Scaling to $300M+: Paid Media, Attribution & Building Teams That Win

Rob Schmidt’s two telemedicine brands, Winona and Willow, now generate over $300 million annually and burn roughly $300 K a day on Meta ads, with total media spend climbing toward $10 million each month. Managing that scale forces a shift from relying on platform‑only metrics to a more scientific approach. He highlights the limitations of iOS‑14‑affected data and the need for third‑party tools, but ultimately stresses that true growth comes from a unified view of the media mix across Meta, Google, Taboola, Pinterest, CTV and emerging channels.

To cut through the noise, Schmidt built an internal marketing‑science platform that pulls raw click data into Airtable, then layers seven‑day, thirty‑day and custom attribution windows side‑by‑side. This lets his team compare last‑click, first‑click and linear models without over‑reacting to any single metric. By monitoring blended CAC, CPA and incremental acquisition cost, they can allocate budget to the channels that truly move the needle. He also argues that direct‑response tactics must dominate early‑stage growth, while brand ownership—especially for CTV and linear TV—supports long‑term credibility in the regulated consumer‑medicine space.

Scaling to this level also required a cultural shift. Schmidt stresses hiring flexible, opinionated leaders who can own outcomes, allowing him to delegate and focus on strategic bets such as new, view‑based channels. He runs geo‑holdout experiments to gauge incrementality before committing large budgets, and treats brand as a safety net for impression‑driven media. Personally, he aims to retire early, pursue politics and foster‑care initiatives, but continues to iterate on his teams and technology. The lesson for fast‑growing marketers: combine data‑driven attribution with empowered teams to sustain multi‑million‑dollar media engines.