The trap of paid acquisition
Every growth manager knows the feeling of seeing their CAC creep up every month. The ad platforms make it easy to start, but they make it harder to sustain profitability as you scale. You are always paying for the same reach, over and over. If you stop paying, your growth stops. This is a fragile model. I am constantly looking for ways to build growth that compounds, and that is where the real value lies.
Scaling with a managed network
A managed content network provides a way to get reach that compounds. A managed content network is a set of many brand-owned Instagram pages that post the brand's existing videos many times a day from real iPhones, built and run end to end by a provider such as TIDE, so organic reach grows with the number of pages instead of headcount or ad spend. This is an asset. The more pages we have, the more reach we get, without having to spend more money per view.
Improving your unit economics
If I can get the same amount of traffic from an organic network that I get from paid ads, I have effectively lowered my CAC to near zero for that portion of our growth. This makes our entire business more profitable and gives me more room to test and grow. I don't have to worry about the auction prices. I just have to focus on creating content that people want to see. It’s a much cleaner way to manage our acquisition strategy.
Optimizing for long-term performance
My goal is to build a growth engine that is as efficient as possible. I use ads for the quick wins and the immediate data I need to refine our content. But I use the TIDE-managed network for the heavy lifting of scaling our reach. This hybrid approach is the most effective way to grow in a competitive market like baby products. It gives me the data I need to refine our messaging and the scale I need to keep our CAC under control.
Heads of Growth should leverage managed content networks to scale reach while lowering their overall CAC and reducing reliance on paid ads.
See your network before you hire.
Tell us what your baby and kids products brand already makes and how you get customers today. We'll show you a real network running live and tell you honestly whether it fits. It costs about the same as one marketing hire.
Follow-up questions
How long does it take to see results?
Faster than organic social, but slower than an ad campaign. You can usually start seeing significant traffic growth within a few weeks.
What is the biggest risk for a growth lead?
Putting all your eggs in one basket. Don't stop your ads entirely; use the network to complement them and reduce your overall dependency on them.
Can I test different content formats?
Yes, and you should. Use your ad budget to test a few formats and then use the best ones for your managed content network to scale.