How to Grow Your Brand in 2025 (without Meta, Google & TikTok)

It’s getting more expensive by the minute for ecommerce brands to acquire new customers.

A large reason why is that the “big” acquisition channels are getting more saturated.

Increased competition leads to higher ad costs, dwindling margins, and you, sitting with a cup of coffee in hand, wondering if your CAC will ever be the same as it used to be.

Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to go back to the “good old days” of low-cost acquisition on Meta and Google.

TikTok had its moment, but now you can expect high costs here as well, as every brand knows how effective it can be for sales.

So, what can you do?

You can shut up shop. Close your business and find a less stressful way to make a living than running a DTC brand – like farming.

Or, you can find other ways to drive sales, get in front of potential customers, and grow your brand.

Nine Alternative Marketing Channels to Consider in 2025

There are many other ways to get your brand out there, grow visibility, and even drive sales, outside of the big (and expensive) powerhouses like Meta and Google.

You don’t have to (nor should you) dive into every channel at once. And there are likely some here that you’re already using.

But you might find something here that adds a new angle for your brand, and offers a leg up that helps you stay afloat as CAC continues to grow out of control.

YouTube

TikTok’s showing us that people love video content (and, honestly, video content on Facebook and Instagram should have convinced you of that already).

So why not dip into the king of video content itself?

YouTube has more than 2.5 billion users worldwide, making it the second most popular social media network (more than Instagram, more than TikTok).

Technically, YouTube is part of Google. But for the point of this article, you should consider it a different growth channel.

Especially if you focus on creating your own content on YouTube, rather than using it as an advertising channel.

You can put out a variety of content on the platform;

• Short, reel-style content on YouTube shorts
• Deep dives and tutorials centered around your product
• UGC (customer testimonials, case studies, unboxings)
• Longer form, educational content related to your niche

The best part about YouTube content is that it has a long shelf life.

Videos can generate organic traffic long after you publish. And, as long as it’s still relevant, a video can drive leads and sales for years.

You can post one video on YouTube, then chop it up and repurpose into short-form videos for other channels.

It’s more difficult (and expensive) to create high-quality video content, compared to static Meta ads, but that higher barrier of entry just makes it more rewarding to those who are willing to do the work.

Mobile Apps

With rising CAC, and access to data and attribution becoming more scarce, three things are becoming increasingly valuable for DTC brands.

• Ownership of your traffic and audience
• Access to first-party data
• Low-cost, organic sales

Having your own mobile app gives you all three.

The mobile commerce market share continues to grow, with nearly 60% of all ecommerce sales worldwide, and 77% of all ecommerce traffic coming on smartphones.

More mobile shoppers means more opportunity to get people into your app, where they have a larger chance of becoming loyal, engaged, long-term customers.

‍App users convert at a higher rate, spend more in each order, and spend more over their lifetime.

And most importantly, an app gives you a direct line to your customers.

No filtering from a third party, no platform risk. Your brand is on their home screen, in their pocket, 24/7.

That kind of direct relationship with your customers today is invaluable.

Push Notifications

Push notifications are a large part of what makes mobile apps so powerful.

Push is the most direct, most effective way to communicate with your customers.

It’s:

• Cheap (basically free; no cost per message, usually just a monthly fee for a push notification service)
• Direct (your messages show up on the customer’s home screen)
• Low effort (easy to automate; minimal copy or creative required - see the potential of abandoned cart notifications)
• Effective (high visibility and engagement rates)

You’re probably not going to reach many new customers with push, since those who download your app and opt in are probably customers already.

But if your business has a lot of SKUs/variations, with high repeat purchase potential, you could leverage push notifications for a significant boost to LTV, which would offset rising advertising costs in other areas.

Email

Contrary to what you may have been told, email is not dead.

It’s definitely getting less effective. Inboxes are crowded, privacy laws are more strict.

But with the low cost of email, and (like push) the easy ability to set up evergreen, automated flows, the ROI of email is still very good.

And, also like push and mobile apps, it’s a channel you own. Though emails aren’t as direct, they’re still a straight line of communication to your customers, that you don’t rent from a social media platform or a marketplace.

These owned channels are crucial today.

If you’re not putting much thought or effort into email, perhaps it’s time to change that.

Think about how you can grow your list size, and send more emails to your list.

Some brands worry about sending too many emails to their list and upsetting customers, but today, most are guilty of the opposite.

It’s easier for people to pass over emails today, which means two things;

• People are less likely to unsubscribe if they get a lot of emails from your brand
• It takes more touchpoints to get someone to notice you

You might send four emails that the customer takes no notice of, but then the fifth gets through.

Luckily, there’s basically no extra cost involved. So email ends up being a low-cost, mid to high upside promotional channel.

