Read time: 4 minutes

Hey!

Sam here 👋

Are you tired of wasting time and money testing new acquisition channels that don’t work?

I get it.

We constantly hear about the next big channel, app, or community that will change the game.

It’s so easy to fall into the 🆘 (Shiny Object Syndrome) trap.

But — how do you know which channel fits best into your strategy?

Which variables should I consider before I invest time and money?

Read this before you spend thousands of dollars testing new channels.

Let’s dive into how to select the right channels for your business.

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3-step framework to evaluate channels

One of the biggest mistakes I see startups make is bringing their old playbook that worked for one channel into another.

Don’t expect one channel to behave the same as the next.

To select a new channel, we need a framework to help us evaluate, prioritize, and set us up for success.

Reforge has a great framework to help select a channel through 3 levels:

1. Channel-audience fit

2. Channel behaviors

3. Channel controls

This will help us avoid the trap of optimizing a channel that is completely misaligned.

Step 1: Channel-audience fit

⚠️ This is the most important element to get right.

At this level, we want to understand what’s our audience’s relationship with the channel to determine if it will help us grow.

Meaning: how does our audience experience this channel?

We’ll need to look into:

• ✅ KPIs impact

• ✅ User’s intent

• ✅ User’s reachability

• ✅ The channel’s context

• ✅ Your product’s use case

🧠 Questions you need to be asking in this step:

• Is our user hanging out on this channel?

• What are users doing in this channel?

• Does this channel make sense for our product’s use case?

• Are users visiting this channel while they are actively solving their problem?

• What is my user’s level of intent (interest, active engagement, near purchase), in this channel?

• What role does this channel play in my KPIs (acquisition, retention, or monetization)?

Example #1

Let’s take a channel like TikTok, where users go to this channel on their phone and look for videos of their friends and influencers.

This channel makes sense for products that solve a problem on a mobile device or are in a consideration window for the product when they visit an e-commerce platform.

On the other hand, this channel will be hard to work for a customer data platform, where customers typically like to do more in-depth research to evaluate and therefore tend to convert more on a desktop.

Choose a channel where customers are open to solving their problems, are actively engaging, and the environment creates purchase intent.

Example #2

If you want to tap into an unsaturated channel like Reddit, you need to consider the channel’s context and the user’s behavior.

Reddit's users value authenticity and historically have hated ads.

What do you do then?

You align with the community’s values, unique interests, and authentic conversations.

AllyBank got creative by promoting content specifically for the PlayStation subreddit.

Gamers do not respond well to banking ads, but they would relate to the research that goes into their gaming equipment.

This ad made them engage and question why they haven’t put the same thought into their bank.

Step 2: Channel behaviors

At this level, we want to evaluate the channel’s performance to determine if it would be worth it.

• ✅ Effort

• ✅ Scalability

• ✅ Time to see results

•  ✅ Maturity of channel

🧠 Questions you need to be asking in this step:

• What effort would it take to get this channel up and running?

• What’s the competition in this channel?

• How many users can we expect to get from this channel?

• How long will it take to see an impact?

Let’s look at one example.

RaiseMe would find it would be low effort and high scale to acquire students on Snapchat because there is a high volume of students on the platform.

To validate scale, you can use the channel’s targeting tool that gives you estimated audience size.

Step 3: Channel controls

In this step, we need to understand the channel's controls to evaluate performance over time.

How easy is it to:

• ✅ Measure results

• ✅ Reach your audience

• ✅ Adjust your approach

🧠 Questions you need to be asking in this step:

• Can we easily segment and target users in this channel?

• How easy is it to evaluate impact and measure results?

• Can we access data to know if our campaigns influenced behavior?

Bringing it all together

As you can see, there are several elements to consider when evaluating channel-audience fit, controls and behaviors:

• Strategic value

• Channel context

• Audience alignment

• Channel constraints

• Success potential

• Confidence it will work

• Learning opportunities

Use the 3-step framework to make the right decision.

That's all for now!

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Until next time 👋

Sam