--- title: "Global Expansion Enters Deeper Waters: Growth Without Brand Strength Borrows Against the Future" author: "Unique Research" sourcePublication: "Unique Research Substack" originalPublishedAt: "2026-03-24T14:49:02+00:00" canonical: "https://ffcap.cn/en/research/src-20260324-04html" source: "https://uniqueresearch.substack.com/p/src-20260324-04html" language: "en" --- # Global Expansion Enters Deeper Waters: Growth Without Brand Strength Borrows Against the Future _Original · Unique Research · 2026-03-24 · Shanghai_ _Editor's note: This complete English edition retains the author's March 2026 account and Elaine Li's views. The unnamed SaaS case reports monthly advertising spend rising from US$50,000 to US$150,000 and daily active users growing by less than 30%; those are different measures and do not establish revenue growth or a causal ROI result. The separate 50% spending/40% downloads example is not the same case. Market-wide cost and paying-user rankings have not been independently verified. The quoted recommendation calls North America and Brazil “two countries”; North America is a region, and the source supplies no ranking dataset. That wording is preserved rather than silently changed to the United States. Market and user-behavior generalizations remain the interviewee's perspective, not universal facts or a promise of growth._ Unique Awards · Guest Interview The Truth Behind the Growth Dilemma: Why Is Overseas Growth Becoming More Expensive? The Era of Buying Growth with Ever-Larger Budgets Is Over A few months ago, an AI SaaS team I know increased its monthly advertising budget from US$50,000 to US$150,000, yet daily active users rose by less than 30%. Its growth lead was puzzled: "We have tried every available advertising channel. Why are users getting more and more expensive to acquire?" This is not an isolated case. It reflects a shared dilemma in international growth during 2024–2025. I recently had an in-depth conversation with Elaine Li, a user-growth consultant for international markets. Her projects have spanned North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and she has seen many teams go from scaling growth to growth anxiety. Her central judgment is that the era of buying growth by piling on budget is over. Growth is no longer a matter of a single channel or spending level, but a competition in system-wide capabilities: brand awareness, content systems, user understanding and conversion pathways working together. The teams that keep growing sustainably are those that combine short-term advertising efficiency with long-term brand building and accumulated awareness. 01 Once the Traffic Dividend Disappears, the Logic of Growth Changes Completely "A few years ago, teams could still benefit from platform dividends. Paid acquisition, KOLs and larger budgets could buy growth." That was a period of rapid, unrestrained expansion. With a reasonably good product and heavy spending across a few channels, user numbers would rise. Platforms also supported new entrants; traffic was relatively inexpensive and competition less intense. But now? Traffic costs have risen 2–3-fold, and even more on some channels. User attention is highly fragmented, with hundreds of brands reaching the same users simultaneously. Creative performance deteriorates quickly: an ad that worked yesterday can already feel tired three days later. It has become difficult to build a healthy model by relying solely on influencers and advertising. Many teams' charts still appear to rise, while ROI keeps falling. They are spending larger budgets on more expensive users to sustain what looks like growth but is really inflated scale. This is not growth. It is borrowing against the future. 02 The Most Dangerous Illusion: Treating Paid Acquisition as the Engine Elaine described a scenario she often sees: At a team meeting, the growth lead reports: "We increased advertising spend by 50% this week, and downloads rose by 40%." Everyone is pleased. The following month, the budget rises again and the numbers keep growing. Everyone thinks growth is accelerating. But the problem is— Users have seen your ads many times without truly remembering who you are. "Relying entirely on paid acquisition for growth is dangerous," Elaine says. "It can look very effective in the short term: the numbers rise quickly and the curves look good. But once traffic costs increase, platform rules change or creative performance declines, the entire growth model can stall instantly." Worse, dependence on paid acquisition creates a habitual path: The team no longer knows what to do other than increase spending. Acquisition costs climb, ROI worsens, yet the team is forced to keep increasing the budget to maintain the appearance of scale. "Paid acquisition matters, of course. But it should be the amplifier, not the engine." 03 The Real Answer: Brand Mindshare Determines the Ceiling for Growth Where is the way out? Her answer is clear: Brand strength sets the ceiling for growth; channel efficiency determines only short-term gains. That may sound abstract, but her explanation is concrete. In mature markets such as North America, users make highly rational decisions. Prosumer and business customers in particular do not download or try a product merely because they see an ad. They search, compare, read reviews and ask friends. If a brand has not established basic trust and a professional image during that process, users will not even include it among their options. Without brand strength, several problems emerge: Users are more price-driven and leave as soon as another promotion appears. Conversion requires more incentives, and acquisition costs remain persistently high. Repeat purchases and retention are unstable; users leave after using the product. Channel efficiency is hard to sustain, and advertising returns keep deteriorating. In other words, without a brand premium, you can only compete on efficiency. But that does not mean branding should completely replace paid acquisition. A mature growth system must balance both: use growth tactics to validate and improve metrics quickly in the short term, while building trust and mindshare assets through branding over the long term. "Ideally, channel efficiency acquires traffic, while brand capability turns it into lasting value." 