FARMER'S DOGHow The Farmer’s Dog scaled video 12x and kept CAC on target
When Eden began working with The Farmer’s Dog in 2020, the DTC pet food company had built its early growth through search, paid social, and direct-response television.
Over the next six years, Eden evolved the media model as the business and media landscape changed.
The ChallengEAs The Farmer’s Dog grew, the media model needed to grow with it.
The Farmer’s Dog managed its business to strict weekly CAC forecasts, which constrained the strategy into a performance-centric media model attributing individual spots and impressions to CPA outcomes. Forecasting sales based primarily on spend favored highly efficient, lower-cost media, making it difficult to take big swings and justify the significantly higher CPMs of Broadcast TV and premium CTV.
As investments grew, cable began reaching many of the same people more often. While the performance-centric model delivered impressions against immediate CPA goals, expanding the business required introducing new media models, new platforms, and evolving measurement systems to justify higher-profile, higher-priced media programs.
Reaching an expanded audience meant investing in inventory, such as broadcast, live sports and streaming platforms , where CPMs were higher. The Farmer’s Dog needed to know whether the added reach could support sales without giving up its CAC efficiency targets.
THE INSIGHTReach had the strongest relationship with sales.
Eden modeled spend, impressions, and reach against weekly sales to isolate the drivers of business growth.
Spend showed diminishing returns. Impressions showed a flat relationship with sales. Reach showed a stronger relationship.
WHAT CHANGEDA video plan built around incremental reach
Eden shifted the media plan toward incremental reach and began testing higher reach media including Prime Broadcast and live sports through NFL opportunistic playoff placements. The results gave the team evidence that sports could introduce the brand to new audiences while supporting its acquisition goals.
When a Super Bowl opportunity arose, Eden first advised The Farmer’s Dog to wait. The timeline was short, and the team questioned whether the company could capture the full value of the investment.
Three conditions changed the decision:
The NFL tests had produced a strong response.
The retreat of crypto advertisers after the 2022 “Crypto Bowl” opened a Super Bowl spot at a rare negotiated rate.
The company had a 60-second that captured the lifelong bond between a child and her dog, with added resonance after the pandemic-era surge in pet adoption.
Eden and The Farmer’s Dog moved forward. The Super Bowl became one part of a larger video system built around audience reach, weekly sales, and business growth.
Eden used the findings to build the following year’s plan around Sunday Night Football, the X Games, and other sports and cultural moments. A base of more efficient “always on” video media supported those larger tentpole investments.
As viewership began the rapid shift to CTV, we also followed the opportunities there. We supported all this by integrating iSpot to manage Linear/CTV duplication and focus CTV very closely on building frequency against light viewers and reaching net new audiences
THE RESULTSMedia spend scaled 12x while CAC stayed on target
Across the six-year partnership, media spend scaled 12x, from $10 million to $120 million, while The Farmer’s Dog continued to meet its strict CAC goals.
The Super Bowl placement generated record site traffic within 24 hours. Subscriptions increased while customer acquisition targets held. Earned media extended the impact for weeks, and brand sentiment sharply rose.
The placement also established a new reach benchmark. Eden used that benchmark to guide future plans, replicating the reach without the need for another Super Bowl-sized investment. Across the partnership, Eden evolved the media plan and measurement model to support increasingly high-profile investments.