Prepared by Slice of the Pie Marketing | For: Owen Finnerty, The Golf Sock | Source: Meta Ads API, account 3217552185130501, last 90 days plus Nov 1 to Dec 31, 2025, pulled Sep 23, 2026. Framework: SOTP Campaign Architecture Playbook, Sep 2026 edition, Chapter 1.
What the account told us
Before picking a structure, the playbook says start with the numbers. So we pulled every ad set and ad that has spent in the last 90 days. Five things decided the build.
$20.1Kon one ad. F3 Still: 586 purchases, 2.27x ROAS, $34 CPA, $21 CPM. A quarter of the account on one static.
$10-25CPM on every ad above 2x ROAS. All of them are product stills with 0.6 to 1.3% CTR. Cheap delivery wins here, not clicks.
$50-80CPM on founder and UGC video. 3 to 7% CTR, under 1.2x ROAS. The hook works, the conversion doesn't.
$43-73CPM on the Aug-Sept test wave (concepts 153 to 170). Nearly all of it died inside the CBO at $200 to $600 of spend.
| Ad | Format | Spend (90d) | Purchases | ROAS | CPA | CPM | Read |
|---|
| F3 Still | Static | $20,102 | 586 | 2.27x | $34 | $21 | The scaler. Frequency 3.1, still holding |
| 124 C Still | Static | $14,118 | 344 | 1.80x | $41 | $28 | Second horse, at the CAC ceiling |
| 128 C Still | Static | $5,517 | 148 | 1.90x | $37 | $23 | Third horse |
| 112 B UGC | UGC video | $2,731 | 108 | 3.06x | $25 | $24 | Best ROAS in the account. Starved |
| 123 A Still | Static | $966 | 46 | 3.91x | $21 | $11 | Cheapest purchases in the account. Starved |
| 121 A Still | Static | $962 | 31 | 2.99x | $31 | $12 | Starved |
| 148 B-3 UGC | UGC video | $1,002 | 33 | 2.13x | $30 | $52 | Winner. Currently paused |
| Navy Launch Video | Product video | $3,146 | 85 | 2.03x | $37 | $35 | Newest winner, colorway angle |
| 0330 Owen (founder) | Founder video | $2,187 | 27 | 0.93x | $81 | $63 | 7% CTR. Retargeting material, not prospecting |
| 153 to 170 (12 concepts) | Mixed | $5,900 | 31 | 0.2 to 1.4x | $100+ | $43-73 | The test wave that couldn't get delivery |
The diagnosis in one line: one campaign is doing three jobs (scale, test, retarget) and the CBO gives everything to the incumbent. New concepts get under 10% of spend after seven days while the incumbent still meets CAC. That is, word for word, the playbook's pivot signal from 1.01 Consolidated Purchase Engine to 1.02 Protected Test and Scale. Your account is already telling us which structure to build.
And what last Q4 told us
| Week (2025) | Evergreen spend | ROAS | CPA | CPM | Note |
|---|
| Nov 1-7 | $2,661 | 3.50x | $19 | $17 | Cheapest week of the quarter. Early November is where you load up |
| Nov 15-21 | $3,574 | 2.45x | $29 | $26 | Ramp holding |
| Nov 22-28 (BFCM) | $4,552 | 2.52x | $29 | $39 | Evergreen beat the dedicated sale campaign |
| BFCM campaign, same weeks | $9,469 | 1.60 to 2.54x | $30-48 | $48-60 | The sale campaign was the weakest thing running |
| Dec 6-12 | $9,448 | 2.39x | $22 | $40 | Gifting kicks in |
| Dec 13-19 | $13,171 | 1.78x | $28 | $34 | Biggest week of the year. Not BFCM. Shipping cutoff week |
| Dec 20-26 | $7,290 | 2.27x | $26 | $28 | Post-cutoff, still profitable |
Three rules fall out of that: (1) the evergreen engine is the Q4 workhorse, so we scale it and never dismantle it for a sale; (2) a dated sale campaign has to be run as a capped investment with its own kill rule, because last year it lost to evergreen; (3) the real peak is the December gifting window, so the creative bank and the budget curve are built for Dec 6 to 18, not just Black Friday.
