Tom Critchlow Joins Raptive as Executive Vice President of Audience Growth

Raptive, the creator media company, today announced the appointment of Tom Critchlow as Executive Vice President of Audience Growth. Critchlow is one of several strategic hires focused on expanding and developing new resources for creators. Critchlow will lead a new audience growth function in his role, aiming to support and enhance creator growth across the Raptive network of 5,200+ creators. He will be responsible for overseeing strategies to drive sustainable audience growth across traffic sources, including search, social and syndication.

“With so many uncertainties facing creators relying on search traffic, having Tom on their side is a game changer,” said Marc McCollum, Chief Innovation Officer at Raptive. “Since meeting Tom earlier this year, I’ve been blown away by his expertise, passion, and relentless drive. I can’t wait to see how he’ll help Raptive creators grow, diversify, and deepen their audience connections.”

Critchlow is a pioneer in the search industry, having worked in the space since 2007, helping to build the influential SEO agency Distilled, where he played a crucial role in growing Distilled into a thriving company with 100s of clients, millions of dollars in revenue and over 65 employees across three offices in London, NYC, and Seattle.

Critchlow’s thought leadership is widely recognized. He has held numerous speaking engagements at major conferences and published influential articles for Distilled and Moz, helping to shape the future of SEO. After his impactful stint at Distilled, Critchlow worked at Google from 2012 to 2014, where he was part of Google’s Creative Lab, contributing to innovative projects like Maker Camp, an online summer camp for kids in partnership with Make Magazine.

From 2014 to 2024, Critchlow built a successful career as an independent strategy consultant, working with leading media companies like The New York Times, Dotdash Meredith, and Ziff Davis and technology giants such as Google, Atlassian, and Gartner. In 2021, he founded the SEO MBA, an online education platform that has trained over 800 SEO professionals. A passionate advocate for the open web, Tom has been blogging at tomcritchlow.com for over a decade and has developed open-source tools for bloggers, including Quotebacks.

“I’ve always been an advocate for the open web and independent creators, and I’m thrilled to bring my expertise in media and audience growth to Raptive, where I’ll champion and drive impact for independent creators,” said Critchlow.

About Raptive
Raptive is a new kind of media company built for content creators and is home to one of the largest and most diverse audiences on the internet. Raptive combines its position as the world’s largest ad management platform with a comprehensive suite of monetization, audience, and business solutions that enable creators to turn their passions and talents into thriving independent companies and enduring brands. This creator-first model has paid creators $2.5 billion and propelled Raptive to become a top 10 online media property globally and #1 in Food, Family, Home, and Lifestyle. Raptive is the premium partner to advertisers seeking authentic engagement with diverse and passionate audiences. To learn more about Raptive’s efforts to build a sustainable future for the internet, visit Raptive.com.