12 Best Growth Hacking Books to Read in 2023 [Expert Picks]

Growth hacking combines marketing, data and metric analysis, and marketing experimentation. Its primary aim is rapid growth in a short period of time, making it a fantastic choice for startups and small businesses. It also costs less than regular PR and advertising campaigns. You can also combine this with other growth strategies, like the best SEO tools, to really take your business to the next level!

If you’re interested in becoming a growth hacker, you may be wondering where or how to begin. Fortunately, there are many growth hacking books available to help you learn. Below, we’ve listed our recommendations for the best of them!

The Importance of Growth Hacking in Today’s Business World

What exactly is growth hacking? Growth Hacking is a marketing strategy focusing on achieving rapid and exponential growth in a short amount of time. 

Growth Hacking is achieved through experimentation with various marketing tactics as well as leveraging data and current tech to optimize strategies. It is vitally important today for a number of reasons, such as:

• Rapid growth made possible despite all the competition on the market
• More cost-effective than regular ads and PR
• Allows businesses to be more agile, providing the opportunity to respond to ever-changing market conditions
• Focuses on the consumer, understanding and addressing their needs and leading to improved user experiences

Now that we know why growth hacking is so useful in today’s business climate, it’s time to look at the best growth hacking books in 2023!

Best Growth Hacking Books of 2023

1. Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success

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Why We Chose This Book

Hacking Growth is the ultimate growth hackers book written by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown, two incredibly qualified growth hackers. Sean Ellis coined the term “Growth Hacker” and is the CEO of GrowthHackers.com, the best private growth hacker community (with 1.8M+ users!) that he co-founded with Morgan Brown.

This book includes accessible and practical advice, walking users through creating tailor-made growth hacking strategies that teach users to acquire, engage, and retain new customers. It also shows readers how to motivate sales from existing customers.

2. Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product that Sells Itself

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Why We Chose This Book

This growth hack book was written by Wes Bush, the founder and president of the Product Led Institute. He is a highly-respected business consultant that teaches SaaS businesses the strategies they need for growth.

Product-Led Growth is an interesting and captivating read that shows readers a unique way to grow. This growth marketing book tells you how to use your product as the primary vehicle for driving growth, hence the title. With this book, readers can learn how to rapidly acquire new customers and retain them, motivate conversions, and drastically cut acquisition costs.

This book is part one of a two-part series. Check out book #2.

3. Explosive Growth: A Few Things I Learned While Growing My Startup to 100 Million Users & Losing $78 Million

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Why We Chose This Book

In this book, author Cliff Lerner speaks from and shares his experiences around growing his online dating startup, SNAP Interactive. Lerner grew his company to over 100M users, took it public in 2006, and acted as CEO until the company’s acquisition in 2016.

Lerner shares anecdotes and case studies in an entertaining way, teaching users the best viral growth strategies and media hacks for growing a thriving business.

4. Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising

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Why We Chose This Book

Holiday, a highly-sought-after business strategist, is a best-selling author and an acclaimed marketing guru. In this book, he gives readers an introduction to growth hacking, explains its rules, and breaks it down to make it understandable even for laymen. He includes tons of case studies of startups, small businesses, and brands and discusses real-world tactics and strategies.

Growth Hacker Marketing offers a unique perspective: growth hacking marketing isn’t something to do — rather, it’s something built into product cycles.

5. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

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Why We Chose This Book

Traction is authored by two highly-qualified authors: Gabriel Weinberg who has an MS from MIT and is the CEO and founder of Duck Duck Go, and Justin Mares who himself has founded two startups. In this book, both authors share their experiences and teach readers about 19 channels they can use to grow their base. Also included are interviews with over 40 successful founders.

This book offers the perspective that the key to success isn’t about how original you or your product are, how much money you’ve raised, or your team’s brilliance. Rather, it’s your traction — your consistency in acquiring users and customers.

6. Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley’s Best Kept Secret

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Why We Chose This Book

Author Chad Riddersen is a former investment banker turned growth hacker and the co-founder of the Growth Hacking consultancy agency, Deviate Labs. Raymond Fong is an aerospace engineer-turned-growth hacker and marketing expert. Together, they deconstruct growth hacking and its place in Silicon Valley.

The book is full of actionable advice and shared the ASP™ framework, an incredibly easy-to-understand blueprint for growth marketing. The authors also share their best-kept secrets for high-leverage and scalable growth.

7. Contagious: Why Things Catch On

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Why We Chose This Book

Contagious is a growth hacking book written by Jonah Berger, a best-selling author, well-published academic, and a marketing professor for the Wharton School at UPenn. It reveals the science behind word-of-mouth marketing and social transmission as it explores why certain ideas and products become more popular than others. The book also answers the question: “What makes some things more contagious than others?”

