The 3 Shifts That Broke Traditional Growth
AI changed the economics. First-party data became the moat. Creative velocity became the multiplier. Here is what that means for your growth strategy.
Robbie Jack•Dec 05, 2024The 3 Shifts That Broke Traditional Growth
The playbook that worked in 2019 is dead. Not dying. Dead. If your agency or growth team is still running the old strategies, you're bleeding money on approaches that the platforms have fundamentally broken.
Three seismic shifts changed everything about how growth actually works.
Shift 1: AI Changed the Economics
What took a team of five people now takes one person with the right AI tools. This isn't hype—it's math.
Think about the traditional growth team: a media buyer, a copywriter, a designer, an analyst, and someone to coordinate them all. Each person handling their piece of the workflow, with handoffs and meetings and delays at every step.
Now imagine one person with AI-native workflows handling creative generation, performance analysis, competitive research, and reporting. Not replacing the thinking—augmenting it. The AI handles the repetitive production work while the human focuses on strategy and judgment.
The agencies still billing you for headcount are selling the old model. They have five people doing what one person with AI can do. You're paying for inefficiency.
Shift 2: First-Party Data Is the New Moat
Cookies are dying. iOS privacy changes broke attribution. Ad blockers are everywhere. If you're still relying on pixel-based tracking, you're probably missing 30% of your conversions.
Companies with clean first-party data pipelines outperform by 40% on CAC. They know which channels actually drive revenue. They can optimize based on real data instead of platform guesswork.
Server-side attribution isn't optional anymore. It's table stakes. The companies that invested early now have data moats that their competitors can't easily replicate.
Shift 3: Creative Velocity Is the Multiplier
The algorithm decides who sees your ads now. Detailed audience targeting is a liability, not an asset. Platforms want creative—lots of it—and they'll find the right people for each piece. Creative velocity has become the primary competitive advantage.
The companies still "optimizing" five static ads per month are getting crushed by competitors producing dozens of variants weekly.
Volume wins because you find winners faster. More creative means more hypotheses tested. More tests mean faster learning. Faster learning means compounding improvement.
Why Traditional Agencies Can't Adapt
Most agencies built their entire business model around the old world. They have headcount-based pricing, waterfall creative processes, and teams that don't know how to use AI tools effectively.
So they keep running 2019 plays. They keep billing you for work that AI could do in a fraction of the time.
The shift is here. The companies that recognize it are pulling ahead.
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