Case Study
How Artera (formerly WELL Health) went from a Series A startup above a Starbucks to a category-defining patient communication platform — with 10x revenue growth in three years.
The Situation
In 2018, Artera had just outgrown its first headquarters — a shared workspace above a Starbucks on Main Street in Santa Barbara. With strong product-market fit and a new Series A in hand, company leadership set an ambitious target: 2x year-over-year revenue growth and 135% net retention, all while remaining cash-efficient.
Dialing for dollars wouldn’t get them there. It was time to build the marketing engine.
“We needed a leader. Not just someone who could build out the marketing function, but someone who would reinforce the culture we were creating. High-energy, adaptive, and hands-on.”
— Tom McIntyre, CFO, Artera
The Work
Tom Christensen joined as Artera’s first Head of Marketing. The mandate: build a sustainable marketing machine that would deliver pipeline at scale, and do it quickly.
Marketing adopted an agile methodology — biweekly sprints tied directly to company-level revenue targets. Within the first year, Sales Qualified Leads were coming through a comprehensive channel mix: in-person events, webinars, SEO, SEM, PPC, organic and paid social, sponsored content, PR, and direct mail.
Artera also won the brand battle. For the first time, the company earned top honors from both buyers (Best in KLAS for Patient Communications) and end-users (G2 Category Leader for Patient Engagement).
The Pivot
In February 2020, COVID hit Artera’s healthcare buyers with a perfect storm: call-center staff were out, patient inquiries were flooding in, and hospitals were saddled with outdated technology. Artera’s largest demand generation event of the year — HIMSS — was canceled with 72 hours’ notice.
The team responded by asking: what can we do to help?
Leadership moved quickly to create the Vaccine Deployment Program — a lightweight version of the texting platform that enabled hospitals to reach entire patient populations 94% faster. Marketing’s job was to cut through the noise and get the message to customers immediately.
The team created communication guides that hospital call centers could use right away, with language vetted by leading U.S. health systems. White papers, PR, and sales enablement training went out in record time.
The results were immediate
The Outcome
“Tom Christensen built exactly what we needed for the startup. He brought a great energy to the team and always looked for ways to level up. All the pieces were put into place to scale marketing and communications, and that foundation continues to serve us today.”
— Tom McIntyre, CFO, Artera
Over three years of consistent marketing leadership, Artera achieved 10x revenue growth while growing headcount from 50 to 300. The company continues to dominate patient communications, serving 40M+ patients with a 98% renewal rate.
Let’s talk about what this could look like for your company.