But first, a word from the author: thank you for being patient: The Media Buyer will never miss another issue. We will publish every Thursday at 1 pm EST. Your wait will be worth it - we have some massive upgrades on this data coming soon. -bryan
The brave new world
I spoke at the Operators Assemble online event a few weeks ago (completely stacked lineup, canât believe I made the list), and I was struck by an overall vibe: growth is different now.
(Watch the full Marketing Track session here.)
Growth in 2025 looks nothing like it did just a few years ago. The days of simply putting a dollar into a platform and getting five back are gone. Growth marketing used to be such a green pasture, where any enterprising yahoo could run a few product ads and make millions.
Now weâre in the âPost-COVID Generationâ of DTC. The companies that succeed now have a different set of values, methodologies, and tactics they use to win. Letâs explore.
(Source: We work with 850+ enterprise companies spending $19+ billion dollars a year on ads, and we chat with them every month.)
The new growth imperative: profitability
The most successful DTC businesses in 2025 (HexClad, The Ridge, Mary Ruth Organic) have one thing in common: they prioritize profitability across every marketing campaign. This goes beyond the obvious goal of making money. These brands focus relentlessly on profitable customer acquisition at any stage of the funnel, using first-party data, profitability benchmarks, and systemic thinking to ensure every marketing dollar works harder.
Profitable acquisition requires a level of data-driven rigor that goes beyond what in-platform performance data can provide.
Focusing on profitability benchmarks allows for: :
- Clarity: Teams know what metrics will result in both short and long term business success to sustain not just profitability, but also growth. Itâs also important to build the company brand and ensure long term success as well. .
- Alignment: Everyone operates from a single source of truth.
- Confidence: No more âis this campaign working?â doubts.
- Agility: Quick, informed decisions about what to cut or scale.
You can distill this âprofitability-firstâ approach into three strategies. If you want to copy their success as growth marketers, this is basically the 101 playbook.
The Three Fundamentals of Modern Growth:
- Get first-party data you can trust.
- Prioritize new customer acquisition.
- Evaluate everything on profitability.
1. Get First-Party Data You Can Trust
Relying on ad platform data alone (Meta, TikTok, Google etc.) creates the âwalled garden problem.â Each platform claims full credit for conversions, leading to overcounting and confusionâthree platforms may report three conversions when your e-commerce system only shows one sale.
If youâve ever had to reconcile conversion numbers across multiple ad platforms, you know exactly what Iâm talking about.
The Solution: Independent, True First-Party Data
If you had separate, independent ad performance data, youâd be able to track user journeys across all touchpoints, not just what platforms report. You could adjust attribution models (last click, first touch, linear) to see which channels truly drive results. Most importantly, you can have a single, unbiased source of truth for your experiments and tracking ROI.
This is the power of first-party data. Free from the confounding contradictions of in-platform data, youâd be able to see which ads are actually driving results.
Case in point: Dr. Squatch. After switching to Northbeamâs first-party data, Dr. Squatch saw a 32% year-over-year revenue increase and reduced customer acquisition cost (CAC) by 3%. Click the link and read how they did it.
2. Prioritize New Customer Acquisition
Sustainable growth depends on a systematic, experiment-driven approach to finding new customers. Top advertisers donât just âtryâ new channels and yank spend after a few weeks cause itâs ânot working.â These advertisers relentlessly test and optimize, always seeking the next profitable audience.
Hereâs a quick three-step system for prioritizing new customer acquisition:
- Identify Incrementality: Track metrics like first time customer CAC, new visitor percentage, and cost per new visit. Know exactly where your new customers are coming from.
- Relentless Creative Testing: The best brands are masters of creativity. Test every aspect, from hooks, end cards, to landing pages. Always tailor messaging to the language and culture of your target audience.
- Go Beyond Last-Click Attribution: Use first-touch, last-touch, and multi-touch models, plus marketing mix modeling (MMM), to understand the full impact of your campaigns across the funnel.
3. Evaluate Everything on Profitability
Every campaign, channel, and experiment must be measured by its impact on profitable growth. This means:
- Setting ruthless performance standards across the funnel.
- Using unbiased data to prove ROI.
- Ensuring every team is aligned on what success looks like.
This is how top advertisers are scaling: by being ruthless, both in their experimentation and their expectations of the data.
- First-party data is non-negotiable for accurate attribution and future-proof marketing.
- New customer acquisition requires systematic experimentation and creative agility.
- Profitability must be the ultimate benchmark for every marketing decision.
By adopting these fundamentals, brands can cut through the noise, eliminate doubt, and build scalable, resilient growth strategies. This is the kind of stuff that helped GrĂŒns get a $500m valuation.
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