Owning Your Channels, Content, and Distribution is More Important Than Ever

July 29, 2025 | Seattle, WA

Eyeballs Come at a Price

Every time a platform like Amazon, TikTok, an affiliate, and soon-to-be ChatGPT drives a sale for your product, it’s natural to bristle at the cut they take.

But ask yourself: who brought the eyeballs? These platforms spend years and billions cultivating massive audiences, so it’s only fair they monetize the access. Amazon is a prime example where 63% of customers begin their product searches on Amazon. Likewise, TikTok’s 1.59 billion monthly users in 2025 make it one of the largest attention hubs on the planet. Now, with ChatGPT processing over 2.5 billion prompts per day, it’s quickly becoming the next digital gateway where consumers ask for product recommendations, advice, and solutions before ever visiting a website.

If a sale happens through those channels, they’ve earned a piece of the pie by providing the marketplace and discovery engine. The truth is: when those platforms take a cut, they’re simply monetizing the demand they’ve aggregated—demand you haven’t yet built yourself. In other words, they aren’t taking your margin. They’re revealing your dependence on someone else’s reach.

Own More of the Experience, Earn More of the Margin

So, how do you keep more margin for yourself? Own more of the customer experience. That means investing in your own channels, content, and distribution instead of handing over control (and commission) to intermediaries. By building a direct line to your customers, you won’t need to lose 10%, 20%, or more of each sale to a middleman. Here are a few ways brands can start owning the experience:

• Build Your Audience: Develop channels where you directly engage customers; whether that’s a robust website, a newsletter, a podcast, or a presence on social media that isn’t dependent on paid ads. The goal is a loyal following you can reach without a gatekeeper.

• Create Valuable Content & Education: Commit to content marketing that educates and entertains your target audience. This could be how-to guides, industry insights, webinars, or tutorials. If customers learn from you, they’ll trust you and come to your platforms when they’re ready to buy.

• Host Communities & Events: Consider webinars, workshops, community forums, or live events that bring your customers together. When you facilitate conversation and community, you become more than a store, you become a hub for your niche. This not only drives engagement but also positions your brand as an authority.

• Own the Transaction & Data: Whenever possible, encourage purchases through channels you control (your website, pop-up shops, etc.). Owning the point of sale means you keep the full margin and gain direct customer data. If you do use third-party marketplaces, use them strategically as lead-generation, aiming to eventually convert those customers to your direct ecosystem.

  
  

Each of these efforts requires investment and commitment. Building an audience and community doesn’t happen overnight. But the payoff is huge: the more of the customer journey you own, the more margin (and brand loyalty) you retain. As a bonus, owning the experience insulates you from sudden policy changes or fee hikes on third-party platforms. In short, if you want to stop renting eyeballs, start earning your own.

Every Company Is Now a Media Company

In 2025, every brand needs to think and act like a media company. We’ve reached a point where creating content and controlling your distribution channels is no longer optional—it's essential to staying competitive in today’s market. Why? Because customers are drowning in choices and information. The brands that break through the noise are the ones consistently putting out valuable content, telling a story, and engaging their communities. This applies to all organizations, brands, retailers, entrepreneurs, founders, and even investors building a personal brand. Everyone needs a media mindset.

Think about the companies that are thriving today: they’ve paired great products with great storytelling, educational content, or influencer-driven distribution. These companies have figured out that attention is the most scarce resource—and that the best way to earn it is by offering real value long before a sale is made. If you’re not actively generating content, building an audience, and educating your market, you’re ceding that ground to someone else. Don’t just sell a product; tell a story around that product. Share customer success stories, publish research or insights from your industry, start a YouTube channel or a podcast, whatever it takes to engage your target demographic on topics they care about. Content may drive discovery, but your ability to deliver it directly is what builds long-term value.

Building Trust Through Owned Channels (The Authenticity Advantage)

Another often overlooked benefit of owning your content and channels is the ability to build trust and authenticity with your audience. In sectors like retail technology and product authentication, areas we focus on at Niftmint, this is especially crucial. Customers today are savvy; they question the origins, quality, and legitimacy of products. If your company can provide transparent content about how your products are made, how they can be verified or authenticated, and why they can trust you, you gain a significant edge. That trust is hard to establish on a third-party platform where every product page looks the same and you have limited control over the messaging. By contrast, on your own site or community, you can showcase authenticity badges, demo your technology, share behind-the-scenes videos, and engage in two-way communication that reassures customers.

Owning the narrative around your product builds credibility. For example, if you’re selling high-end collectibles or luxury goods, running your own blog or video series on how to spot fakes will educate consumers and position you as the go-to trusted expert. The result? An audience that not only buys from you directly, but also advocates for your brand because they believe in your values and expertise. In a time when misinformation is rampant, being the primary source of truth for your customers is a powerful position, and it only happens when you commit to an owned media strategy.

Our Experience at Niftmint: Marrying Tech with Media

Niftmint’s Showroom event series exemplifies how a brand can create its own media platform to engage and educate the community. At our company, Niftmint (which specializes in retail tech and product authentication), we realized early on that building great technology alone wasn’t enough, we also needed to build an audience and community. This year, we launched an initiative called Showroom, a community-powered event and content series for the brand and retail community. Showroom isn’t about pitching our product; it’s about providing a platform for conversation, content, and connection in the industry. We host panels on emerging topics (from AI in commerce to the rise of the creator brand), publish interviews and articles with thought leaders, and bring people together offline and online to share insights.

Why did we do this? Because we believe every company in our space should contribute value beyond the product, we want to be a trusted resource and hub for anyone interested in the future of commerce. By owning this channel, we not only deepen our relationship with existing clients and partners, but we also attract new audiences organically. People attend our events or read our content to learn, get inspired, and network, and in the process, they discover Niftmint and what we stand for. It’s a mutually beneficial exchange: the community gains knowledge and connections, and we gain mindshare (without paying a third-party for the introduction). This strategy has reinforced a key lesson for us: if you offer genuine value through your own channels, you’ll never have to beg for attention, customers will seek you out.

The Takeaway: Invest in Your Own Ecosystem

It’s time to stop being mad at Amazon, TikTok, affiliates, ChatGPT, or any platform that “takes a margin”. They earned it by doing what you haven’t (yet): capturing the audience’s attention. Instead, channel that energy into building your own ecosystem. Yes, it requires work to create content, grow a following, host events, and cultivate a community. Yes, it may feel like a slow build compared to flipping on an ad campaign or tapping into an existing marketplace. But ownership is freedom. When you own the relationship with your customers, you own your destiny. You can launch new products directly to eager fans without fighting an algorithm. You can weather platform changes or new gatekeepers because you’ve built your own distribution funnel. And ultimately, you keep more of the profit because you’re not paying tolls for someone else’s audience.

In the current era, every company must have a media side to its business. The businesses that blend great products with great content and community will outlast and outperform those that don’t. So, start today: commit to owning more of the experience. Own your channels. Own your content. Own your distribution. Do that, and not only will your margins thank you, but your brand will grow stronger and more resilient than ever.

TL;DR: Don’t rage at the platforms taking a cut, outgrow the dependency of them. By investing in your own audience and media, you’ll reap greater margins and build an enduring brand moat. The power (and the eyeballs) can be yours if you’re willing to earn them. 🚀