How Kynship Took WildBird From Plateaued At $2.2M to $30.1M (22% Profit) In 3 Years

WildBird has been a prominent player in the baby space for a decade, initially focusing on baby carriers and gradually expanding into a broader range of baby products. WildBird was founded by husband and wife team Nate and Tayler Gunn during their first pregnancy as a side business. Later, they leaned into full-time efforts to scale the business.

Their original product, the Ring Sling baby carrier, was a unique entry in the market, quickly gaining popularity through Instagram and influencer marketing. This strong organic approach helped them achieve several million in sales within the first four years without spending on paid ads.

However, by year four, the company faced challenges in scaling further.

The Gunns recognized the need for products with broader appeal, leading to the development of a soft structured carrier. This product also burst onto the scene for Moms, building the brand’s momentum as it expanded its product range to include pajamas, sleep sacks, and other textiles. 

Despite this expansion, the company encountered difficulties in scaling their advertising efforts and maintaining profitability while managing a growing inventory. To overcome these challenges and continue their upward trajectory, WildBird sought expert guidance from Kynship.

When Nate first met with Cody (Kynship Co-Founder), WildBird was already benefiting from substantial customer-generated content (CGC) organically generated from Moms sharing their experiences online—a dream for any brand. However, WildBird struggled to effectively scale their advertising efforts across a vast inventory with numerous SKUs, leading to stagnant or inefficient ad spend. Kynship stepped in to optimize their ad strategy, focusing on precise forecasting and targeted spend to maximize profitability while scaling.

For most of 2024 WildBird’s goals have been to hit a 5 aMER, 30% Contribution Margin (CM)%, and 17.5% Profit%—Kynship has been within 1-5% of those goals all year so far.

Midway through the year, WildBird wanted to shift focus from these metrics to a singular focus on Profit %, with a goal of achieving 17.5% profit on a monthly basis. This change led to immediate improvements, with Kynship achieving this profit target within 1% in June, July, and pacing to repeat it again in August.

Forecasting

Kynship aligned closely with WildBird's financial goals, managing total ad spend across Meta, Google, and Amazon. This meticulous approach to forecasting was so effective that it caught the attention of GW Partners, a strategic consulting firm independently engaged by WildBird. GW Partners praised Kynship's forecasting as one of the best they had seen from a performance marketing agency, noting its critical role in maintaining WildBird’s consistent profitability while scaling revenue.

“Kynship has proven that it can operate with a high level of autonomy while adhering strictly to the targets that have been set. This is a huge benefit to WildBird because they can focus on managing the other aspects of the business without having to worry that the agency that is running their Meta strategy is going to go off script or underperform.” — Jason Somerville, Founding Partner, GW Partners 

Creative & Paid

Kynship introduced a cost control bid strategy, focusing ad spend on high-performing SKUs while reducing spend on less profitable ones. This strategy allowed WildBird to dynamically scale their efforts in sync with promotional activities, leading to improved overall performance.

Kynship utilized a mix of seeding content (roughly 50% of all ads), brand content (30%), and user-generated content (10%), with customer-generated content yet to be tested.

 Transitioning from polished branded content to authentic UGC was a challenge for Nate.

“I came from branding, high-quality content. But as social commerce evolves, the customer is just getting smarter. I believe we’re at a point now where it’s going to be difficult without having the most authentic experience in your marketing. If I had a stadium full of moms (our customer) and I could put anything on the billboards, what would I put? Would I put this super polished Mom, or would I throw on that unicorn review from a Mom that posted without a request from us? I saw myself choosing the authentic review over the high-quality content.”

The Aerial Carrier was the most profitable SKU. Even with a much higher price point, it turned out to be much more profitable to market these products primarily and to reduce spend across all other SKU’s. This was unknown to WildBird prior to working with Kynship.

First Year Results

Over the past year, WildBird achieved record-level ad spend and unprecedented DTC revenue growth, breaking through previous plateaus the brand had never surpassed.

‍This success is a testament to the undeniable growth of their advertising efforts, even as competition from channels like retail, Babylistings, and Amazon intensified. 

As for next steps, plans include expanding into consumer-generated content by incentivizing customers to share their experiences.

