Growth hacking can often be perceived as toxic, but you can sit back and relax, it is possible to practise ethical growth hacking but it requires time and energy, growth hacking expert Frederic Canevet explained to Visionary Marketing. In a nutshell, it may be a little harder than you think, but it is well worth the effort. Fred, who ate his own dogfood to sell his bestseller on the subject, tells us everything we should know about whte hat growth hacking.

Ethical Growth Hacking Is Not an Oxymoron

<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_82632" style="width: 1920px;"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-82632">White hat, back hat? Growth hacking often suffers a dire reputation fuelled by unscrupulous individuals, some of whom have built real fortunes on questionable approaches. But ethical growth hacking is possible, explains Fred Canevet – image created with Midjourney on our personalised mode.</figcaption></figure>

Could you mention historical examples of growth hacking?

Frédéric Canevet: There are two tale-telling cases that illustrate the controversial practices of growth hacking perfectly:

1. In America, Airbnb got its start by exploiting data from Craigslist. The company developed an automated system to extract property listings and contact owners, offering them the chance to earn $500 a week by listing their accommodation on Airbnb.


2. In France, the founder of Telecom operator Free Mobile Xavier Niel, back in the days of the Minitel, created a tool to send automated mass messages to Minitel users. Lonely hearts messaging services on the Minitel being most profitable at that time, he launched a competitor to a leading dating service and diverted their traffic through targeted messages. Although this practice earned him legal action and a lost court case, the profits generated helped him build his initial fortune, notably through a network of sex shops linked to this Minitel business.

Can Growth Hacking Be ethical and responsible, though?

FC: Yes, it’s feasible but it requires time and effort.

<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_82634" style="width: 1920px;"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-82634">Ethical growth hacking: white hat ends up paying better than black hat – image made with Midjourney on our custom mode.</figcaption></figure>

How should our vision of growth hacking evolve overtime?

FC: Our approach has to evolve considerably in the face of today’s economic challenges. In a tense economic climate, we can no longer afford traditional marketing with its long-term plans. This is precisely what inspired growth hacking in Silicon Valley, where startups had to, as the time-honoured slogan went, “live or die“. In a world tending towards the end of consumerism, at least in Europe, the challenge is to do more with less.

There are three levels of growth hacking.

1. “White hat” represents legal and ethical practices, similar to the “Fosbury flop” in athletics – a revolutionary innovation, but one that abides to the rules. This approach is based on business cycle analysis using the AARRR method: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Recommendation and Revenue.


2. “Grey hat” is sitting in the middle. For example, automation on LinkedIn, although prohibited by the platform, is still widely practised. I have personally experienced the risks of resorting to this approach when I was suspended for managing two separate profiles.


3. Finally, “Black hat” encompasses strictly prohibited practices: i.e. creating fake accounts, identity theft, or unauthorised recovery of personal data. These methods may seem tempting in the short term, but prove disastrous for a company’s reputation and long-term survival.

How can we guarantee efficiency while remaining ethical?

FC: Sending mass unsolicited messages in LinkedIn serves no purpose. Instead, effectiveness lies in forging true connections. The strategy I adopt lies in the daily publication of high added value content, demonstrating real expertise. It’s not an aggressive sales approach, but rather inbound marketing based on trust.

In fact, email spam is a no no. You send 10,000 emails and what you get is a 0.5% open rate and a slightly lower click rate. All in all, as you sent tens of thousands of messages, you may get some sort of result. But very soon, all this is bound to dwindle. Not to mention how damaging all this could be to your reputation.

As for ‘black hat’, I absolutely forbid it. In particular, fake accounts attached to the name of a company, solely for the purpose of recovering data from lists of people and companies that follow the page of the target company. This is illegal, because it’s identity theft. The same applies to those individuals who seek to recover the email addresses or telephone numbers of people with whom they have no relationship. I refuse to do that, especially as it often involves personal data.

Facts and Figures About Ethical Growth Hacking

FC. To illustrate the effectiveness of the approach I recommend, let’s quote some figures from the company I work for, Eloquant: over 20% of the 1,200 people who signed up for our interviews with customer relationship experts this year came from LinkedIn, out of an industry of around 15,000 professionals. Our aim is to unite this community, establish our legitimacy, and then convert the members of this community into visitors of our various events such as webinars or our “All for Customers” trade show in Paris.

The omnichannel approach is becoming essential as traditional channels become saturated. The numbers are not adding up: the rate of participation in webinars has fallen from 35% 3-4 years ago to around 25% today, 30% at the most. The rate of viewing replays has also fallen, from 15% to 12%. These figures show that it is no longer viable to rely on a single channel. Omnichannel is of the essence, and face-to-face meetings especially, that are more effective than ever.

How important is personalisation in your approach?

FC. Personalisation is vital. For birthday wishes, we take a two-step approach: an initial message automated by my assistant, followed by personal interaction on my part.

And I send the messages one by one.

AI won’t replace humans, but professionals who master AI will outperform those who don’t. Our experience with Smart Tribune illustrates this principle: during a joint event, we decided to pull together and appeal to our respective networks and approach each potential participant individually. Success depended on pre-existing relationships and established personal links.

This then led to a white paper written jointly with Apizee and Smart Tribune [note: in French only], based on an OpinionWay survey of 1,000 interviewees. Our partners used AI to kickstart the writing of this project. While AI was impressive at the start, it was quite obvious after a while that all this was more artificial than intelligent: the formatting was bland, transitions were artificial. All that was typical ChatGPT gibberish. We had to substantially correct all these initial sections.

AI remains a valuable tool, particularly for copywriting. I use a custom GPT to generate drafts of posts about my events. The result, while not exceptional, provides us with a straw man, which can then be adapted and personalised.

How is the digital landscape changing with these new AI practices?

FC. There has been a significant drop in SEO traffic on Google these past few months. Well-established blogs have been massively hit by the arrival of AI and the automatic generation of content. As Google is struggling to distinguish authentic content, it then started to favour more specialised and industry-specific sites.

I’ve noticed that many content creators and bloggers I know have given up or scaled down their online writing. Personally, while blogging used to b