How Chewy Fetched a Creator Empire on TikTok (HBBIP #121)

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I’m so glad that you just’re spending this Thursday morning (or every time) studying this text. Not solely as a result of I like to unfold data about creator advertising, but in addition as a result of I get to vent and gossip with you somewhat.

In spite of everything, that’s essentially the most underrated a part of having a e-newsletter (or podcast, or social media account, or street-corner soapbox): getting to speak about stuff in your private life that’s in your thoughts in the meanwhile, and someway construe that materials as being productive or related or attention-grabbing to your viewers.

So anyway, my upstairs neighbors. Good folks. You don’t know them, most likely, and I’m not about to doxx them, however they’re a 30-something lately married couple. We’re on a stable nod-and-smile foundation. No points with them by any means. Besides generally I hear a sure sound from the ceiling. Type of a scuffling, scampering noise. Like one thing working rapidly throughout the ground.

Now usually, barring something bizarre or supernatural, this conundrum has a fairly customary clarification: they’ve a pet. Nonetheless:

1. My lease forbids pet possession, and my landlords, whereas additionally very type folks, are sticklers in regards to the guidelines. (Seems composting isn’t elective—who knew?)
2. I’ve by no means, in my eighteen months of residing beneath these neighbors and working into one another on the street or the stairwell, seen them with a pet.

Properly that’s definitely a thriller, you’re most likely saying to your self proper now. However what does that must do with creator advertising? And why am I nonetheless studying this text?

As a result of, pricey reader: right here’s the massive reveal. The opposite day, I noticed a field from a sure firm being delivered to one among my neighbors. And at that time, the sport was up.

The place did this field come from, you ask?

The Prime Model  of All Time (of the Week): Chewy

Granted, I may need initially mistook them for a purveyor of granola bars, however the reality stays: you don’t get a Chewy field when you don’t have a pet. So my neighbors higher hope that my landlords are underneath the identical false impression that I used to be.

Sadly for my neighbors, fewer and fewer persons are underneath that false impression. Chewy is doing massive issues, and creators are enjoying a key function in that development.

It stands to motive, too: with a number of respected sources pointing to the pet trade’s continued growth, and an anecdotal survey of my pet-owning buddies confirming that they spend some huge cash on their furry buddies, HBBIP is lengthy overdue for masking the area. 

Let’s run by way of Chewy’s latest development, and check out the model’s most impactful creators and content material.

Chewy Creator Depend, 2020 – 2025

We’ll begin with an space the place Chewy is displaying spectacular, however not completely loopy, enchancment. With 1.4k creators in 2020 and three.7k creators within the first 11 months of 2025, that’s a 2.5x development.

Chewy Put up Depend, 2020 – 2025

However these creators are punching above their weight in relation to productiveness. Beginning at 3.2k posts in 2020, Chewy surged to 13k posts in 2025, a roughly 4x enchancment. As any pet proprietor or friend-of-pet-owner is aware of, you are inclined to take plenty of footage of your favourite residing being, and so naturally creators are doing the identical factor.

Chewy EMV, 2020 – 2025

However right here’s the place the expansion begins getting astronomical. All these pet images garner a substantial amount of digital consideration—in any case, cute critters + social media is a long-established system for drawing eyes. That’s why Chewy’s EMV has shot up from $4.8M in 2020 to $53.3M in 2025, an 11x development.

Chewy Engagements, 2020 – 2025

Recommendation to creators and types: when you’re trying to spark engagements, strive sticking a canine or a cat within the put up. It labored for Chewy (granted, it was most likely much more natural for them). Right here’s a bounce from 1.8M to 29.8M engagements, a cool 17x enchancment.

You would possibly suppose the expansion ends there, which might be spectacular sufficient, however wait, there’s extra! This one actually blew my thoughts:

Chewy Impressions, 2020 – 2025

That’s 18M impressions in 2020, and 1.7B impressions in 2025. In different phrases, a modest, delicate, nothing to write down house about development of 93x.

How did Chewy develop its digital impressions 93x from 2020 to 2025? Properly, past having a social and influencer supervisor who clearly deserves a increase, it had somewhat one thing to do with a sure platform that burst onto the scene throughout these years.

Chewy Share of Engagements by Platform, Jan – Nov 2025

Chewy’s share of engagements by channel from January 2025 to November 2025 tells the story. You’ve heard of SkinTok, and this text has beforehand profiled the profound impact that dermatologists have had on manufacturers, however now we would must reckon with the ability of PetTok (PeTok?), too. Simply once I was getting used to GroceryTok!

Issues have been much more lopsided when it got here to YoY development for these channel engagements: it was a 141% surge for TikTok, in comparison with a 12% decline for Instagram.

After which issues have been even even extra lopsided when it got here to Chewy’s impressions:

Chewy Share of Impressions by Platform, January – November 2025

Pac-Man’s consuming the entire pie! The expansion figures have been somewhat extra even—a 79% YoY enhance in Instagram impressions, and a 97% YoY enhance in TikTok impressions—however what actually stood out to me was the sheer quantity of TikTok impressions that Chewy obtained: 1.4B (with a B) from January to November 2025. For perspective, that’s practically as many as Microsoft (1.5B).

For the document, in line with the AI I simply requested, Chewy’s market capitalization is $13B-14B (once more with a B). Microsoft? $3.5T (with a T). That’s a fairly large distinction, however by way of TikTok impressions, they’re useless even. Social media customers desire canine to software program—I don’t make the principles!

So who’re the TikTokers fueling Chewy’s dominance? Most of them have been new to the model in 2025: Chewy retained 89 TikTokers from the earlier yr, in comparison with an inflow of 843 newcomers. Actually, aside from Chewy’s single highest EMV-driver on TikTok (A Woman and a Doodle), who was a retained creator, the model’s subsequent 9 high earners have been all new in 2025. These newcomers comprised 21 of Chewy’s high 25 TikTok EMV-drivers, underscoring the model’s profitable growth technique.

These creators ran the gamut of PetTok, that includes each cats and canine! Whether or not it was paid promotion or pet humor, Chewy Companions emerged as a dominant power on TikTok. And look, whereas any model that will get to function canine in Halloween costumes in promoting and have or not it’s each related and informative goes to have a bonus in relation to social media, Chewy has performed as superb a job of community-building as any model I’ve ever seen. It even satisfied my neighbors!

So there’s one thriller solved: they’ve a secret pet, and like many pet homeowners, secret or in any other case, they favor Chewy. Now the one thriller is why I took so lengthy to cowl Chewy within the first place.

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