and word-of-mouth advocacy.

But as the hosting and cloud infrastructure market grows more competitive, the company is making a decisive shift: moving marketing to the heart of its growth strategy.

The appointment of its first-ever CMO, Matt Reid, marks a pivotal moment in Kinsta’s evolution.

For much of its history, Kinsta’s growth has been driven by strong engineering and customer satisfaction. But as it matures, the company sees the need to move from organic momentum to deliberate market leadership. Bringing in Reid, who joined the business in June after more than 20 years working in B2B tech firms, is designed to bring commercial discipline and structure to that ambition.

Without sales, there’s no business. And without marketing that drives sales, there’s no growth.

Matt Reid, Kinsta

“When I look at companies, I look for a few things: market potential, culture, product, and customer satisfaction,” Reid tells Marketing Week. “Kinsta excels at all of these. It’s already number one in its category on [software review platform] G2 for customer satisfaction and market presence. The opportunity now is to scale that success globally.”

The opportunity, he says, lies in formalising marketing as a strategic growth function so that it can measure, optimise, and extend Kinsta’s reach across multiple customer segments, from developers to enterprises.

“I’m a big believer that marketing is sales without the quota,” he says. “Everything we do – from strategy to tactics to measurement – has to be tied back to revenue and pipeline. If we can’t show that impact, we’re not doing our jobs.”

At Kinsta, that philosophy is already reshaping how teams collaborate. Marketing now owns a significant portion of the online acquisition funnel — driving trials, converting them to paid plans, and feeding qualified leads to the sales team.

Reid describes it as a  “black and white” connection between marketing and revenue that he says creates both accountability and clarity.

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Balancing pipeline and performance

As a SaaS business, Kinsta lives and dies by recurring revenue metrics. Reid and his team track a familiar suite of performance indicators: monthly recurring revenue (MRR), churn, customer acquisition cost (CAC), payback period by channel, and share of voice across target segments.

But just as important as the metrics is the mindset. “The hardest thing in a company like this is saying no,” Reid admits. “You can’t chase every opportunity. You’ve got to bring persuasive, quantifiable information to argue for your priorities — that’s salesmanship too.”

That discipline reflects Kinsta’s broader culture. The company is known internally for being nimble, data-led, and fast-moving.

“It’s the kind of environment that accountable, high-performing people want to be part of,” says Reid. “We move quickly, we base decisions on data and what’s best for the customer, and if we get something wrong, we fix it and keep moving.”

Reid’s focus on measurable impact does not come at the expense of long-term brand building. He argues that the two must coexist. “It’s hard to get away from revenue goals — they’re not going anywhere,” he says.

“But around half of my time is dedicated to brand building, awareness and intent. I want Kinsta to be a verb in our category. When someone thinks about scaling or securing their website, I want them to think about ‘Kinsta-ing’ it.”

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It is an ambitious goal that highlights how the company views brand value as a competitive “moat” — one built on reliability, trust, and customer advocacy, which he decribes as “gold”.

Another pillar of Kinsta’s marketing evolution is partnerships. The company plans to strengthen its relationships with agencies and resellers — a “one-to-many” model that Reid describes as a key growth lever.

“Working with local agencies that understand their markets gives us scale and resilience our competitors can’t easily replicate,” he explains. “It’s a huge opportunity to build a moat around our brand.”

This partner strategy also ties to content and thought leadership. Rather than relying solely on brand-led storytelling, Kinsta is focusing on customer- and partner-led narratives — case studies, videos, and events where others advocate for the brand. “We want customers to do the talking for us,” says Reid. “It’s far more credible and authentic.”

Like many marketing organisations, Kinsta is exploring AI’s potential. Reid sees it as a complementary tool rather than a replacement for creativity or human connection.

“We use AI for content ideation, data analysis, and personalisation,” he says. “It helps us target customers more effectively and communicate more clearly across languages and markets. But it’s not replacing people — it’s making them more efficient.”

That balance between efficiency and authenticity is particularly important for Kinsta’s developer audience, a group often wary of overt marketing. Transparency and human support remain non-negotiable.

“We’re not trying to be something we’re not,” Reid says. “You can try Kinsta for free, and if it’s not right for you, that’s okay. But if you value reliability and real human support, we’re the right fit.”

We move quickly, we base decisions on data and what’s best for the customer, and if we get something wrong, we fix it and keep moving.

Matt Reid, Kinsta

Kinsta’s priorities are clear for the next 12 to 18 months: grow market share, increase visibility, and deepen penetration in the enterprise segment.

Reid’s success metrics go beyond revenue: “I want what our customers say about us to be verified in the market — through greater share of voice, more recognition, and stronger presence in the enterprise space,” he says. “That’s how we’ll know we’re succeeding.”

For Kinsta, appointing its first CMO is more than an organisational milestone. It’s a declaration that marketing now sits at the heart of its business strategy — not as a creative afterthought, but as a disciplined, data-driven growth engine.

As Reid puts it, “Without sales, there’s no business. And without marketing that drives sales, there’s no growth. The sooner marketers understand that the more impact we can have.”