The hottest gummies in DTC
Grüns is taking over the world. In case you don’t know, the celebrity-backed superfood gummies retailer skyrocketed to a $500m valuation in less than two years and is already featured in Sprouts, Target and Walmart.
Grüns’ superfood gummies promise to streamline health into a bite-sized, fruit-snack experience. They’re disrupting growing superfood greens demand by making it actually taste good, keeping things super portable, and capitalizing on the gummy format. They’re shipping four million gummies a day.
But the real magic isn’t just in the product: it’s in how they get it in front of the right people at the right time. Their potent mix of aggressive channel testing, a creative-first marketing ethos, and a strong data backbone is the exact playbook for DTC success in 2025. It’s stunning to watch.
As part of their playbook for success, GrĂĽns partnered with Northbeam for marketing attribution.
We sat down with Claire Yi, VP of Growth at GrĂĽns, to break down how a health & wellness brand in its infancy has already become one of the most exciting DTC players in the space.
A source of truth?
The decision to integrate Northbeam wasn’t a lengthy deliberation for Grüns.
“Our CEO, Chad, was already plugged into a network of DTC founders who swore by Northbeam,” Yi explains. “So, we were early adopters by default.”
Northbeam quickly became the company’s gospel. It’s rare for any org to have a single source of truth that all departments reference, but for a high-growth business like Grüns, it’s non-negotiable.
“I check in every day,” Yi said. “Our CFO checks in. Our CEO checks in. It’s the first look of the day for all of us.”
Speed & execution
Startups live and die by speed, and Grüns is no exception. With the brand not even two years old, Yi’s team needs to pivot on a dime.
“We’re constantly testing new channels,” Yi said. “I rely on Northbeam very heavily every single day. The most useful part of it is just specific metrics like percent new visits by channel, new customer acquisition costs and others. Having that really helps me know if a new channel that we test into is actually bringing in incremental new users to our site.”
The word “incremental” is a big one at Grüns. It’s not enough to get a new customer; they have to be truly new.
We’ve been advocating for this focus on incremental growth long before incrementality tests came into vogue, inspired by operators like Claire.
(If you want a primer on how to focus on incremental customer acquisition in your performance media, check out this guide.)
nCAC as north star
If there’s one number that runs the show at Grüns, it’s new customer acquisition cost (nCAC).
“Our entire model is built around it,” Yi said. “We look at nCAC across all our channels — Meta, YouTube, and more — and it helps us benchmark against our holistic goal. We don’t trust platform data alone.”
Northbeam’s ability to separate actual first-time customers from returning buyers or cross-sales means that Grüns isn’t throwing money at inflated metrics. This makes for sharper creative tests with clearer signal in the results.
Relying on platform data is like letting a chef be the food critic for their own restaurant. It results in over-attribution by each individual platform, which muddies the signal of which channels are actually working.
Having Northbeam is like having an “Ads Manager” view of all platforms in one view, but without each channel overattributing their conversions across all your orders.
GrĂĽns saw the cost incurred to acquire net new customers decrease by more than 14% after implementing Northbeam.
Creative is king
Grüns isn’t just a performance brand; it’s a creative-driven performance brand. With a heavy emphasis on visuals and storytelling, they need to know immediately which ads are working and which ones need to be optimized.
“We don’t just optimize at the campaign level, we optimize at the creative level,” Yi explained. “Which ad, which visual, which CTA is truly working? Northbeam tells us. We don’t even look at platform data for this anymore.”
And with that kind of granular view into what is truly working, Northbeam becomes a tool to validate all the others.
“I use Shopify with Northbeam because it helps us look at day-of performance very sharply, especially during holiday periods or sale periods” Yi said. “We want to be able to scale back if the day is looking a little off from a conversion rate standpoint.”
This ability to instantly separate high-performing creative campaigns from flops means that GrĂĽns can pour budget into winners before a campaign fizzles, maximizing returns with ruthless efficiency.
Blazing into new channels
In an ever-evolving digital landscape, staying agile is non-negotiable. GrĂĽn leverages Northbeam to explore emerging platforms with precision and confidence.
"We've seen exciting new customer growth opportunities by expanding into platforms we had not previously tried," Yi said. "The ability to quickly test and optimize creatives for new audiences has made a huge impact."
Northbeam’s data-driven insights ensure that every new channel test is informed, measured, and refined, giving Grüns the confidence to invest wisely and grow strategically. They’ve even sponsored a women’s pro soccer team.
Measurement = confidence
At the end of the day, Northbeam isn’t just a marketing tool, it’s a confidence booster.
“I've been able to use those metrics – nCAC, percent new visits, and more – to explain to stakeholders that a specific channel isn't a priority channel for us right now.” Yi explained.
“It also saves us a lot of time in being able to understand at a high level, revenue, new orders, returning orders, marketing spend, and if we're pacing towards our nCAC goals. And it also helps me pull reports really easily to know how much we spent on each channel by month.”
When Grüns needs to decide whether a platform, ad, or creative direction is worth the investment, the answer is already waiting for them. And that’s the real power of Northbeam.
GrĂĽns is building a health & wellness empire with the speed of a tech startup. And in a world where decision fatigue is real and ad dollars vanish into the void faster than you can say "platform algorithm update," Northbeam is their secret weapon for staying sharp, strategic, and relentlessly efficient.
Need more convincing? Book a demo now and we’ll give you a $100 gift card for your time.
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