Mapping a $200M category's real media mix before entering it

The Situation

A consumer electronics brand with an established DTC operation was preparing to enter the supplements market — a category it estimated at $200M in annual digital advertising spend among the top 20 players. The brand had supply chain advantages but no institutional knowledge of how supplement brands acquired customers online.

The strategy team needed competitive intelligence on incumbent ad spending before committing to a media plan. Specifically, they needed channel-level spend breakdowns: not just “how much” competitors were spending in aggregate, but “where” — across Meta, Google, TikTok, CTV, and programmatic display.

Publicly available data provided rough directional signals. Meta’s Ad Library showed active creatives but not spend levels. SimilarWeb offered traffic-based estimates — a useful but imprecise proxy. Neither provided the channel-level granularity the team required.

The Approach

Roblec mapped the top 15 brands in the supplements category by estimated monthly advertising spend across five channels: Meta, Google, TikTok, CTV, and programmatic display. The analysis covered a rolling six-month window to account for seasonality and promotional patterns.

For each brand, the output included estimated monthly spend by channel, month-over-month trends, and channel concentration ratios — the percentage of total spend allocated to each platform. This allowed the strategy team to see not just absolute spend levels but structural patterns in how the category invested.

The Finding

The category-level view revealed a pronounced concentration in Meta. Across the 15 mapped brands, Meta accounted for an average of 58% of total digital ad spend. Google represented 22%, TikTok 9%, and programmatic display 3%. CTV and remaining channels represented less than 8% combined.

Two findings were particularly relevant for market entry planning. First, the Meta concentration was consistent across both large and small players — suggesting an industry-wide reliance on a single channel rather than a strategic choice by individual brands. Second, only two of fifteen brands were investing meaningfully in CTV, despite the channel’s growing audience among the target demographic.

The CTV finding represented a whitespace opportunity: a less contested channel environment in a category where every brand was competing for the same Meta and Google inventory.

The Outcome

The strategy team used Roblec’s competitive intelligence to build a media plan that deliberately diverged from category norms. Rather than entering Meta-heavy and competing against incumbents on their strongest channel, the brand allocated 25% of its launch budget to CTV — more than three times the category average.

The rationale was data-informed: competing against established brands on Meta would require outspending them or accepting worse unit economics. CTV offered an opportunity to reach the same audience through a channel where incumbents had minimal presence.

The brand launched six months later. Early results from the CTV-heavy media mix showed customer acquisition costs 30% below initial projections — a direct benefit of advertising in a less competitive channel environment.