Tl:dr; grow your list, send more emails. It won’t double your revenue, but the ROI is worth it.

SEO

SEO is another channel that many believe is dying (or is already dead).

But the truth is more nuanced.

Yes, SEO has been upended in the last couple of years, with the introduction of LLMs and AI overviews in search.

Yes, volatility seems to be higher than ever, and SEO-first businesses are becoming increasingly unstable.

But that just means more opportunity for ecommerce brands.

Like email, even if the ROI of SEO is dropping, it’s very good, considering the long-term value of ranking in Google and generating organic sales.

Yet the ROI for ecommerce may not actually be that much worse (or worse at all) than it used to be.

Google tends to prefer product pages, directly from brands, to informational posts like buying guides.

And the kind of searches that AI is eating up are the informational, low-intent searches; rather than high-intent searches from people looking to buy.

Perhaps best of all, the affiliate site model is dying, which may actually lower competition for your product niche overall.

It’s not worth the risk for affiliate sites getting a small return per conversion; but for a brand, there’s much higher upside.

AppLovin

AppLovin is a mobile advertising platform that’s starting to make real noise in ecommerce.

It operates a massive ad network, leveraging AI-driven ad placements across high-intent mobile users, particularly inside mobile games (a market boasting 2.6 billion users worldwide).

The AppLovin ecosystem is less saturated than Meta, leading to lower CPMs for many brands.

Nick Sharma said this about AppLovin in his newsletter:

“If you’re generally selling to net-new customers (bedding, leather goods, cookware, etc.), the channel works well. If you sell a consumable, you end up paying for customers you’ve already acquired, so the incremental new customer acquisition number is not that high.”

It remains to be seen whether AppLovin is a good long-term channel, but for those looking to experiment with something that’s not Meta, it’s worth looking into.

LinkedIn/Twitter

In DTC, it’s becoming increasingly important to think big picture about your brand, rather than focusing intently on immediate sales.

Founder-led content is starting to blow up right now. More founders and business leaders are posting; about their business, what their brand is doing, and the landscape in their industry.

While this kind of content probably isn’t going to drive sales, it can:

• Invite creative input from other founders and ecommerce leaders
• Build a small group of loyal followers of your brand, who contribute visibility via word-of-mouth
• Attract top talent to work with your brand
• Put your brand in front of VCs, angel investors and retail buyers

You might find it grows the overall footprint of your brand, and opens up partnerships that you would have struggled to secure otherwise.

Again, you’re not going to build a profitable sales channel on LinkedIn (unless maybe your target buyers are founders and professionals).

It’s about as top of funnel as it gets (perhaps not even in the funnel at all).

But posting about your process, wins, struggles, and insights is an interesting approach that comes with little downside, and potentially huge upside.

Marketplaces

Marketplaces are not a new channel; and building your business around selling on marketplaces is not the most stable strategy.

But they’re still a good way to grow visibility for your brand.

We’re talking platforms like:

• Amazon
• Shopify’s Shop app
• Walmart
• Nordstrom
• Revolve
• Best Buy

These platforms come with their own audience, a pre-built sales engine you can tap into.

There are downsides as well. Margins are typically less, you have less control, you don’t own your traffic, and they’re essentially a black box for analytics.

You’ll have to weigh up whether the upside is worth it.

While some brands prefer to keep everything DTC, on their own site, and in their control, others will find the benefits of being on a platform like Amazon (and having access to more than 2 billion monthly visitors) are too hard to pass up.

Direct Mail

Finally, while all your competitors are going high-tech with automated ads run by a Deepseek agent, you could consider expanding your brand with low-tech engagement.

There’s been growing chatter in the ecommerce industry around direct mail.

Yes – people still have mail boxes, and businesses still send marketing material to those mail boxes.

Direct mail has 90% open rates, and it stays in your customers’ consciousness for longer.

And unlike other channels, it’s becoming less saturated, as most brands are going fully digital.

You’re not going to run your whole business through physical mail, but it could be an interesting wrinkle to add incremental revenue and increase margins.

Final Thoughts: Are Meta/Google/TikTok Finished?

To sum up, we just want to say that we’re not suggesting you should ignore big channels like Meta.

These channels are still the most effective way to get new customers.

You just can’t compare to their reach, or their algorithm, even if the cost is getting crazy high.

But a smart strategy is to mix in alternative channels to offset the cost.

Low-cost channels like mobile apps, push notifications, SEO and email may provide valuable breathing room in terms of margins, allowing you to compete on Meta when other brands can’t.

You should also consider that not all your marketing has to be direct response.

Think bigger picture. Grow your brand.

A brand people recognize and love is what will keep you afloat when other brands drown.

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