Most beauty founders burn money on ads or time on content. TikTok, Instagram, influencers, all rented growth that keep CAC climbing and loyalty flat or content that converts too slow.
What they ignore is leverage they have with their 3rd growth engine: Advocacy.
But, what they miss is that advocacy is not just about community, it’s a strategy.
When engineered into your acquisition model, advocacy becomes a compounding engine: lowering CAC, fueling referrals, and turning every customer into a growth channel.
But here’s the trap: default advocacy is rarely enough. Unless it’s deliberately built into your solution, it fizzles out.
If advocacy isn’t engineered, you’re not building an engine, but you’re just plaing dice.
The 3 Scenarios Every Brand Faces
When it comes to acquisition, you’re really choosing between three paths:
Advocacy + Paid – Paid ads feed the advocacy funnel, creating scalable referrals.
Advocacy Only – Pure advocacy-led growth, no ad fuel.
Paid + Default Advocacy – Ads drive sales, advocacy is left to chance.
The numbers (3-year model):
Advocacy Only:
$225K revenue, 1,500 consumers, ROI 1400%, CAC $10Paid + Default Advocacy:
$250K revenue, 3,172 consumers, ROI 67%, CAC $47Advocacy + Paid:
$495K revenue, 4,800 consumers, ROI 200%, CAC $34
What the Math Shows
Advocacy Only delivers the best ROI but is limited in scale.
Paid + Default Advocacy is barely better than ads alone.
Advocacy + Paid isn’t the top ROI but delivers both scale and efficiency — effective CAC ($34) is far lower than ads-only ($50).
In other words:
Advocacy compounds.
Paid accelerates.
Together, they give you scale at a lower cost than ads alone.
Why Default Advocacy is a Dead End
The idea that “if my product is good, people will talk” is false. Even if your product is just short of absolutely amazing, default advocacy without structure & fundamentral drivers rarely moves beyond a threshold.
Opt-in is low.
Referral loops stall.
The chain dies after 1–2 cycles.
That’s why you see so many beauty brands stuck – spending on ads or content, hoping advocacy magically appears.
The Playbook
Engineer Advocacy Early
If you have no ad budget, start with advocacy. Build referral mechanics, incentives, and word-of-mouth loops into your first 500–1,000 customers.Feed Advocacy with Paid When You Can
Ads buy you scale. When those ad-acquired customers enter your advocacy funnel, CAC drops dramatically compared to paid alone.Track the Right Metrics
Don’t just watch paid CAC. Track effective CAC (paid + advocacy-fed). That’s what tells you if the system compounds.Optimize for Two Levers
Opt-in rate: % of customers who join the advocacy loop.
Referral coefficient: How many new customers each advocate refers.
These two variables determine if advocacy scales or fizzles.
Assumptions Behind the Model
These results are based on clear, comparable assumptions:
1. Advocacy (Paid-Fed)
Advocacy spend: $5,000
Paid spend: $50,000
Opt-in rate for referrals: 20%
Referral coefficient: 1.5
Initial customers from paid ads: 1,000 (Year 1)
Avg. Year 1 spend per customer: $120
Repeat purchase value: $150
Loyalty (annual repeat): 30%
Successive referral opt-in: 50%
Successive referral coefficient: 2
- CAC: $17
2. Advocacy Only
Advocacy spend: $5,000
No paid spend
Opt-in rate for referrals: 20%
Referral coefficient: 1.5
Initial referred customers: 250 (Year 1)
Avg. Year 1 spend per customer: $120
Repeat purchase value: $150
Loyalty (annual repeat): 30%
Successive referral opt-in: 50%
Successive referral coefficient: 2
CAC: $20
3. Default Advocacy
Spend: $0
No structured advocacy spend
Opt-in rate for referrals: 5%
Referral coefficient: 1.0
Referred customers: 50
Avg. Year 1 spend per customer: $120
Repeat purchase value: $100
Loyalty (annual repeat): 30%
Successive referral opt-in: 20%
Successive referral coefficient: 1
CAC: $0
4. Paid (Ads Only)
Paid spend: $50,000
No advocacy spend
No opt-in or referral loop
Initial customers from paid ads: 1,000 (Year 1)
Avg. Year 1 spend per customer: $50
Repeat purchase value: $100
Loyalty (annual repeat): 25%
CAC: $50
Summary of Acquisition Model-CLICK THE TABS FOR COMPARISON-wait a few seconds to load
Conclusion
Advocacy, when engineered as a strategy, compounds. It lowers CAC, fuels loyalty, and builds a self-feeding acquisition engine.
Default advocacy is not as significant.
Advocacy-only proves efficiency but risks stalling.
Advocacy + Paid is the only path that balances ROI with scalability.
If you want to build a beauty brand that lasts, you don’t get to choose between advocacy and acquisition. You need both – advocacy to compound, paid for speed of scale. Together, sustainable speed of scale.
The question isn’t should you build advocacy into your model. The question is how significant is the impact.