Nearly 3× New Customers. Revenue Up 122% with 500 LEVEL

01 - The Challenge

500 LEVEL had the demand: strong league licenses, a player-first point of view, and a calendar full of sports moments. What it lacked was a way to spend into that demand and acquire customers at scale, without wondering whether it was buying unprofitable growth.

Revenue-based signals looked promising, but they hid margin, variable costs, and the true economics of acquisition. Onward was brought in to own the growth side, and prove out every dollar.

02 - What We Did

Onward paired a real data warehouse with hands-on growth marketing. Nine-plus data sources were unified into one live view that updates every minute, every dollar was tracked to the customer, and spend was directed only where it earned a profitable return. Instead of optimizing to ROAS, we bought to contribution margin, so scaling became a math decision, not a nerve decision.

Nine-plus sources, one live view

On top of that ran a continuous creative-testing engine: assets, offers, and urgency timed to each sports moment, so the team could lean in or pull back while a window was still open, not after it closed.

03 - The Takeaway

Year-to-date, the D2C business is up bigtime, and the growth is the healthy kind. 19,000 new customers, nearly 3× last year's 6,900, pushing total customers acquired past 41,000, with revenue up 156% year-over-year. Best of all, the growth was profitable throughout, not bought with unprofitable spend.

ROAS tells you it's working. Contribution margin tells you if it's true.

Most brands can tell you their revenue. Far fewer can tell you whether that revenue is actually making them money after media spend, COGS, and channel fees. That gap makes scaling feel risky instead of exciting.

Are your media dollars optimizing for revenue, or for the profit that revenue actually generates? Only one of them builds a business you can confidently scale.

Reach out today to connect with Onward and start your growth marketing journey.

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