ET Medialabs alternatives: the honest shortlist for D2C brands (2026)
ET Medialabs earned its reputation on measurement — and in 2025 that craft was acquired by McKinsey. This page is for the brands now asking whether they are still the client it is built for.
In short: ET Medialabs (ETML) is the analytics-first performance agency Indian scale-ups grew up with — attribution, GA4 and first-party data, experimentation — and since March 2025 it has been part of McKinsey, per press coverage of the deal. If you are a funded scale-up with a measurement crisis, it remains exactly the right hire. Brands look for an alternative when the bottleneck is creative and funnel rather than measurement, or when they want clarity on post-acquisition engagement sizes. The Shizz is the creative-led alternative for FMCG, F&B, nutrition and consumer-goods brands at ₹3 lakh+/month; Adyogi is the catalogue-automation one; Social Beat the regional-language full-funnel one.
Read this before you shortlist anyone
This page is published by The Shizz, a competitor of the firm it is about — weigh that first. Nobody paid to appear here, and everything said about ET Medialabs below is drawn from its own public material and press coverage of the McKinsey deal as of August 2026: claims we have not independently audited and that can change without notice. Where something is not public, we say so.
And the honest frame up front: if your board is asking incrementality and attribution questions your dashboards cannot answer, ETML’s analytics DNA is exactly the right hire and this page will not talk you out of it. The fuller selection process lives in how to choose a D2C marketing agency in India.
What ET Medialabs is, and what it is genuinely great at
ET Medialabs — ETML — was founded in 2013 in Gurugram and built its name as the analytics-heavy performance agency for funded Indian consumer-internet and D2C companies. Per its own material, its services span performance marketing, brand advertising, CRO and experiments, marketing business intelligence, performance ad creatives, and GA4, first-party data and attribution modelling. Its stated edge is proprietary tooling — it claims a stack drawing on 100+ analytics frameworks and machine-learning models built over a decade of ad experiments, and a diagnostic approach it says cuts ad-spend optimisation time by roughly two-thirds. It describes its clients as scale-ups, unicorns and multinationals.
The fact that changes the buying decision: in March 2025, McKinsey announced it had acquired ET Medialabs, with around sixty of its analytics and marketing professionals joining McKinsey’s digital marketing operations and technology arm, after a partnership that piloted with 15+ clients across India, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan — all per press coverage of the deal. A boutique agency becoming part of the world’s most famous consultancy is a compliment to its craft, and also a repositioning.
Why D2C brands go looking for an ET Medialabs alternative
- Post-acquisition fit is unclear for smaller brands. The analytics craft is intact, but a ₹5 lakh-a-month consumer brand should ask directly what engagement sizes, minimums and day-to-day staffing look like inside the new structure before assuming the old boutique model still applies. That is a question, not a criticism — and the answer decides whether you are still the client it is built for.
- Measurement is not every brand’s bottleneck. Analytics-led cultures can under-invest in creative. If your account’s problem is ad fatigue, thin creative volume or a leaking funnel, a measurement-first engagement instruments the problem beautifully without necessarily fixing it. Ask who writes and shoots your ads, and how often they refresh.
- Its stated audience is scale-ups, unicorns and multinationals. If you are an FMCG or food brand at ₹3–10 lakh a month of spend, you may simply not be the shape of client the stack was built around.
The Shizz: the creative-led alternative for consumer brands
Ours is the claim we can substantiate, so here it is in checkable form. The Shizz is a creative-led, full-stack D2C growth studio run out of Bangalore and Kolkata, six years in: 160+ brands worked with, ₹150 Cr+ in managed ad spend, ₹450 Cr+ in attributed revenue and a 3.8× average portfolio ROAS — the numbers sit on our case studies page brand by brand. Media, ad creative and conversion run as one in-house team for consumer brands in FMCG, food and beverage, nutrition and consumer goods, on the argument that in 2026 the ad account is mostly a creative-testing machine — see our performance marketing service.
We are not a measurement consultancy. The published fit is brands investing ₹3 lakh or more a month in ads in those categories, with the live roster capped at 32 brands so senior people stay on every account. If your real problem is enterprise attribution, ETML’s craft is the right hire and we will say so to your face.
