MaryRuth’s was spending $200K/month on AppLovin and ready to cut it. Then they discovered they were only measuring 20% of its impact.

Hey everyone,

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

When a new ad channel doesn't perform, most teams assume it's the platform. They cut budget, refocus on Meta, and move on.

But sometimes the problem isn't the channel, it's how you're measuring it.

Wyatt Lowe, VP of Growth at MaryRuth's Organics, spent months testing a new platform with all the right ingredients: proven product, winning creatives, real budget. 

But the numbers looked weak, and he was ready to pull the plug.

Then he dug into the data and realized he'd been measuring the wrong thing the entire time.

MaryRuth's is one of the fastest-growing vitamin and supplement brands in the U.S., but their business doesn't look like most DTC brands. And how they measured it almost cost them their best new acquisition channel.

Today, we'll walk through what MaryRuth's learned about attribution, ad dependency, and creative volume, and what other operators can take from it.

🍽 On the Menu:

You can watch the whole conversation with Wyatt here:

Listen on Spotify 🎧 and Apple 🍎 as well.

In October, MaryRuth's started testing AppLovin, the ad platform that runs full-screen video ads inside mobile games and apps.

They launched with their hero product (Liquid Morning Multivitamin + Hair Growth) and their best Meta creatives. One SKU, clean offer, real budget.

But by January, Wyatt was spending $200K/month. Shopify numbers looked weak. He thought it was time to cut it.

But before pulling the plug, he stepped back. 

MaryRuth's isn't built like other DTC brands. They aren't "Shopify-first." Their revenue split looks more like this:

For three months, he'd been judging AppLovin on Shopify alone—measuring 20% of the channel's actual impact.

Working with the AppLovin team, they dug into where the impact was actually going. They brought Amazon and retail data into their media mix models.

The result: 80% of AppLovin's impact was driving Amazon—their biggest channel. Wyatt was about to cut a platform based on weak Shopify numbers while it was crushing it on Amazon, where most of their revenue actually happens.

They even saw it in retail. During a Buy 2, Get 1 Free promo, Whole Foods got calls from customers asking about the deal they'd seen in AppLovin ads. Attribution missed it, but it was real.

Here's the lesson: launching strategically means nothing if you measure wrong.

To avoid this:

When you test, start with your #1 product and best creatives. Give platforms 3-4 months minimum. But most importantly, map where revenue actually happens across all channels, then measure there.

MaryRuth's launched right but measured wrong for three months. Once they fixed measurement, AppLovin became a core channel. If your business makes money outside Shopify, Shopify attribution will kill your winners.

AppLovin is an AI-powered ad network that places your ads in mobile games and apps, reaching users during moments of high engagement. 

The platform reaches 42% of the mobile gaming market. Instead of targeting by demographics, the AI learns which users are most likely to convert based on their actual behavior patterns across millions of apps.

Until a few weeks ago, it was invite-only. And the brands who had access are hitting 2-4x ROAS consistently, with 80% of purchases happening within 24 hours. Some have made it their #1 traffic source in under 30 days.

Now that access is open, those same results are available to any DTC brand.

To help, we built the complete launch guide for brands scaling on AppLovin. It’s everything you need: 

On top of the guide, you also get direct intros to top-performing account reps and $5,000 in ad credits (with qualifying spend)..

Get the complete AppLovin launch guide + $5K credits →

Wyatt has a test for whether you're ready to diversify: "Can you turn ads off tomorrow and survive?"

If your business dies when ads stop, you're not ready for new channels. You have a dependency problem to fix first.

Most brands don't pass this test. When Meta costs spike, they panic and scatter budget across five platforms. Budgets are too small. Learning windows too short. 

They call it diversification, but it's just desperation spread thin.

MaryRuth's waited until the foundation was solid:

✅ Meta was profitable

✅ Organic sales and repeat revenue were healthy

✅ Email, SMS, and affiliate channels drove consistent returns

✅ The business could survive without paid ads.

Only then did they test AppLovin.

When you're not desperate, you can test properly. Real budgets. Real timelines. Real learning. 

Wyatt calls diversification a scale play, not a survival tactic. You earn the right to test by building a business that doesn't need new channels to survive.

Once that exists, new channels amplify what's working. Without it, adding more paid channels just spreads the dependency thinner.

Here's what readiness looks like: the business generates revenue when ads are off, email and SMS drive repeat purchases, you have margin to test without pulling from core channels, and organic or affiliate channels contribute consistently.

MaryRuth's built that foundation. That's why they could give AppLovin three months and real budget. They weren't testing to survive, they were testing to scale.

Fix dependency first. Test second.

MaryRuth's creative team produces 60 ads per week. For years, Meta got the bulk of them. That made sense. Meta was the core channel, the proven winner.

Then AppLovin started working. Wyatt expected to shift some creative over. Maybe 10-15 ads per week while Meta kept the majority.

The opposite happened. AppLovin now gets 20-30 ads per week. More than Meta.

"I didn't think I would ever say this," Wyatt said, "but it's actually AppLovin now that's more than that."

Here's what most brands get wrong: they assume the core channel always deserves the most creative. New channels get leftovers, test budgets, whatever's not being used on the main platform.

But algorithmic platforms don't work that way.

When a new channel starts performing, it needs MORE creative to keep scaling, not less. Meta, TikTok, Snapchat all work the same way. They need volume to find winners and optimize.

MaryRuth's had to completely flip their thinking.

They dropped the media buying tactics from 4-5 years ago. No more hyper-segmentation, complex campaign structures, manual adjustments. Creative became the entire strategy.

Now they burn through end cards constantly. Push their top 5 products across platforms. Test what works on Meta on other channels and vice versa. The optimization tactics differ, day zero versus day seven, cost per purchase versus ROAS. But the creative performs across all of them.

Wyatt calls it needing more water from the hose than even Meta.

The lesson isn't just that creative volume matters. It's that your newest channel might need the MOST creative to scale. If you can't produce 20+ ads per week and allocate based on performance rather than seniority, you're not ready to add channels.

MaryRuth's produces 60 ads weekly and sends the majority wherever results demand it. Right now, that's the newer platform, not the established one.

Build the creative engine big enough to feed multiple channels. Then follow performance, not assumptions.