How to Choose Your Acquisition Channel

When you don’t have time to test them all.

Logically, you should rigorously test channels until you find the right one. Unfortunately, this is real life and we lack the resources and time. 

Here are a couple frameworks to help you make more educated bets.

1. Go fast: the Bullseye framework

A quick way to narrow down your channel options developed by Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo.

Rank channels based on the following:

1. What you can afford

   → Low on funds? Go for earned or owned channels. 

   → Got cash? All possibilities are open

2. Where your audience hangs out. The Semrush Audience Intelligence App provides good insights, but you can also do the sleuthing yourself. 

3. The effort requirement. Some things you can accelerate massively with AI (ads, blogging), others less (creator marketing, social because it needs video and visuals these days).

4. How fast you need results. SEO and community-building are slow, performance ads quick. 

5. Your in-house advantages. E.g. an SEO expert? Someone with a large following already? 

Pro tip: stick with one channel. Unless you’re a medium or large-sized company, in which case you can go for 2, maybe 3.

2. Go deep: Sandy Diao’s framework

Featured in Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged.

Sandy Diao, former growth lead at Pinterest, Meta, and Descript, says the first step is to identify what your product is naturally built for:

Next, consider whether you are B2B or B2C and combine.

Lastly, consider whether there is pre-existing demand for your offering or not.

B2B

If people already want what you’re selling, search-based marketing works well (SEO, PPC), along with shareability. 

If you have to create the need, then content à la Pierre Herubel can work wonders. Next you have:

• Performance ads are also an option, along with

• passive product shares with watermarks, certifications and badges on user websites.

• Founder-led sales

• Influencers and affiliates

B2C

If there is demand then capture it through Search or become the favorite of a particular community. Build for them. 

If you need to create demand then run performance ads that create FOMO or appeal to the social desires (we recommend reading our partner newsletter The Early Checkout for more on DTC and ads.)

3. Final tips

Don’t confuse low CAC with high performance.

A channel might be cheap to acquire users with, but if those users churn quickly or don’t convert, it’s not a win. (More on this from Marshall Hargrave).

In a recent piece, Sandy Diao gives a special shoutout to referral and affiliate marketing. Why? Because both are trust-based and bring you high quality customers.

Referrals: Offer two sided rewards (for the referrer and receiver). Reward with something tied to your value prop rather than cash. Growsurf and Rewardful are two easy tools to start with.

Affiliates: Consider your CAC and LTV — you want to get 3x more from customers than what you pay. Try and find an affiliate who actually uses your product, it makes a difference.

💥 In brief

You’ll never know exactly which channel is the best for you ahead of time.

Influencer marketing can work for long sale-cycle B2B.

Content marketing for eCommerce.

Your case is usually unique, so ask the right questions (that’s what the Bullseye framework is for).

Then, have a look at what usually works for people in your category (see Sandy Diao’s model).

Lastly, use AI wherever possible to accelerate things. Or you’ll likely get outcompeted by those who do.

• Dominate search marketing (SEO & PPC)

• Content production systems

• Competitive intelligence

• New 💫 : Optimize for AI mentions

👉️ Discover it all here

The grocery store growth hack

Africa’s newest fintech unicorns aren’t chasing clicks. They’re keeping it physical.

While most founders obsess over CAC and CTR, startups like Moniepoint and TymeBank—both valued at over $1 billion (TheFinRate)—are setting up shop in supermarkets.

And these human touchpoints make sense. The brands were born in South Africa and Nigeria, where cash is king, digital trust is low, and internet connectivity is shaky. Moniepoint and TymeBank are literally meeting their customers where they’re at.

Grocery stores.

There’s built-in foot traffic, a sense of local trust, and a real person there to onboard customers, face-to-face.

It also works because the companies are solving a real problem: financial inclusion. In 2021, around 57% of Africa’s population didn’t hold a traditional bank account (via The Fintech Times). TymeBank and Moniepoint are bridging the gap between physical (aka accessible) touchpoints and digital products.

Problem-solving + smart acquisition = building unicorns at the checkout line.

🎁 Rewards

Written by Amy Hawthorne and Ashley Cummings, edited by Owen Mulhern.

The Growth Bulletin is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing elite business growth strategy and expertise while making use of the Semrush network’s knowledge and assets when and where it enhances value for our readers. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.