Meta ads…can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
Meta’s latest algorithm update and US consumer uncertainty have teamed up to make for a challenging eCom environment in the first half of this year. This has many brands looking for options to diversify their acquisition spend away from Meta.
Unfortunately, that can be really, really hard.
Before we get into it, I want to thank this week's sponsor: WorkMagic. WorkMagic is a measurement platform that uses automated incrementality testing to calibrate attribution and MMM, giving brands accurate full-funnel insights based on true incremental impact.
The result: brands using WorkMagic have improved marketing efficiency by 10–30%. Click here to book a demo and learn more.
In this issue, I’m going to outline how to pick a second growth channel, explain why new channels are so difficult to manage, and explain how True Classic overcame these issues to turn TikTok ads into a scalable source of new customer acquisition.
Why Is It So Hard To Scale Outside Of Meta?
Every year, a notable figure in the DTC community throws up his/her hands and declares “I am DONE with Meta. This is the year we shift budget to (Youtube/TikTok/Pinterest/Mobile Yak Advertising/etc).”
It’s 2025. We’ve been through this cycle multiple times, and Meta and Google ads still dominate the conversation and the financial results*. Why? Three main reasons:
- Meta and Google have the broadest access to “in market” audiences, and web behavior in general
- For that reason, along with technical talent, they have the most accurate modeling of who is “in market”–these are the audiences who convert within seven days.
- Their in-platform attribution maps most closely to what’s actually going on in Shopify.
Basically, if you spend $500 on Meta or Google ads and get five conversions in-platform, you’re likely to see five corresponding new customer conversions in Shopify. Other advertisers can’t really say that.
If you’re trying to scale a new acquisition channel and you’re already spending at least $5k/day on Meta and Google, there are additional challenges.
If you drive 20 to 25 new customer conversions per day on average, a new channel is going to have to lift the average to 30 to 35 per day for you to truly “see it working”.
A $200-500/day “test” on a new channel probably isn’t going to drive 10 incremental conversions per day immediately. The more conversions you’re already driving, the more you’ll need to spend to “see it working”. This becomes expensive and risky if topline sales is your north star KPI.
The obvious fallback is to rely on in-platform analytics from the new acquisition channel. But, as we discussed earlier, these capabilities are not particularly reliable outside of Meta/Google. Pinterest wants advertisers to use a 30 day attribution window.
Additionally, the more complex your awareness mix–wholesale, Amazon, PR, brand marketing, word of mouth–the less likely any in-platform analytics dash is to report on true incremental conversions…even for your “prospecting” campaigns.
*To be fair, Applovin did come close to carving out a decent slice of the pie this year.
How True Classic Scaled TikTok Ads
These were the challenges facing True Classic when they experimented with TikTok ads last year. True Classic is a menswear brand that scaled to $250 million in revenue in less than five years by applying fresh positioning and direct response tactics to mens’ basics.
The brand had seen viral content translate into sales bumps. They knew that their target audience was using the app. But they couldn’t justify increasing budgets with their existing analytics stack.
They decided to work with WorkMagic to apply incrementality testing to the channel and get a clearer sense of how TikTok ads could be driving growth:
- WorkMagic got the test up and running in under a week, using TrueClassic’s existing creative assets.
- They targeted 25% of the US market between the test and control groups.
- WorkMagic ran the test for three weeks. The platform automatically monitored sales and revenue generated by the test and control groups.
After three weeks, the results were in:
- TikTok ads drove a 2.66% lift in Shopify orders and a halo effect on Amazon sales.
- When Amazon was taken into account, TikTok ads were driving 15% more orders than previously believed, and 551% more orders than True Classic’s last-click model reported.
- TikTok also drove a statistically significant lift in Email, SMS and organic search revenue.
These test results are great. If you spend time on X, you’ve probably seen some of them. But the question is…what do you do with this information?
WorkMagic helps clients translate test findings into actionable information with two analytics tools:
- Incrementality-adjusted attribution: By comparing results across control and exposed geos, WorkMagic spots where your existing attribution model over- or under-credits performance and adjusts it to better reflect the true incremental impact of every channel in your mix.
- An incrementality-calibrated return curve (iMMM): This is a smart forecast that shows how incremental sales and ROAS change at different spend levels, helping brands identify the optimal level of spend.
If you’re interested in diversifying away from Meta but are hitting a wall with in-platform analytics and spreadsheets, click here to book a call with WorkMagic.
Incrementality testing is the best fit for brands doing >$10M in revenue, >3,000+ orders a month, and have multiple marketing and/or sales channels OR are willing to invest in testing a new channel at scale.
A 5-Step Checklist For Launching A New Channel
If you want to scale a new acquisition channel or fill the funnel profitably ahead of Holiday, now is the time to start. Here are 5 steps to increase your odds of success:
- Pick a channel where your target market is the channel’s super-users. Pinterest over-indexes with women 30-45. Youtube’s engaged base skews male. Reddit has engaged users of both genders, skews millennial, and users have a certain mindset/cultural frame of reference.
- Pick a channel where the platform-native content aligns with your product and brand. Youtube videos and Pinterest ads are a better fit for fashion brands than Reddit and text-based search ads.
- Allocate time and budget to channel-native creative development, and speak to subject matter experts (not just reps from the platform!) to find out what that is.
- Allocate time and budget to a low-budget creative testing period. Narrow down ~50 ad variations into your best ~10 for scaling.
- Calculate how much you’ll need to spend to achieve a meaningful test. That means running an incrementality test with WorkMagic or using the good old “are sales going up?” test. Remember–if you do the latter, you’ll have to hold spend steady on your other channels for the duration of the test. Not so with WorkMagic.
Click here to book a call with WorkMagic and get your first test up and running. If you want to read the full True Classic case study, you can find it here.
In the next few months I am going to bring you channel-specific tips for Pinterest and Google Shopping/Youtube from two experts.
If you’re an expert in a different non-Meta channel and want to be interviewed, reply to this email and we’ll set it up.