In his book, Berger describes six basic principles that drive contagiousness. He includes case studies as he shares specific and actionable information, tactics, and techniques for helping information go viral and “catch on.”

8. High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People

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Why We Chose This Book

High Growth Handbook is a growth hacker book written by Elad Gil, an entrepreneur, investor, and operating executive who holds a Ph.D. from MIT. He has advised massive companies like Coinbase, Instacart, Airbnb, and more. He has had a long and storied career in tech, including being a VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter.

HGH is a playbook for growing companies from zero to global brands and includes interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. This crystal-clear and easy-to-understand book discusses key topics like the CEO’s role, managing company boards, recruiting and overseeing executive teams, mergers and acquisitions, and more.

9. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

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Why We Chose This Book

Nir Eyal is a best-selling author and blogger and has taught at prestigious institutions like the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In this book, he talks about the “Hook” model, a cycling four-step process embedded into countless successful products that subtly encourages specific consumer behaviors.

Hooked is based on years of research and includes practical insights and actionable steps alongside many case studies. It’s a great read for designers, product managers, marketers, startup founders, and more.

10. One Million Followers, Updated Edition: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days

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Why We Chose This Book

One Million Followers is a book by Brendan Kane, a highly-sought-after consultant for celebrities, brands, and even Fortune 500 companies, helping them reverse engineer their content to help it go viral. He worked for Lakeshore Entertainment, overseeing their interactive media strategy, and was VP of digital at Paramount Pictures. Kane has helped names like Adriana Lima, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna develop their digital strategies. Needless to say, Kane is an incredibly qualified author.

In his book, he shares how you can take advantage of social media platforms to grow a diverse, authentic, and dedicated base. He also tells you how to create unique, personal, and valuable content to hook and engage an audience. OMF also features in-depth interviews with celebrities, influencers, marketing experts, founders, and more.

11. Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

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Why We Chose This Book

Blitzscaling was written by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh, two highly qualified and respected authors. Hoffman is a man who wears many hats but is most well-known for being the co-founder and executive chairman of a little website called LinkedIn. Yeh is a writer, investor, and startup/scaleup entrepreneur and is an in-demand speaker and consultant who has worked with Fortune 50 companies.

In their book, Hoffman and Yeh discuss Blitzscaling, which is a set of techniques that you can use to rapidly grow and blow past your competitors. The book covers the strategies required to achieve growth and scaling at breakneck speeds.

12. The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, and Stand Out from the Crowd

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Why We Chose This Book

The 1-Page Marketing Plan was written by Allan Dib, a serial entrepreneur who is also a tech expert and marketer. He is a highly-sought after business consultant, speaker, and coach who shares his experience and expertise.

In this book, Dib shares how readers can create a marketing plan on one page, divided into nine squares. The plan will allow businesses to stop doing random marketing campaigns and acts, allowing them to follow a more reliable path to growth and scaling.

How to Choose the Best Books on Growth Hacking

With the wealth of choices available to you, selecting the best book on growth hacking can be quite a challenge. 

However, there are some factors you can consider to make deciding easier, such as:

• Author(s) - Is the author (or authors) a credible authority in the growth hacking industry? What are their credentials?

• Reviews - Look for books with fairly high ratings to ensure quality. Also check the reviews’ contents to learn more about the book itself.

• Publication Date - Growth hacking is an ever-changing rapid-growth industry. When looking for the best growth hacking books, ensure they are published within the past few years to ensure the accuracy and relevance of the information within.

• Practical Advice - Look for books that offer actionable advice to help you develop strategies that will work in the real world.

• Your Specific Situation and Needs - Choose a book that offers the information for your needs, whether it’s to boost engagement and retention or to learn new strategies for acquiring new customers.

The Bottom Line

There are countless books to help you learn and master growth hacking and its principles, techniques, and tools. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced growth hacker, these growth hacking books can help you understand the industry more. Which book do you think you’ll read next?

Looking for more ways to growth hack in 2023? Check out:

The Best Courses on Udemy

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What Is Growth Hacking?

Growth hacking is a marketing strategy with the primary aim of exponential growth achieved in a short time. It’s quite popular with startups and small businesses, as it is often much more cost-effective than PR and traditional advertising. 

2. What Does a Growth Hacker Do?

Growth hackers usually do the below tasks during their day-to-day:

• Identifying & understanding target markets
• Developing & implementing marketing strategies
• Experimenting with these strategies
• Analyzing data and metrics to optimize strategy performance
• Staying up to date with the latest trends/developments in the industry

3. How Can You Become a Growth Hacker?

You must develop your marketing skills and build a solid marketing principles and techniques foundation. A great way to do this is to read the books in our article. Then, you can learn how to experiment and analyze data. Finally, you can start building your portfolio, networking, and building experience!