Growth Marketing Trends 2025: Key Insights from the First TGS Conference in Amsterdam [Recap]

Amsterdam, 18 September 2025 – The first TGS Conference took place at Kanteen25 in Marineterrein, bringing together 200 vetted B2B founders and GTM leaders for a one-day deep dive into growth marketing trends.

A Venue That Invited Connection

The location was ideal. Kanteen25 sits just minutes from Amsterdam Centraal, in one of the city’s most dynamic creative zones.The layout and surroundings encouraged movement, spontaneous conversation, and a sense of openness — exactly what the organizers intended for a gathering focused on real work, not just show.

Operators at the Core

Rather than rely solely on polished keynotes, TGS Con prioritized practitioners. Curated roundtables paired founders, growth marketers and GTM operators facing similar challenges. These small-group settings let attendees dig into questions like: “Which lead channels still work?”, “How do you build meaningful community?”, and “When do loops replace funnels?”

People came with their metrics, hypotheses, and hard lessons. They walked away with ideas to test, adjustments to make, and new contacts who “get it.”

Powerful Stories That Resonate

Louis Grenier delivered a keynote entitled The Rebel’s Guide to Standing the Fck Out in a Sea of Sameness. His story of pushing through life’s fiercest challenge — cancer — struck a chord, reminding attendees that resilience and boldness in business often mirror resilience in life.

Amanda Marochko from Buffer spoke at the roundtables. She shared how Buffer doubled down on value delivery over monetization, helping them grow in a sustainable, trusted way.

Ricardo Ghekiere (BetterPic) revealed how a $1 deal was the spark that evolved into a fully scaled app. From that humble start, he built what BetterPic is today.

Patterns That Point to the Future: Key Growth Marketing Trends

Through shared stories and rigorous dialogue, several growth marketing trends emerged clearly:

1. Community as a Core Demand Engine
   Private Slack spaces, niche membership platforms, and curated forums are becoming sources of qualified leads, not just “nice additions.”

2. AI-Powered Personalization, Built In
   Rather than bolt on AI tools, growth teams are embedding predictive and generative tools into the growth loop itself — automating personalization without losing human touch.

3. Experiments Beyond Ads
   Referral models, product virality, content with compounding returns and owned media got more airtime than paid media. Many considered those approaches safer, longer-lasting bets.

4. Value-First Monetization Models
   Delivering ongoing utility before asking for money is becoming a more accepted (and often better) route than pushing for revenue too early.

5. Operators as Brand & Narrative Leaders
   Growth leaders are emerging as voices of authority — not behind-the-scenes analysts, but storytellers who shape how their organizations and communities see themselves.

Roundtables That Mattered

The real heart of TGS was in the rotating roundtables. In groups of 8–12, participants exchanged war stories, debated hypotheses, co-drafted experiment frameworks and challenged assumptions. Because everyone in a room faced similar problems, the depth of conversation often went beyond surface level quickly.

Topics ranged from scaling content without losing voice, blending experimentation with process, and aligning GTM operations to ensure real business outcomes.

Why These Trends Will Define 2025 and how 2026 will be

For marketers, operators, and founders, these growth marketing trends are signals, not just predictions. Paid channels will remain important, but real scale lies in building ecosystems: communities, products, storytelling that can grow on their own merits.

Teams that can blend algorithmic intelligence with human authenticity, delay monetization in favor of value, and tell meaningful stories will lead the next wave of growth.

A Warm Thanks & Looking Ahead

This inaugural TGS Conference in Amsterdam set a strong precedent. The venue, agenda, speakers and energy all aligned to a clear goal: help operators grow smarter, not just faster.

Major thanks to the Growth Syndicate team for creating this initiative and executing it with care. Their hospitality, intentional curation and commitment to substance made the experience valuable for every attendee.

We leave this first edition inspired, with new contacts and fresh convictions. If this is just the beginning, I can’t wait to see how TGS evolves.

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