04 Integrated Marketing: Not Running Every Channel, but Making Them Work Together Many teams' marketing is fragmented: a Facebook ad today, a few KOLs tomorrow, Reddit the day after. Each activity seems to be happening, but they do not support one another or create a combined effect. "Growth does not come from one channel suddenly taking off. It comes from brand awareness, content systems, channel strategy and the conversion journey working together." Take a concrete example: Brand content, such as user stories and industry insights, is not separate from performance advertising. Good brand content can supply creative material for performance ads, while feedback from those ads can inform improvements to brand content. Only by connecting the two in a feedback loop can overall efficiency truly improve. Growth is a system, not a pile of tactics. 05 Practical Advice for Early-Stage Teams For teams with limited budgets that want to begin expanding abroad, Elaine offered several specific suggestions: First, choose the right battlefield. "North America and Brazil can be priorities. For most AI SaaS companies, these two countries rank Top 1 and Top 2 for paying users." North American users have a strong willingness to pay and make rational decisions. Competition is intense, but when product value is clear, users are very willing to pay. Brazil and Spanish-speaking Latin America are underestimated markets with substantial growth potential, and users' willingness to pay for AI products is rising rapidly. Second, understand your users. "Get to know your target users properly: their use cases, spending psychology, decision logic, pain points and values. The depth of that understanding determines the efficiency of everything you do afterward." While searching for PMF, teams run ads and work with KOLs. As traffic arrives, they gradually discover that certain groups are their core users. Yet many companies are far removed from those users, face language barriers and find communication difficult, so they do not spend time conducting substantial numbers of user interviews. It is easy to end up building in isolation. Both growth and product work require deep, frontline conversations with users. Third, branding is not something to postpone until the business is bigger. It needs consideration from the start. "Many people see branding as a nice extra to consider once the business is large. That is a misconception. Brand mindshare determines long-term acquisition costs and conversion efficiency. If you do not build it early, catching up later will be extremely difficult." 06 Closing Thoughts After speaking with Elaine, my strongest impression was that the logic of growth really has changed. The simple product-plus-advertising model could produce results when platform dividends were available. But with traffic costs rising, attention scarce and competition intensifying, tactical optimization alone can no longer easily establish sustainable growth. Future competition will not be about whose tactics are more aggressive, but whose growth structure is more complete: Can brand, content, channels and conversion form a system that genuinely works together? Teams still sustaining growth by piling on budget may need to ask themselves: Are you growing, or borrowing against your future? Selected Q&A Q: What is the biggest difference between an independent consultant and an in-house growth lead? An in-house growth lead is responsible for one business over the long term within an organization, handling resource coordination, team management and cross-functional collaboration. A growth consultant is more like a specialist in solving growth problems, identifying their underlying nature in less time and providing repeatable methodologies. For me, the greatest difference is not just the boundaries of the role, but the way of working. I do not only provide directional advice. I become deeply involved in execution and work alongside the team to solve real problems. Q: What are the main shortcomings of Chinese products expanding abroad today? There are four: 1\. Weak brand awareness—many teams care about traffic and short-term ROI without building long-term mindshare assets; 2\. Insufficient integrated-marketing capability—marketing is often fragmented, without connecting brand, content, advertising and user operations; 3\. Inadequate understanding of local users—a lack of insight into overseas users' values, spending psychology and usage habits; 4\. Poor storytelling—even a well-made product will not win users if its value is not communicated clearly and compellingly. Q: Of customer acquisition, operations and branding, where are Chinese teams most lacking? Brand strength. It is an abstract concept and difficult to measure directly through ROI or short-term advertising data. Many teams therefore selectively ignore it, thinking they should first build traffic and consider the brand once the business is bigger. But that is shortsighted. Without brand strength, acquisition costs rise, user loyalty is low and channel efficiency is difficult to sustain. Brand strength sets the ceiling for growth; channel efficiency determines only short-term gains. Q: How should growth hacking and brand building be balanced? Growth hacking addresses tactical problems. It can bring traffic, increase payments and downloads, and improve short-term conversion, but it does not establish a place in users' minds. My suggested balance is to use growth tactics to validate and improve metrics quickly in the short term, and brand building to accumulate trust and mindshare assets over the long term. Run both in parallel, with clear objectives and ways of measuring each. Q: What is the first thing you recommend to a small team that wants to expand abroad? Understand your target users thoroughly. The depth of that understanding determines the efficiency of everything that follows. Product, growth, content and brand storytelling must all start with users' perceptions and behavior. This article is based on an in-depth interview with Elaine Li, a user-growth consultant for international markets. --- Original publication: https://uniqueresearch.substack.com/p/src-20260324-04html On-site reading page: https://ffcap.cn/en/research/src-20260324-04html