In the previous lesson, we went through a step-by-step process for how to prioritize different acquisition channels. The final step introduced an evaluation framework for judging individual channels based on seven criteria:

1. Scale
2. Target-ability
3. Intent
4. Context
5. Effort
6. Cost
7. Time to results

In this lesson, we’ll walk through this evaluation framework in more depth by looking at each of the seven criteria. Channels vary in effectiveness based on a company’s audience. Channels may even vary in effectiveness for a single company targeting multiple audiences. We’ll provide examples so you have all of the context you need to pursue your channels.

Since it’s difficult to understand these criteria from a purely conceptual perspective, we’ll look at how three companies with different business models might evaluate acquisition channels:

• Otter.ai, a B2B company with software that records and transcribes online meetings
• Rareform, an ecom shop selling purses, bags, and accessories from recycled billboards
• DoorDash, a food delivery app

Scale

Scale generally refers to how many people you can reach on a given channel.

For example, Amazon ads is a high-scale channel because you can reach millions of Amazon shoppers.

Theoretically, you can scale Amazon ads. Certain companies can build big businesses by using Amazon ads as a primary channel.

But when you’re evaluating channels, it’s important to also consider how many of your ideal customers you can reach on a given channel. That’s the type of “scale” we’ll discuss here.

While Amazon ads is a high-scale channel, not all businesses can actually scale their acquisition through it.

If you’re selling a niche product in a category that won’t get many searches on Amazon, then Amazon isn’t scalable for you.

Let’s look at Snapchat.

Most users are between 18 and 29 years old; only 38% are 30 or older.

Since Otter.ai’s product serves remote workers, it wouldn’t be practical to run ads on Snapchat. Most of Snap’s users are high school and college students—not working professionals who can make decisions about software for their companies. But for Rareform and DoorDash, whose target audiences include Gen Z users and young millennials, Snapchat ads have better scale.

For another example, consider SEO.

DoorDash’s market includes hundreds of millions of people that use food delivery services. There are also close to 100 million searches related to food delivery every month, making SEO a high-scale channel for DoorDash.

Rareform has a smaller, more niche market. While there are many searches for purses and bags in general, few are specifically for bags made of recycled materials—only around 10,000 searches per month. So SEO has lower scale for Rareform.

So when you go through the project to pick your acquisition channel, consider the fact that channels have a certain scale—how many users you can reach through that channel. Facebook has billions of users while Reddit has millions.

But then evaluate those channels based on how many of your target customers you can reach.

Targetability

Targetability describes the degree to which you can target a specific audience on a channel. Millions of your target users may use a channel—but if that channel doesn’t enable you to hone in on that specific segment (low targetability), it would underperform compared to a channel that offers such targeting.

Some channels enable you to target users by selecting a specific data point. For example, with Facebook and Instagram ads, you can make your ads only show to people of one gender, in a specific age range, and so on.

However, not all channels have this level of targetability. Think about all the ways you can reach people with Google:

• Google Display Network (GDN) and YouTube ads allow detailed targeting based on user demographics, life events, interests, and browsing history. You can also set your ads to appear on specific websites and YouTube channels, or on sites and channels related to certain topics and keywords.
• Google search ads rely mostly on keyword targeting—your ads appear for keywords that you specify in Google Ads. You can also set some targeting criteria like location, device, and language, but these options are more limited compared to GDN and YouTube ads.
• Creating high-ranking SEO content relies on keyword targeting, except you don’t specify your target keywords to Google Ads. Instead, you create content around these keywords to appeal to specific audiences (like parenting articles for new moms and dads).

Sales and digital paid acquisition channels tend to have better targetability than other acquisition lanes. Sales teams can focus on reaching out to people that match their exact customer criteria, and ad networks like Facebook let you pinpoint audience segments based on user data. By comparison, content and viral acquisition channels like content marketing and virality give you very little control over who your customers share your product with, or who will read your content.

In general, channels with high targetability make it easier to reach very specific audiences—a priority for companies selling niche products. For companies with larger markets, like DoorDash, targetability may not be as big of a priority when evaluating different acquisition channels.

