The IAB’s playbook for driving success in the direct-brand revolution

Direct brands are disrupting almost every consumer-facing category – and also transforming the marketing playbook.

The playbook for direct brands, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), begins with cost-per acquisition (CAC) and ends with the lifetime value (LTV) of customers.

“Direct brands have replaced the purchase funnel of old with a new purchase funnel,” reports Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the IAB, with the more agile model supplanting “the long-term process that brings consumers from brand awareness to preference to intent to purchase.

“This CAC-to-LTV chain is the essence of the direct brand lifecycle,” he told some 1,400 delegates at the trade organization’s 2019 Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM). “It also characterizes their primary difference from...

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