The Elephant Curve (Channels Saturate and Sag)
Every acquisition channel starts as an S-curve then sags — assume your winners will decline.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
A mental model correcting the S-curve view of marketing channels: channels don't plateau, they rise then decline as audiences saturate and the channel itself decays. Combined with the question 'do you know which channels are saturated?', it forces you to stop flogging tapped-out channels and get creative about genuinely new ones. Use it when marketing effort stops producing growth.
Origin
Cohen coined the 'elephant curve' in an article, contrasting it with the popular S-curve. Drawing on his magazine-ad and conference experience, he observed channels always claim rising numbers right up until they collapse, and the same quietly happens to AdWords, Facebook ads, SEO, and affiliates.
Core principles
- 01Channels have hard ceilings — there are only so many searches, and you can only appear once per keyword
- 02A channel starts as an S-curve (the trunk) then sags downward (the elephant's rear)
- 03Audiences saturate: people who've seen your message many times and didn't act won't act
- 04Channels decline and rarely tell you — reported circulation/attendance rises right before collapse
- 05You can't rely on marketing forever; there aren't infinite channels and they all sag
How to run it
- 1
Ask which channels are saturated
Explicitly ask whether you know which channels are saturated and which aren't. If you can't answer, assume the answer is 'all of them'.
Watch out Adding a feature and hoping to flog AdWords harder will not restart growth in a saturated channel, even if the feature is great.
- 2
Expect the sag, not a plateau
Treat every working channel as an elephant curve that will decline, not an S-curve that plateaus forever. Plan to move before the sag.
Pro tip Explore new channels as you approach the apex, before growth slows or dips.
Watch out Channels hide their decline — reported numbers rise until the channel collapses (magazines, conferences).
- 3
Get genuinely creative about new channels
Rather than incrementally optimizing existing channels, find a new type of channel — a partner/agency motion, a workshop tour, a new product, or a new market.
Pro tip Products that sell well direct often do poorly in SEO/social and vice versa — a new channel may need a different motion, not a copy of the current one.
Watch out This is genuinely hard; most companies never solve it — something worked, then stopped, and they had no replacement.
In the wild
Facing stalled growth, Constant Contact ran in-person email-marketing workshops for small businesses across cities, converting attendees — an unlikely channel for a $20/month product.
→ Restarted growth; they cleverly recruited agency power-users to scale the effort.
HubSpot tested selling through agencies (~50% of revenue after 4-5 years); WP Engine sells many sites through WordPress agencies.
→ A non-direct channel of humans dramatically changed the growth rate.
Common mistakes
Believing in the everlasting S-curve
Channels don't plateau and hold — they sag and decline as audiences saturate and the channel decays, so treating a winner as permanent leads to sudden stalls.
Flogging the marketing department harder
If channels are saturated, pushing existing channels or adding one feature won't work — it takes a genuinely new channel, product, or market.
Is it for you?
Best for
Growth and marketing leaders whose reliable channels are maturing and who need to diversify before growth dips
Not ideal for
Early-stage teams still finding their first repeatable channel, who shouldn't prematurely diversify
From the transcript
“I wrote an article about this called the elephant curve, which is what I named it”
“It starts with an S-curve and then it starts sagging. Its butt starts sagging down.”
“Do you know right now which channels are saturated and which aren't? If the answer is no, I'm like, well, okay, maybe that's because the…”
From the episode
5 questions to ask when your product stops growing
Jason Cohen (2x unicorn founder)