That said, even with high targetability, channel efficacy varies based on who your audience is and the specific channel being used.

Consider Facebook ads and LinkedIn ads. As paid acquisition channels, they offer greater targetability than content and viral acquisition methods—but their scope of targeting differs.

• With Facebook ads, you can target users based on job title. However, since people use Facebook casually, many don’t actually add their employer or company info to their profile—making this targeting inaccurate.
• Because of LinkedIn’s purpose as a job platform, people reliably update work details on their profile. As a result, businesses that want to target based on profession (e.g., B2B companies like Otter.ai) will find LinkedIn ads more effective than Facebook ads at reaching their ideal audience.

The point here: Since targeting options can vary even across high-targetability channels, you must evaluate each channel’s targetability in relation to your specific market.

Intent

Your target audience may be active on a particular channel (high scale) that also allows very granular targeting (high targetability). But if their intent in using a channel doesn’t align with your product, they’re less likely to become a customer.

People browse channels with different goals—we call this intent. For instance, people tend to use Facebook for updates about their friends but use LinkedIn for professional networking.

Some channels aren’t as effective for acquiring customers because users aren’t actively interested in shopping on it. This ultimately depends on who your target audience is and what you’re selling.

Consider Pinterest. According to Pinterest Trends, some of the most popular keywords searched revolve around outfit ideas, recipes, and home DIY projects. Users often browse Pinterest with the goal of sourcing style ideas and inspiration.

Given this intent, running Pinterest ads doesn’t make sense for Otter.ai or DoorDash. But for Rareform, the intent behind using Pinterest aligns. Why?

• Otter.ai: Users don’t usually browse Pinterest looking for ways to improve their remote work communication. They’d more likely search on Google for answers to specific questions like “how to record Google Meet.”
• DoorDash: Even though food is one of Pinterest’s top searched categories, users are generally looking for specific recipes or cooking tips. They don’t scroll on Pinterest when they’re hungry and want to order some food.
• Rareform: Since users explore Pinterest for fashion and style inspiration, Rareform could create ads targeting keywords about eco-friendly fashion.

It’s worth noting, however, that intent can also vary within a single channel. SEO and search ads are a good example, as not all search queries have high purchase intent.

Someone searching for “best eco-friendly purses” probably has a higher chance of becoming a Rareform customer (greater purchase intent) than someone Googling “why is sustainable apparel important?” In this case, searching for information about sustainable apparel reflects an intent to learn, rather than to buy.

Context

We use context to describe what users are doing on a particular channel or what they expect to get out of it. When a channel suits your product contextually, it means that your brand aligns with the channel’s culture, or your product solves a problem relevant to what’s discussed on that channel.

Context is important not just for judging different channels, but also for evaluating different strategies within a single channel. It includes factors like:

• Device: Some channels are more commonly viewed on mobile than desktop and vice versa.
  • Example: Since people typically browse Facebook and Instagram on their phones, it’s a lot more natural to advertise a mobile app like DoorDash on these platforms. Using a phone, you can get to the app store and download DoorDash more quickly and easily than if you saw an ad on desktop.
• Culture:Some channels have communities with very defined values and expectations, like Reddit. Or their users lean in a certain direction religiously, politically, etc.
  • Example: Rareform’s brand focuses on sustainability. With an influencer marketing strategy, fashion bloggers that thrift clothing and care about the environment would be a better contextual fit than influencers that clearly don’t value sustainability, e.g., luxury brand fashion bloggers.
• Relevance:Some channels cover specific topics so if your product or industry doesn’t fit, audiences may find your content random or out of place.
  • Example: You can pay for a sponsored post on websites like BuzzFeed and Fast Company. Since BuzzFeed publishes pop culture and entertainment content, a sponsored post there wouldn’t be a great contextual fit for a B2B company like Otter.ai. Fast Company is more relevant since it publishes content about technology and productivity for business leaders.

Effort

You can think of effort as the amount of time and expertise needed for a channel to succeed. There are two dimensions to this: setup and maintenance.

Some channels require more initial effort in terms of setup, with compounding results that require less maintenance later on.

