FIGS: Growth Marketing Deep Dive

Hey team!

Today I’m unpacking FIGS — a medical apparel brand.

FIGS is a medical apparel brand, who have found a niche and scaled it to the moon.

Who knew that medical apparel has a massive market with over $79b turning over annually? Still blows my mind every time I read it.

The Case Study

Here’s why this brand caught my attention:

• Hyper-focused niche with a strong brand identity

• 97% of sales are driven through DTC unlike competitors that rely on wholesale distributions

• I like how they partner with real professionals who make authentic content. The framework is smart and effective.

Today’s focus:

1. FIGs invests heavily in Google ads: I’ll break down their exact playbook & framework.

2. Developed a robust ambassador program: They take a grassroots approach and have built a really strong community with only 250 healthcare-oriented ambassadors.

3. Performance marketing approach with a bird’s eye view: How they use data and personalisation to influence their AOV & LTV

Let’s dive in!

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PAID MEDIA
Full-Funnel Approach Across Google Ads

Strategy:

FIGS allocates a substantial portion of its marketing budget to Google Ads, particularly focusing on YouTube and Google Shopping Ads.

What they did:

FIGS invests over 60% of its Google Ads budget on YouTube Ads, driving 1 million+ visitors to their site each month. By integrating these into Performance Max campaigns, they maximize brand visibility and retargeting opportunities.

Make sure they have clear product titles, images, prices, and reviews to enhance customer trust. This transparency improves user experience, increasing click-through rates and conversions.

Integrate display ads into their campaigns to retarget potential customers and reach a broader audience. Using Performance Max, they amplify their reach across various platforms easily.

This is how they structured their ad account and campaigns to run efficiently.

Why it worked:

This approach worked because it had multiple channels working together to drive higher average order values and lifetime values. Here’s a specific breakdown of how it all came together for them:

• YouTube expanded its reach and engaged potential customers at TOF. It also served as a strong retargeting layer, helping maintain strong a strong conversion rate.

• Shopping did the heavy lifting visually by providing all necessary information upfront, therefore reducing friction in the buyer’s journey and getting them to convert faster.

• Search & Display captured a broad audience and drove reach through Performance Max. It provided them with the omnipresence they needed to drive traffic alongside other activities.

KPIs to make sense of it all:

• After spending $1.4M, they generated 2M clicks

• With a conversion rate of 1.5%, this generated 29,446 sales, equating to $3.3 million in revenue.

• The customer acquisition cost (CAC) was $39, leading to a return on advertising spend (ROAS) of 2.9.

• About 50% of customers made a repeat purchase, contributing an additional $1.6M in revenue from this channel alone.

INFLUENCER MARKETING
Collaborating With Over 250 Healthcare Professionals to Build a Community

Strategy

FIGS has established a grassroots ambassador program, collaborating with approximately 250 healthcare professionals to build a strong community.

What they did:

FIGs aren’t just picking up influencers with big numbers - they’re handpicking healthcare pros who genuinely inspire and build real communities.

Focusing on passionate medical professionals who are already putting out authentic content and meaningful connections. These guys organically weave FIGS into their daily stories without pushing the message too hard.

This strategy pivot helped FIGS slash their customer acquisition costs by a massive 61%. Partnering with actual healthcare pros working 12-16 hour shifts creates genuine, trustworthy content that resonates deeply with their 1.5m active customers.

The Impact:

This approach has fostered social sharing, storytelling and intimate connections within the healthcare community. Goes without saying that brand loyalty gained from this naturally increases their LTV.

ACQUISITION
Performance Marketing Growth Engine

Strategy:

Using their analytics, FIGS prioritise understanding customer preferences and behaviours, allowing them to serve personalised marketing messages that might just stick.

Their ads focus on product quality, comfort, and relatable experiences, tapping into an emotional connection rather than utility.

Side note: They’ve been utilising discounts alongside their key ad angles, which are highly likely driven by their flat revenue trend last couple of years. Check out Drew Fallon’s FIGS financial breakdown below.

What they do:

Remarketing → Serve remarketing ads to people who have previously shown interest in their products, reminding them of items they viewed or added to their cart.

Paid SEM → Search and product listing ads to capture people actively searching for medical apparel online.

Paid Social →  Run targeted ads via paid social (mainly Meta & TikTok), often featuring real healthcare pros.

Content → Create SEO content that attracts healthcare professionals looking for medical apparel for work. They weave high-value keywords like "medical scrubs" and "healthcare apparel" into their site content with surgical precision. This isn't just random keyword stuffing - it's a targeted strategy to capture those valuable searches from healthcare pros hunting for premium medical wear.

Email → Maintain an email list to send newsletters, product updates, and exclusive offers typically personalised to a segment based on customer preference and purchase history

Push Notifications → Through their mobile app, FIGS sends push notifications to inform users about new product launches, promotions, and personalized recommendations.

The Impact:

As of 2024, they’ve generated $548m (with 97% through DTC via website, Amazon and other digital platforms). If you want to see the entire numbers breakdown then you should check out this tweet by Drew Fallon:

BRINGING IT HOME
WRAP-UP

Hope this case study helps you:

• Consider a full-funnel Google ads strategy and a proven framework to test

• Provide insight into how effective an ‘influencer’ or ‘ambassador’ program can be

• Either identifying gaps in your performance marketing or drawing inspiration to tweak your current strategy based on what FIGS is doing

If you enjoyed this, please share this newsletter or reply with thoughts/questions :)

Talk soon!

Dev 🤙

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