The rise of plant-based living and convenience-first lifestyles has created the perfect environment for meal kit brands to thrive. With consumer interest at an all-time high, there’s no shortage of opportunity in the space, but that doesn’t mean growth is guaranteed.

In reality, many meal kit brands are struggling to turn awareness into action, and one-time purchases into loyal, long-term customers. Customer acquisition is becoming more competitive, creative is often underperforming, and churn rates remain a persistent challenge.

At PinPoint Media, we’ve seen first-hand how a thoughtful, performance-driven strategy, supported by creative that genuinely resonates, can change the growth trajectory of a brand.

One such example is Planthood, a chef-led, plant-based meal kit brand committed to delivering flavour-first, healthy meals across the UK. By working together across Paid Social, Paid Search, and Creative, we helped Planthood build a scalable strategy rooted in their brand values, while delivering measurable, repeatable results.

The Challenge: Scaling Without Sacrificing Identity

Planthood wasn’t just looking to increase visibility. As a premium, subscription-based business, they needed to:

• Acquire high-quality, high-intent customers

• Improve retention and customer lifetime value (LTV)

• Scale advertising efficiently without compromising authenticity

• Build a recognisable, trusted brand presence across platforms

In short, growth had to be strategic, not opportunistic.

Our Approach: A Full-Funnel, Cross-Channel Strategy

To meet these goals, we developed a performance marketing strategy that integrated both Paid Social and Paid Search, supported by creative that felt relatable, human, and true to the Planthood brand.

Paid Social: Building Trust Through Relatable Content

Our Paid Social campaigns focused on Meta and TikTok, leaning heavily into UGC-style creative that reflected how people actually engage with content online. This included:

• Informal kitchen demos and product walkthroughs

• Customer testimonials that felt like genuine recommendations

• Scroll-stopping static and carousel ads designed to educate and engage

We also implemented a full-funnel structure, from awareness-building through to retargeting and conversion. Creative was tailored to each stage of the journey, ensuring that messaging stayed relevant and compelling.

Crucially, we worked closely with Planthood to maintain brand consistency, so that even the most performance-driven ads still reflected their purpose-led ethos.

Paid Search: Capturing Intent with Google Ads

While Paid Social helped to build demand, our Paid Search strategy on Google was designed to capture existing intent. We targeted users actively searching for plant-based or vegan meal solutions, using:

• Audience insights to shape keyword targeting

• Persuasive, benefit-led copy aligned with Planthood’s tone

• A mix of branded and non-branded campaigns to maximise reach

The combination of creative precision and performance optimisation helped drive high-quality traffic with strong conversion potential, particularly important for a subscription model where LTV is a key metric.

Results That Speak for Themselves

Over a 12-month period, our integrated strategy delivered significant growth for Planthood across multiple performance metrics:

• Revenue increased by 422%

• Customer lifetime value (LTV) rose by 243%

• Cost-per-purchase fell by 37%

• Return on ad spend (ROAS) reached 5.7x

• During Veganuary, new sign-ups increased by 427%

On the Paid Search side, we also saw:

• A 42% increase in new customer sales

• A 45% uplift in new customer revenue

• A 17% reduction in cost-per-acquisition (CPA)

These results were not driven by isolated tactics, they were the outcome of a joined-up strategy, combining creative, data, and optimisation in real time.

Why This Approach Works for Meal Kit Brands

Planthood’s success offers valuable lessons for other meal kit brands looking to scale. It demonstrates the importance of aligning performance marketing with brand values, and of building a creative engine that adapts to audience behaviour across platforms.

Key takeaways for other meal kit businesses include:

• Invest in full-funnel thinking
  Awareness is important, but without a path to conversion, it's wasted spend. Mapping creative and messaging to every stage of the customer journey is critical.
  
  
  

• Prioritise authenticity in creative
  Content that looks and feels native to the platform—especially user-generated content, builds trust and drives higher engagement.
  
  
  

• Use performance metrics beyond CPA
  Focusing solely on acquisition cost can be short-sighted. Metrics like lifetime value and retention provide a more accurate view of long-term growth.
  
  
  

• Collaborate closely across strategy and brand
  Performance marketing doesn’t have to compromise brand identity. In fact, the strongest results come when strategy and storytelling are fully aligned.

Building a Growth Engine That Lasts

At PinPoint Media, we don’t just run ads, we help brands grow. Whether you’re at an early stage or looking to scale an established subscription model, we build strategies that are creative, measurable, and made to last.

If your brand is ready for the next phase of growth, and you’re looking for a team that understands both performance and storytelling, let’s talk.

Get in touch to find out how we can help you build your own growth engine.