Top Fastest-Growing D2C Brands, Q3 2021

Our quarterly list of the top 25 fastest-growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands just broke a record. In Q3 (July – Sept. 2021), one-third of brands fell into just one category, showing the strongest consumer demand for a specific product type, ever – and it’s a healthy one.

One-third of winning brands are classified as Health & Wellness while remaining brands in other sectors, like Food & Beverage, also reflect healthy themes.

Read on as we use Similarweb Research Intelligence to analyze the consumer behavior fueling the growth of health-focused brands in Q3 so that you can adopt their successful strategies to win next quarter.

1. Focus on overlooked topics

Winning Health & Wellness brands aren’t afraid to address traditionally underrepresented themes including bladder health, postpartum wellbeing, and transgender topics. Brave brands include Attention Grace (+93%) with its earth-friendly products for bladder leakage, and FOLX Health (+101%), which advocates “all things queer and trans health.”

2. Maternal gold mine

Fourth place Bodily, “a resource for women’s bodies and maternal health,” also focuses on overlooked topics including “Birth Recovery & Postpartum,” and “Pregnancy Loss,” while effectively capitalizing on the post-pandemic baby boom.

In September, pregnancy-related searches peaked at 3.8 million, and, there are signs that they may continue surging. In fact, this year the University of Michigan Health Lab planned for a 10-15% increase in births from what it would normally expect in the summer and fall.

Accordingly, traffic to itsbodily.com soared 156% in Q3 with an average of 63,000 monthly visitors.

Similarly, up-and-comer Pipette (+83%) bets big on the baby boom. The brand specializes in Babycare products, often bundling them with goodies for mom – she’s the one with the wallet after all. Most recently, the site touted a discounted lotion-for-two special on its homepage, exemplifying the idea that in addition to newborns, moms have needs too, especially postpartum.

3. The meat alternative mantra

Web searches for “kelp burger,” burgers made from seaweed, more than doubled in Q3. Traffic to sustainable food brand AKUA for this term alone rose 709%.

AKUA which ranks 24, takes consumer demand and taste buds seriously with its signature Kelp Burger, which landed a prime spot on its website and ultimately helped feed its 80% traffic gain in Q3.

4. Sun protection is here to stay, despite shorter days

You are what you eat. And, you are what you put on your skin.

Shopper demand to protect skin from the sun sent a 178% rise in traffic to Habit Skin, which snagged third place in our website ranking.

More than half of the top 10 non-branded terms driving traffic to habitskin.io are longtail keywords containing “sunscreen” or “SPF.”

After personal care brand Supergoop! grew 160% to rank sixteenth in Q2, we questioned if dermal demand for sun protection would last as the days got shorter. Habit Skin’s growth shows that, yes, it will — using sun protection has surpassed trend status and become a year-round habit.

Selection process: Top D2C brands Q3 2021

To compile our list, we used Similarweb Research Intelligence, part of our suite of eCommerce intelligence solutions, to measure the QoQ performance of over 2,000 digital brands. We selected those with the highest growth across categories. To ensure brands have gained traction with customers, we limit our report to sites with at least 10,000 monthly visits.

To rank among winners next quarter, schedule a demo of Digital Research Intelligence or its sister tool, Shopper Intelligence, today.

To see how the Q3 performance of D2C brands compares to past quarters, check Similarweb’s full listings of D2C reports.

by Emily Hunt

Market Research & eCommerce Specialist

Emily writes about digital retail, CPG, travel, and consumer finance, with a background in business development and marketing.