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- How Olipop Made $200m Without Paid Ads
How Olipop Made $200m Without Paid Ads
Influencer Marketing Approach, Organic TikTok Funnel, Affiliate Program

Hey, legends!
Hope you’re smashing your quarter-two targets and staying away from the vanity metrics 🥸. I can’t believe it’s nearly June!
I’m changing things up a little with this edition. I’m going deeper into a specific strategy that made Olipop over $200m last year, rather than unpacking their entire digital strategy in one newsletter. Let me know if you find this format valuable.
Let’s dive in 🙂 🙏
- Dev
In today’s edition, this is what I’m covering:
Olipop’s origin story
Olipop’s grounding-breaking influencer marketing strategy
Authentic and organic approach
Organic TikTok Funnel Breakdown
Examples of their product placement videos
Affiliate program that supports its social influencer approach
Olipop’s tech-stack list
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FEATURE CASE STUDY
Olipop’s Origin Story

Olipop was founded in 2017 by Ben Goodwin and David Lester with the vision of creating a healthier alternative to traditional sodas. Inspired by Goodwin's transformative dietary journey as a teenager, the duo aimed to support gut health through a delicious, prebiotic soda. Despite initial scepticism, they launched Olipop, which features low sugar and high fibre content. The brand quickly gained traction, raising over $50 million in funding and expanding to over 30,000 retail stores. Olipop's success is mainly driven by its authentic influencer marketing on TikTok and a focus on meeting consumer demand for healthier beverage options.
They are operating and building in a larger functional beverage market of $265 billion category. With a unique offering that is aimed at solving a specific gut-health problem, people are resonating.
THE STRATEGY
Ditching Traditional Influencer Marketing
Initially, Olipop went the traditional route, teaming up with Instagram creators before the iOS tracking changes. Influencers got scripts, product info, and discount codes to drive sales to Olipop's site. But in 2021, Apple's app tracking changes threw a wrench in evaluating their IG partnerships and paid media effectiveness.
Olipop then shifted its focus entirely to influencer marketing on TikTok, dedicating its entire advertising budget to creator partnerships, organic content, and overall investment in the platform.
As they switched to TikTok as their main channel, they cut all paid social ads after noticing higher media costs and better results on TikTok.
CONTENT MARKETING
Opting for an Unfiltered, Authentic Approach

Olipop focuses on creating organic content through influencer partnerships, where their partner creators help create and distribute. They ditched the overly scripted promos, allowing creators to showcase their ideas and personality. Unsurprisingly, this has been a huge affinity driver at the top of the funnel. They made this work for their brand in two ways:
They work with 30-40 creators each month, who create and place their products in their everyday content (lifestyle videos and ASMR fridge restocks are popular). The goal is to maximise views and engagement rather than based on last-click sales.
Recruit creators to be the face of the brand — they hired TikToker, Sara Crane, to run their account full-time. Sara came with her own following and created content from a creator's perspective, not some corporate BS. Personalizing the brand like this helped them vibe way better with their audience on TikTok. Sara's authentic, relatable content felt organic and engaging, which helped drive more engagement and sales!
TIKTOK ORGANIC FUNNEL
They Generated 1.3 Billion Views at $0.61 CPM on Tiktok

Olipop's content journey carefully considers each stage of its customer journey. Their content focuses on getting noticed through to sparking interest to try & buy, here's how they do it:
TOF Strategy: Subtly create awareness of Olipop through seamless product placement.
Organic product placement → partner with 30-40 creators who feature their products in their regular content. The brand's #OlipopPartner hashtag has amassed over 1.3 Billion views.
Creator-led content → Hire creators as in-house strategists to run their TikTok accounts because they understand what works natively and are good at creating relatable, content from a creator’s perspective.
Focus on entertainment and education → designed to entertain, and educate rather than push sales. The goal is to build affinity and trust that can be used later.
Metrics measured → Views & engagement. They’ve achieved 1.3 billion views at a cost-effective CPM of $0.61
MOF Strategy: Showing how Olipop can be used.
How the product is used → show how Olipop fits into recipes and different lifestyles
Building a community → This content is created to encourage interaction to fuel loyalty and keep their community’s attention.
Metrics measured → Organic search volume. Increased organic search traffic shows growing interest and engagement. Olipop’s search volume increased from 20k to over 150k per month.
BOF Strategy: Communicating where to get Olipop from.
Content provides information on where to buy Olipop → often includes links to the product page and mentions of retailers.
Focus on purchase intent → Although attribution is difficult to understand from an online to offline journey they keep an eye on visits to their store locator page and retail sales velocities as a barometer of purchase intent.
Metrics measured → Retail sales growth. Growth on TikTok has seen them increase their sales by x2-x3 times in key retailers.
PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Subtlety > Promotional Messages
Rather than relying on flashy promo codes and overtly promotional videos, Olipop has embraced a more relaxed approach, seamlessly featuring their products in a non-intrusive manner.
Influencers are simply requested to incorporate Olipop cans into their usual content without overshadowing the main focus. This laid-back method has proven incredibly effective, producing authentic ads that viewers genuinely enjoy. The result? High engagement rates and unwavering brand loyalty.
Here are a couple of examples to give you a taste of what that looks like:
@kimnlizasmr I was eating Popeyes with my mom when this happened… #fyp #foryoupage #olipoppartner @drinkolipop #food #foodie #eat #eating #mukbang #din... See more
@mariandcandicee Seafood Stairs w/ @drinkolipop 🔥🦞 #olipoppartner
AFFILIATE PROGRAM
Dedicated Affiliate Program To Reach A Wider Audience

With their refined offering, investing time in Olipop over other affiliate programs becomes a no-brainer. They offer a solid baseline commission of 10%, with top performers reaping rewards of up to 20% commission. It's a win-win for both affiliates and Olipop.
Their affiliate program works well because:
Structure: They have a dedicated affiliate page that provides clear information, benefits, and commission structure and is easy to sign up without more admin work.
Incentives: The program offers a 7-day click referral window, regular promotional offers/coupon codes, product samples for select partners, and a dedicated program management/support team.
Diversifying channels: Despite having a strong presence on TikTok. This program attracts and encourages affiliates to promote across various channels like blogs, newsletters, and podcasts → helping them capture a wider audience.
Measuring success: Partners can measure their performance in the backend, allowing them an opportunity to optimise their approach and get paid more.
DIGITAL TOOLS
Olipop’s Tech Stack
Their stack highlights Olipop's focus on e-commerce, marketing automation, customer engagement, and sustainable growth for their DTC strategy, here’s the list:
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