ET Medialabs vs The Shizz, side by side
ETML’s column is its own public positioning and press coverage, compressed — not our audit of it. No pricing row appears below because neither engagement is bought off a rate card.
| Criteria | ET Medialabs | The Shizz |
|---|---|---|
| Model / approach | Analytics-first performance agency; part of McKinsey since March 2025 (per press coverage) | Creative-led full-stack studio — media, ad creative and CRO as one in-house team |
| Core services | Performance marketing, brand advertising, CRO and experiments, marketing business intelligence, performance ad creatives, GA4 and attribution modelling (per its material) | Performance marketing (Meta, Google, Amazon, quick commerce), content and creative, social media, CRO and web, strategic consultancy |
| Focus categories | Scale-ups, unicorns and multinationals across consumer internet and D2C (its stated audience) | FMCG · F&B · Nutrition · Consumer Goods, D2C-first |
| Engagement model | Engagements now sit inside McKinsey’s digital marketing operations and technology arm — ask what minimums and staffing look like post-acquisition | Retainer engagements scoped through a free Growth Audit; live roster capped at 32 brands so senior people stay on every account |
| Best fit | Funded scale-ups and enterprises buying consulting-grade measurement discipline wrapped around media | Consumer brands at ₹3 lakh+/month ad spend whose growth is gated by creative quality and funnel conversion |
| Watch-outs | Analytics-led cultures can under-invest in creative — ask who makes yours and how often it refreshes | Deliberately category-specific — not the hire for an enterprise measurement crisis |
Other ET Medialabs alternatives worth shortlisting
Adyogi — an ecommerce ad-automation platform with a service layer, per its site running catalogue-linked ads across Meta, Google and marketplaces with automation extended to quick commerce. The right alternative when the job is machine-speed campaign operations over a large catalogue rather than measurement.
Social Beat — one of India’s larger independents, with offices across Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi NCR, genuine regional-language capability and an influencer arm. The right alternative when growth means multi-city, multi-language full-funnel coordination.
Schbang — the Mumbai integrated agency with creative, media, technology and content under one roof. The right alternative when you want brand campaigns and always-on performance carried by one large partner with in-house production.
Who should choose whom
- Stay with (or choose) ET Medialabs if you are post-Series-B with a genuine measurement problem — attribution, incrementality, experimentation — and want consulting-grade rigour around it. Ask the post-acquisition staffing question anyway.
- Choose The Shizz if you are an FMCG, F&B, nutrition or consumer-goods brand spending ₹3 lakh+ a month whose growth is gated by creative and funnel, and you want one team accountable for media, ads and conversion together.
- Choose Adyogi if the account is catalogue logistics at scale.
- Choose Social Beat if the next phase is vernacular, multi-region and influencer-heavy.
- Below ₹3 lakh a month on ads: none of us on a full retainer — run lean with a freelancer or in-house and the free playbooks on this site until the spend supports a fee.
Whoever you shortlist, ask the same five questions in writing — who runs the account day to day, whose name the ad accounts stay in, which current client is closest to your category and spend, what is out of scope, and what month one costs all in — then put any promised improvement through the agency ROI calculator to see what it is worth against the fee.
Frequently asked questions
Is ET Medialabs still an independent agency?
No — in March 2025 McKinsey announced it had acquired ET Medialabs, with around sixty of its analytics and marketing professionals joining McKinsey's digital marketing operations and technology arm, per press coverage of the deal. The analytics craft that made ETML respected is intact, but a smaller D2C brand should ask directly what engagement sizes and staffing look like inside the new structure before assuming the old boutique model still applies.
Is ET Medialabs good for D2C brands?
For the right D2C brand, yes: its reputation was built serving funded Indian consumer-internet and D2C companies, and its stated strengths — attribution modelling, GA4 and first-party data, CRO experimentation, marketing business intelligence — are exactly what a data-heavy scale-up needs. Its stated audience is scale-ups, unicorns and multinationals, so an earlier-stage consumer brand whose bottleneck is creative and funnel is usually better matched elsewhere.
What is the best ET Medialabs alternative for FMCG and F&B brands?
For FMCG, F&B, nutrition and consumer-goods brands spending ₹3 lakh or more a month, The Shizz is the creative-led alternative: media, ad creative and conversion as one in-house team, with 160+ brands, ₹150 Cr+ managed spend, ₹450 Cr+ attributed revenue and a 3.8× average ROAS over six years. For catalogue-heavy accounts, Adyogi's automation platform is the closer substitute; for multi-language full-funnel scale, Social Beat.
When is ET Medialabs the better choice than The Shizz?
When measurement is the bottleneck: the board is asking incrementality and attribution questions the dashboards cannot answer, spend is ₹10 lakh+ a month or post-Series-B, and you want consulting-grade analytics discipline wrapped around media. That is ETML's stated home turf, and The Shizz is not a substitute for it — we run creative, media and funnel, not enterprise measurement consulting.
Why should I trust an alternatives page written by a competitor?
You should not trust it — you should use it. The Shizz publishes this page and says so in the first section; every claim about the other agencies on it comes from their own public positioning and press coverage as of August 2026, hedged as such. The test of the page is that it names the buyers who should choose them over us, and gives you the same five questions to put to all of us in writing.
Put the shortlist to the test
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