Baby & Kids
Your customer's needs change every few months, whether you do or not.
Consumables reorder on a clock. Clothing and equipment get outgrown and replaced by the next size up. Gifting buyers arrive once and leave. Three patterns, one catalogue, one blended target.
Why this changes the advertising decision
What is different here isn't the channel. It's the economics underneath it.
Consumables reorder on a predictable cycle
Nappies, wipes and formula are a subscription whether or not you sell them as one. Acquisition should be priced against the cycle.
Size progression is built-in churn and built-in repeat
The same customer returns for a different SKU. Product-level performance misses a relationship that is running perfectly well.
Gifting buyers rarely return
Gift demand converts well and does not repeat. Counted as acquisition, it inflates the customer numbers you plan against.
Safety and compliance constrain the message
Regulated categories limit claims and assets, which changes what competing for the query costs.
One product, one decision
The decision looks like this.
Illustrative example. Not a client result.
Sleep bag, 2.5 tog, 6-18m
- Contribution
- Solid
- Repeat pattern
- Next size up
- Gifting share
- High in Q4
- Stock cover
- Seasonal
What changed
Customers reliably returning for the next size.
The SKU is ordinary. The customer relationship it starts is not, so it earns entry-point treatment rather than a margin target.
Nothing here happens automatically. The data flags the change; the job change is a decision we make with you.
What we do about it
The execution follows the economics, not the other way round.
Customers are followed across sizes
Repeat purchase is measured at customer level, so size progression counts as the repeat business it is.
Gifting is measured separately
Seasonal gift demand is not allowed to masquerade as underlying customer acquisition in the numbers you plan on.
Consumables get a cycle-based target
Reorder cycles come from your own data and set what a first order can be paid for.
Evidence
+83%
Wilsons Pet Food
Customer lifetime value, measured on subscription cohorts rather than modelled in the ad platform.
Pet food rather than baby, but the identical commercial shape: a consumable on a reorder cycle where measured cohort value changed the acquisition decision.
- Period
- Year on year, after the commercial restructure.
- Basis
- Contribution measured after COGS and shipping. Lifetime value measured on subscription cohorts, not modelled in the ad platform.
- Source
- Client account and subscription data, client-reported.
The Method - BOI®
How BOI® applies here.
The problem
Consumable basics, gifting and outgrown-cycle replacements each carry a different repeat signal.
The BOI® answer
Consumables run as Scale against reorder behaviour. Gifting runs as Profit. Entry staples run as Gateway.
Next step
We'll tell you what your account is doing to your baby & kids margin.
A commercial review reads your account against your own product economics, and tells you where the next pound should go. Brands we work with typically spend around £10k a month on Google Ads, but that is guidance, not a gate. If you are below it and the question is real, ask anyway.
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