A candle brand with a proven Amazon presence made the leap to Shopify DTC. Fresh Meta account, zero history, zero benchmark data. We built the economics first — then scaled.
They came to us in April 2025 with a fresh Meta account and one question: how do we make this work without burning through budget while we figure it out?
The first thing we did wasn’t launch ads. It was answer one question: what can this brand actually afford to spend to acquire a customer? With their AOV, margins, and fulfillment costs, we calculated a breakeven CPA of ~$52 and a target CAC of ~$39. That number became the north star.
Month one spend was $490. Intentionally conservative — we were buying data, not customers. By August, five months in, they were acquiring 145 new customers a month at a $37.50 CAC. Inside their target window. At 11x the original spend level.
The cohort data told the real story: customers acquired in the early months had a full LTV of $205–$272 — more than 2.5x their first order value. The system wasn’t just acquiring customers. It was acquiring customers who came back.
The key insight: In month two, ROAS looked mediocre at 2.1x. By ROAS logic, you’d pull back. But CAC was $37.69 against a breakeven of $52. The system was working. We scaled.
A Dallas-based brand offering high-quality dipping powders and liquids with over 2,000 unique colors. Strong community, great product — they needed a system to match their ambition.
Full case study with detailed breakdown coming soon. The short version: great product, strong community, and a Meta system built around their unit economics got them to $100k/mo in under a year.
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