For example, user-generated content strategies often involve more effort in creating social media campaigns and other marketing collateral to encourage user participation. But as these strategies gain momentum, companies can repurpose user-created content rather than producing their own.

Other channels require consistent effort all around, like viral content marketing strategies. Since creating viral content can’t be automated, companies must continually work on ideating, creating, and sharing new pieces of content to achieve virality.

Cost

Like effort, the cost of a channel is shaped by two factors: setup and maintenance. Some channels are costly upfront but after setup, require little in the way of maintenance.

Take SEO content. You may need to spend a lot of money initially to hire a quality writer who can do keyword research and create SEO-friendly content. Then you’ll need to monitor your published content and reoptimize it for better performance—but this doesn’t require daily maintenance.

Other channels have ongoing maintenance costs in addition to setup. With Facebook ads, for instance, you need a monthly advertising budget as well as resources for designing and creating new ads.

Time to results

In an ideal world, whatever growth channel you pick would convert users into customers immediately—that is, they’d have a short, or fast, time to results.

There’s often a tradeoff between time to results and cost: channels that quickly generate results (fast time to results) tend to be more expensive than channels that convert customers over a longer time frame (slow time to results).

Consider the difference between ad networks and content marketing. Creating great ads and content both take time. However, your ads reach viewers immediately once you pay Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. On the other hand, any content you publish may not get many (or any) views for a while—especially for new websites just developing an SEO foothold. Instead, results build over time, as you develop a loyal readership or following.

Differences in time to results don’t make one channel more or less effective than another. However, it’s important to consider this criterion if your company faces more pressure to acquire customers asap.

How to prioritize different channels

In an ideal world, you’d grow your company through channels that:

• Are used by all of your target audience (high scale)
• Allow you to hone in on your exact audience (high targetability)
• Users browse with a buying mentality (high intent)
• Match your product contextually (high context)
• Require little time and expertise (low effort)
• Are cheap to set up and run (low cost)
• Convert users into customers very quickly (fast time to results)

But channels likely won’t perfectly fit this mold. Some might have more obvious potential for acquiring customers. Others might “tie” across different criteria, in which case it may be hard to determine which to prioritize.

For example, imagine you’ve evaluated two channels, Channel A and Channel B. They score very similarly in terms of targetability, effort, cost, and time to results. However, Channel A aligns with your product more in terms of context and intent while Channel B has greater scale.

In situations like this, we recommend prioritizing channels with stronger contextual fit and intent—or in this case, Channel A.

Why? Remember our Five Fits Framework: aligning in context and intent is necessary for achieving market-channel and product-channel fit. It’s much harder to succeed on channels with poor context and intent because users aren’t in the right mindset to buy your product.

Think of how people sell water bottles and band merchandise at music festivals. It’s a lot easier to make these sales versus selling something like books, furniture, or software, where neither context nor intent fits.

So starting with channels with strong contextual fit and high intent tends to get you the highest ROI at first—you’re effectively picking the low-hanging fruit before moving up the tree.

Evaluating strategies within a single channel

The evaluation framework isn’t only useful for judging and prioritizing different channels. It also helps when prioritizing strategies within a single channel. Once again, context and intent should take precedence over the other criteria.

Here’s an example of how that might look in practice.

Imagine your company has decided on pursuing SEO content to acquire customers and is now debating between a few strategies. One strategy is publishing high-level blog posts related to your product and industry to generate brand awareness (top-of-funnel content). Another is creating more specific content, like product comparisons with your competitors, to convert readers into customers (bottom-of-funnel content).

You could apply the evaluation framework like so:

Based on this evaluation, you might conclude that bottom-of-funnel content has greater ROI for your company. Even though it costs more to produce and there are fewer users searching for this type of content, its alignment in both context and intent means users consuming bottom-of-funnel content are more likely to convert into paying customers. So you’d prioritize creating bottom-of-funnel content first, and then move on to top-of-funnel content later.

In short, our evaluation framework is helpful for not only determining which acquisition channels to prioritize but also which channel-specific strategies you should start with. Use the criteria we’ve outlined above to figure out how best to reach your target audience and what kind of creatives, messaging, etc. might resonate best.