The two structures
A · Protected Test and Scale
Playbook 1.02 · sotp_meta_ecom_etest_*
The always-on engine. Your existing winners campaign becomes the scale control. A separate ABO testing campaign gives new concepts a funded, readable trial. A recovery campaign catches the visitors and carts you are currently letting walk. A retention campaign owns your buyers. Runs Oct 1 through next year.
Best fit per playbook: $9K to $30K monthly Meta spend, one product family, purchase attribution in place. You: ~$28K/mo, one SKU, Shopify pixel plus Triple Whale.
B · Marketing Moments
Playbook 1.06 · sotp_meta_ecom_epromo_*
The dated layer. Three short campaign flights with lifetime budgets and their own commercial limit: the MSU rivalry drop in late October (the dress rehearsal), BFCM, and December gifting. Each one ends on schedule whether or not attributed ROAS looks good, because last year's numbers say the sale campaign flatters itself.
Best fit per playbook: an established purchase baseline before the flight, a fixed sale window, buyer audiences, stock tracking. You: all four, plus 400 pairs per colorway of rivalry stock landing.
They are not competing options. A is the control. B is the Q4 overlay that sits on top of A and is deleted in January. 1.03 M3 swim lanes (separate acquisition and retention budgets) stays on the bench until the retention campaign produces ten mature repeat orders in thirty days, which is the playbook's trigger to move.
Structure A, in full
Naming follows the SOTP standard: sotp_[platform]_[vertical]_[structure]_[objective]_[segment] for campaigns, as_[audience]_[geo]_[event] for ad sets, ad_[format]_[angle]_[vNN] for ads.
sotp_meta_ecom_etest_purchase_scale Your main campaign, renamedCBO · Highest volume · Sales / website Purchase · $800/day at launch · Advantage+ audience, US, 18-65
as_broad_us_purchaseThis is the campaign you already have. We rename it, we do not rebuild it. We pause the ad sets under 1.5x ROAS with more than $500 spend, keep the winners, and un-pause the two winners that got shut off.
- F3 Still · stays. 2.27x, $34 CPA
- 124 C Still · stays. 1.80x
- 128 C Still · stays. 1.90x
- 112 B UGC · stays and gets room. 3.06x
- 123 A Still · stays. 3.91x
- 121 A Still · stays. 2.99x
- 117 C + 117 E Still · stay. 2.1x and 2.7x
- 133 B Still · stays. 2.29x
- Navy Launch Video · stays. 2.03x
- 148 B-3 UGC · un-paused. 2.13x, $30 CPA
- 118 D UGC · un-paused. 2.55x, $28 CPA
- Paused on day one: 142A, 0330 Owen, 148A, 141, 143, 144, 127, 151, 153, 154, 158, 159, 164, 170 and every other ad set under 1.5x. About $14K of the last 90 days went to these
sotp_meta_ecom_etest_purchase_test NewABO · Highest volume · Sales / website Purchase · $50/day per ad set · one concept per ad set · Advantage+ audience, US · exclude buyers 180d + Klaviyo list
as_concept_us_purchase (x6 live at any time)Each ad set is one concept with 3 to 4 executions (hook, format, or pack variant). Named by launch date, e.g. as_1006_tubesock_us_purchase. Runs 7 days. Then it graduates, dies, or gets one more week.
