Why Your Previous Agency Couldn’t Scale Your CPG Business

As a consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand grows, so do the stakes. What worked at $5M in revenue doesn’t always hold at $50M. Many brands reach a breaking point with their agency partners—not because the agency was bad, but because it wasn’t built for scale.

While the examples in this article skew D2C, the challenges outlined here often span omnichannel models—especially as brands grow into retail distribution and require more integrated support.

Power Digital works with dozens of CPG brands who’ve made the switch from boutique agencies after hitting a ceiling. The story is familiar: a burst of early success, followed by stagnation, rising customer acquisition cost (CAC), and a scramble for more sophisticated support.

Here’s why that happens—and how to avoid it.

As CPG brands scale, success depends on more than creative. It requires business acumen, data infrastructure, and market strategy.

Based on client analysis at Power Digital in early 2025, one brand explained the shift this way:

“Power Digital is my third arm. I don’t have to micromanage. They operate as a seamless extension of our team, which frees me up to focus on strategy, not task management.”

Most boutique agencies aren’t built to serve as strategic growth partners. That gap becomes painfully clear when growth slows and the pressure to prove ROI intensifies.

To learn more about common early-stage mistakes, explore 10 CPG Marketing Mistakes to Avoid.

Scaling a CPG business involves more than product-market fit. It requires advanced segmentation, omnichannel attribution, LTV modeling, and media mix diversification. That means aligning your martech stack with actionable insight.

If your agency can’t work inside your CRM, interpret your cohort analysis, or help forecast based on contribution margin, you’re flying blind.

As highlighted in The Hidden Pitfalls of In-House Marketing, even internal teams sometimes fall into this trap, thinking more tools equal more clarity. Without the expertise to extract insight, the data becomes noise.

What to look for in a scale-ready agency:

What moved the needle last year may barely register this year. TikTok, Amazon( and other retail media ads), affiliate marketing, and Out of Home (OOH) are all critical channels for modern CPG brands. Yet many agencies stick to the same tired Meta and Google playbook because it’s what they know.

Our blog on TikTok’s Impact on Amazon in CPG outlines how social-driven awareness now directly affects marketplace conversions. That’s a key shift. Your agency needs to think full-funnel, not just in siloed tactics.

One client put it simply:

“They’re [Power Digital] is not just a vendor, they’re a business partner. Their team helps us make smarter decisions, challenge assumptions, and stay ahead of the curve. We rely on them not just for execution, but for real insight.”

The bottom line is if your agency isn’t evolving its channel expertise, they can’t help you evolve your brand.

CPG growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Your paid media performance affects retail sell-through. Your DTC funnel informs retail expansion. It’s all connected.

Unfortunately, many smaller agencies only play in the DTC sandbox. That means your retail strategy gets ignored, even though it could be the biggest growth lever you have.

Sophisticated CPG brands need partners who understand:

As we detail in Why High Sales Expectations Hold Food Brands Back, not aligning retail and digital creates a false narrative of channel performance, and that disconnect costs growth.

Just take it from Makenna Sekeres, Account Director at Power Digital who points out that “brands tend to view their online sales as mutually exclusive to retail expansion. . When a company launches in major retailers like Target, Walmart, or Amazon, their DTC sales are likely to see a decline as the options to purchase have now been expanded. But instead of seeing this as a failure, they need to look at the full omnichannel picture.”

Many agencies simply can’t scale fast enough to keep up with you. When your brand crosses a certain threshold, you don’t just need more people you need the right people, systems, and specialization. That means a cross-functional team of performance marketers, creative strategists, retention experts, data analysts, and Amazon pros: all operating under a shared roadmap, not in silos.

If your agency still runs on a generalist model with one strategist wearing five hats and zero automation or reporting infrastructure? That’s not scale. That’s a stall.

Things you may want to ask yourself:

If not, it’s time for a QBR-level audit. We’ll benchmark your team’s current capabilities and flag where they’re falling short so you can stop settling for reactive strategy and start scaling with intention.

One client summed it up this way:

“I’ve worked with a lot of agencies. Power is the first one I’d proactively recommend to my network. That says everything.”

Here’s a short checklist for CPG brands looking to break the plateau:

If two or more of these apply, you may have outgrown your current agency.

Your brand isn’t broken. Your ambition isn’t unrealistic. But scaling from $5M to $50M plus takes more than hustle and creative energy. It takes infrastructure, insight, and orchestration.

If your previous agency couldn’t scale with you, it’s not a failure. It’s a sign that you’re ready for a different kind of partner. One built not just for today’s performance, but for tomorrow’s trajectory.

Learn more about how our Digital Marketing Services support high-growth CPG brands, or connect with a Digital Marketing Agency that brings data, clarity, and strategy to the table from day one.