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.