- Wk of Oct 6: tube sock vs golf sock · walk 36 holes · no-blister guarantee · six-pack per-pair math · grip macro / traction map · PGA pro proof (Tom Patri)
- Wk of Oct 13: founder kitchen story (twins, engineering, soccer) · swing-speed proof · "sold out 7x" social proof · colorway + XL · review carousel · comedy "old sock fails"
- Wk of Oct 20: "for the golfer who has everything" (gifting early) · course ASMR · trend remake · price-per-pair vs FootJoy / Bombas · podcast clip · rivalry teaser
- Wk of Oct 27: F3 iteration family x3 (new background, new headline, new pack) · 124C iteration x2 · 112B re-cut x2
sotp_meta_ecom_ecatalog_purchase_recovery NewCBO · Highest volume · Sales / website Purchase · $100/day at launch · exclude purchasers 30d
as_cartic14_us_purchaseAdd to cart or initiate checkout, last 14 days. These audiences do not exist in the account today. We build them on day one.
- ad_carousel_catalog_v01 · Advantage+ catalog, all packs
- ad_img_proof_v01 · "262 reviews, 4.7 stars" static
- ad_vid_founder_v01 · the 0330 Owen cut. 7% CTR belongs here, in front of people who already know the product
as_visitors30_us_purchaseSite visitors 30 days, excluding cart and IC. Rebuilt from the existing AD_GS Site Visitors_30 Days audience.
- ad_img_guarantee_v01 · no-blister guarantee + free returns
- ad_vid_ugc_v01 · 112B re-cut with a retargeting line
sotp_meta_ecom_etest_purchase_retention Your DPA campaign, renamedCBO · $75/day · GS_BOF_Sales_Repurchase_DPA_Evergreen keeps its ad set and its 2.06x. We add the Klaviyo list it never had.
as_buyers120_us_purchaseExisting. Purchasers 120+ days.
as_klaviyo_us_purchaseNew. Klaviyo list synced as a customer audience. Owen adds us to Klaviyo, we sync it, and email plus paid stop working against each other.
- ad_carousel_catalog_v01 · restock
- ad_img_crosssell_v01 · "your second pair" six-pack upgrade
- ad_img_newproduct_v01 · rivalry collection to existing buyers first
Structure A rules, agreed before launch
Allowable CAC: $59 is break-even on your true margin. Scale target is $40 now, $30 at scale. Nothing in this build is judged on ROAS alone; the number is new-customer CAC and store MER in Triple Whale.
Kill rule (test lane): pause an ad set at 3x allowable CAC ($177) with zero mature purchases. Pause any single ad at $120 with zero purchases. Read after 7 days plus a 3-day conversion lag, never on day 2.
Promote rule: a concept graduates to the scale campaign only with 5 or more purchases inside target CAC in 7 mature days. It gets duplicated in, not moved, and the test copy runs one more week for a second read. The playbook is explicit that a promoted ad is a new commercial test, not an automatic win.
Scale rule: raise the scale campaign budget 20% every 72 hours when trailing 3-day CAC is at or under $40 and MER is at or over 2.5. Hold at $40 to $50. Cut 25% after three days above $50. This is how the account goes from $800 to $1,600 a day without breaking learning.
Pivot rule: if two promoted concepts exceed allowable CAC by 25% over fourteen mature days with no tracking or offer change, we consolidate back to a single purchase engine (1.01). We do not keep copying winners into a scaler that is not scaling.
Structure B, in full
Three flights, each a separate Sales campaign with a lifetime budget, its own creative, its own audience rules, and a hard end date. When the window closes the campaign closes, and the budget it was consuming goes back to Structure A. Last year's BFCM campaign ran on a $5,400 daily budget with no ceiling and delivered 1.6x while evergreen did 2.5x. We are not doing that again.
sotp_meta_ecom_epromo_purchase_rivalry Flight 1 · Oct 24 to Oct 31CBO · Lifetime $2,500 · 400 pairs per colorway, so the budget is capped to stock, not to ROAS
as_klaviyo_us_purchaseDay 1 to 2. Buyers and list only. The drop goes to your people first, which is also what sells it out.
as_broad_us_purchaseDay 3 to 7. Broad, with the same creative, only if stock is still there. Kill rule: pause the second stock hits 20%.