With consecutive months of profitability and growth, WildBird has its sights set on scaling more.

However, to meet increasing demand, they first need to make sure their suppliers can keep up with inventory needs.‍

A note from Nate:

If influencer or customer-generated content is any part of your ad buying strategy then Kynship is going to be your best option that I know of. I went through an extensive search to find the right agency that specializes in the strategy and by far they came out on top. Pricing was also very competitive. ‍Since onboarding, the biggest win has honestly been in just working with their team. Great group of people. No ego and ready and willing to work through any of our specific needs. Their team is honestly just a fresh breath of air in the agency space. They know how to look at the numbers with a benchmark perspective having seen so many brands.

I would just keep in mind they are more of a growth partner, not just a typical ad buyer working in the background. Be ready to dive into the spreadsheets and get into the numbers with them. For me, all things I was looking for. For us having the Kynship team onboard has really helped us guide specific targets across all channel partners.

Nate Gunn, Co-Founder WildBird

Through 2024, the focus was efficiency. Kynship managed ad spend across Meta, Google, and Amazon, holding WildBird's targets through precise forecasting and cost-control buying. Amazon had launched in late 2023 and was contributing meaningfully by mid-2024.

Starting in late 2025, WildBird began expanding the channel mix. TikTok, Pinterest, and TikTok Shop came first. Then retail: Target online, followed by Target in-store in March 2026, followed by Nordstrom.

The results show up clearly in the numbers. In the fiscal year ending June 2024, WildBird spent $2.18M on ads and generated $10.0M in revenue across all channels. The next year, $3.67M in spend generated $16.1M. In the twelve months ending June 2026, $4.39M in spend generated roughly $30.1M, and the first half of 2026 puts the brand on pace for over $35M.

Revenue nearly tripled in two years while ad spend roughly doubled. Every dollar of ad spend is now supporting significantly more revenue than it did in 2024, because the new channels are adding revenue without requiring proportional ad spend behind them.

Target In-Store Changed the Trajectory

The sharpest shift in the data came from Target's in-store launch on March 15, 2026. Before the launch, combined Target revenue was running around $70,000 to $75,000 a month. In March it jumped to roughly $290,000. By June it had reached $515,000.

Target revenue grew roughly 7x in the four months following the in-store launch, with no proportional increase in paid media spend.

Retail expansion like this only works when the core business is healthy enough to support it. The forecasting discipline and profitable paid foundation built in the first phase of the engagement gave WildBird the margin and the confidence to make the leap.

Efficiency Improved Where It Mattered

Paid media performance on Shopify stayed within its normal seasonal range throughout 2026, between roughly 2.5 and 7 MER depending on promotions. But WildBird's collective MER, measuring all revenue against all marketing spend, climbed from the 5 to 6 range in 2024 and 2025 up to 8 to 12 by mid-2026.

The difference between those two numbers is the diversification working. Target, Nordstrom, and Babylist were adding real, largely incremental revenue while ad spend held steady. Paid media kept doing its job, and the new channels compounded on top of it.

Profitability Grew and Stabilized

In November 2024, holiday markdowns pushed WildBird to roughly negative 50% profit for the month. In November 2025, the same seasonal dip cost only about negative 10%. And from April through June 2026, monthly profit ran between 29% and 37%, well above the 17.5% target that anchored the first phase of the engagement.

The worst months got far less bad, and the best months got materially better. WildBird went from breaking a plateau to building a durable, diversified brand that is more profitable at $30M+ than it was at $10M.

WildBird's story with Kynship spans three years and two distinct phases. The first phase proved the brand could be profitable at scale: a paid media engine rebuilt around forecasting, cost-control buying, and the SKUs that actually drove margin. The second phase proved that foundation could carry real weight. With a paid core that held its efficiency month after month, WildBird added Amazon, TikTok, Pinterest, Target, and Nordstrom on top of it, and grew from $10M to a pace of over $35M while becoming more profitable, not less.

None of it started with a creative breakthrough or a channel bet. It started with a forecast. Every target WildBird hit, from the 17.5% profit goal in 2024 to the 29-37% profit months in 2026, was set on paper first. That's the difference between growth you hope for and growth you can plan around.

Want to Know What Your Numbers Say?

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