Marketers love to chase the shiny new thing. TikTok ads, AI-driven funnels, viral stunts: If it feels cutting-edge, it gets attention and budget. But in the scramble for novelty, many startups are overlooking the most effective acquisition channels.

The irony? These channels are hiding in plain sight. They’re not glamorous, but they’re efficient, scalable, and in some cases, cheaper than ever. Ignore them, and you’ll risk overpaying on noisy platforms where competition is brutal. Embrace them, and you can unlock significant growth.

Let’s break down the three channels that too many founders underestimate: email, LinkedIn, and live events.

1. Email: The Oldest, Still the Best

Ask most founders about their acquisition strategy, and you’ll hear some variation of “paid social plus organic content.” Ask them about their email list, and you’ll often get a blank stare.

That’s a mistake. Email is still the highest-ROI channel in digital marketing. According to Litmus, email returns an average of $36 for every $1 spent, which is better than any paid ad platform. The catch is that it compounds slowly, so you need to invest consistently over time. You can’t flip a switch and get instant impressions the way you can with Meta ads. But that’s precisely why it works.

The best startups treat their email list as a long-term asset:

• beehiiv grew by publishing newsletter growth playbooks and making email a product demo.

• Morning Brew turned free daily emails into a $75M+ media business.

• Ecommerce brands like Glossier and Warby Parker rely heavily on email to launch products, segment audiences, and drive repeat purchases.

Email is permission-based. Once a customer opts in, you own that relationship. No algorithmic middleman, no bidding wars. The smartest founders recognize that every subscriber is a long-term asset.

2. LinkedIn: The B2B Attention Goldmine

LinkedIn has quietly become one of the most powerful platforms for customer acquisition—especially for B2B startups. Yet most founders treat it like a resume site or a place to announce funding rounds. That’s leaving money on the table.

Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn’s algorithm actually rewards thoughtful content, not outrage. Organic reach is unusually strong (think Facebook circa 2012). Founders and operators who post consistently can reach tens of thousands of targeted professionals with zero ad spend.

Some notable examples:

• Chris Walker (Refine Labs) built a multi-million-dollar demand gen business largely by posting LinkedIn videos.

• Dave Gerhardt (ex-Drift, Privy) turned founder-focused content into a top-of-funnel machine for SaaS products.

• Countless startups have used founder-led LinkedIn posts to drive inbound leads more effectively than cold outreach.

The trick is consistency and specificity. Posts that teach, share behind-the-scenes insights, or break down industry news tend to perform best. Long-form text posts and image carousels have been LinkedIn’s bread and butter for some time. The platform has been later to the video party than other platforms but it’s catching up fast.

If you’re a founder selling to professionals, your customers are on LinkedIn right now. You just need to start showing up.

3. Live Events: The IRL Advantage

In an age of digital everything, it’s easy to dismiss live events as outdated or inefficient. But that’s a misconception. Few acquisition channels are as effective at creating trust and urgency as in-person connection.

Events don’t have to mean renting out a stadium. They can be intimate breakfasts, small workshops, or sponsor booths at someone else’s conference. What matters is the density of your target audience and the quality of the interactions.

Consider:

• Y Combinator’s Demo Day is effectively a customer acquisition engine for investors. Every founder walks out with a cap table full of leads.

• HubSpot’s INBOUND conference draws tens of thousands annually, turning education into a pipeline.

• Early-stage founders can replicate this at a smaller scale. One founder I know landed their first 10 enterprise customers by hosting roundtable dinners for CFOs.

4. (Bonus) Television: The Old Media Resurgence

Speaking of unsexy yet still effective channels, another deserves an honorable mention. Television advertising, often written off as “old media,” has a resurgence angle here: connected TV ads (Hulu, Roku, YouTube TV) combine the prestige of broadcast with the targeting of digital. CPMs are rising, but for certain brands—especially consumer-facing startups—they can still be underpriced relative to social ads.

The key lesson: in a crowded online world, offline and traditional media experiences stand out. When your competitors are all spamming DMs, showing up in person can be the sharpest differentiator.

Wrapping Up

Founders obsess over “what’s next” in marketing. But often, the best acquisition channels are those that seem outdated but are simply overlooked.

The winners in the next decade won’t be those who spread themselves thin across every new platform. They’ll be the ones who master the old reliables, weaving them into a distribution strategy that compounds quietly but relentlessly.

So before you chase the next shiny channel, ask yourself: Are you really squeezing the most out of email, LinkedIn, and IRL events? You might be missing out on some of the biggest growth levers, hiding right in front of you.