- ad_img_rivalry_v01 / v02 · the two socks, side by side, "pick a side"
- ad_vid_rivalry_v01 · founder cut, why a Michigan kid and a State kid made both
- ad_img_scarcity_v01 · "400 pairs. That's it."
This is the dress rehearsal. We learn how the account behaves with a lifetime-budget flight, an audience-first sequence, and a stock kill rule, four weeks before it matters.
sotp_meta_ecom_epromo_purchase_bfcm Flight 2 · Nov 21 to Dec 1CBO · Lifetime $10,000 · Highest volume · offer TBD with Owen (six-pack anchored, not a blanket percent)
as_klaviyo_us_purchaseNov 21 to 23, early access. List and past buyers see the offer 48 hours before anyone else.
as_engaged_us_purchaseNov 24 to Dec 1. Site visitors 90d + ATC/IC 30d + IG/FB engagers 90d. Warm audience, sale creative.
as_broad_us_purchaseNov 27 to Dec 1. Broad, sale creative. Turns on for the Black Friday to Cyber Monday window only.
- ad_img_sale_sixpack_v01 / v02 · six-pack price, crossed-out, per-pair math
- ad_img_sale_twelve_v01 · twelve-pack "stock the drawer for the season"
- ad_vid_saleproof_v01 · pro testimonial cut with the offer lower-third
- ad_img_countdown_v01 / v02 · Cyber Monday last-call statics
- ad_vid_founder_bfcm_v01 · Owen, straight to camera, why the offer is what it is
sotp_meta_ecom_epromo_purchase_gifting Flight 3 · Dec 2 to Dec 18CBO · Lifetime $15,000 · Highest volume · offer: free shipping + gift note, not a discount. Ends at the ground shipping cutoff.
as_broad_us_purchaseBroad from day one. This is the biggest week of last year and the audience that buys is the giver, not the golfer.
as_giftintent_us_purchaseAdvantage+ with gifting interest signals layered (golf, Father's Day gifting, husband/dad gift). Kept separate so we can read it.
- ad_img_gift_dad_v01 / v02 · "for the guy who has everything and walks 36"
- ad_img_gift_bundle_v01 · three-pack gift-wrapped, gift note callout
- ad_vid_gift_ugc_v01 / v02 · unboxing / reaction, AI-assisted UGC
- ad_img_cutoff_v01 / v02 · "order by Dec 18 for Christmas" statics, swap in Dec 12
- ad_img_egift_v01 · Dec 19 to 24 only, gift card / e-gift, moved into the scale campaign after the flight ends
Structure B rules
Recalculate CAC before every flight. A 20% off six-pack changes the allowable CAC. We set the flight ceiling on discounted contribution, not on the evergreen number.
Kill rule: pause immediately for a wrong price, depleted stock, or an expired offer. During the flight, stop an ad at 3x the sale CAC ceiling with zero mature purchases.
End on schedule. The flight ends on its date even when attributed ROAS looks strong, then we reconcile mature orders against Triple Whale after the refund lag. Sale purchases pull demand forward; the reported return always overstates the gain.
The scale campaign never pauses for a flight. Last year evergreen out-earned the sale campaign during BFCM. It keeps its budget and keeps scaling on its own rule the whole time.
Launch sequence
Days 1 to 7 · Diagnose and build (Oct 1 to 7)
- Confirm contribution margin and allowable CAC in Triple Whale ($59 break-even, $40 target). Reconcile Meta purchases against Shopify orders for the last 30 days so we know the pixel is telling the truth.
- Build the missing audiences: ATC/IC 14d, site visitors 30d and 90d, purchasers 30d and 180d, IG/FB engagers 90d, Klaviyo list sync.
- Rename the two existing campaigns to the SOTP standard. Nothing else changes on them that day.
- Day 3: prune the scale campaign. Pause every ad set under 1.5x with $500+ spend. Un-pause 148 B-3 and 118 D.
- Day 5: launch the recovery campaign at $100/day and the retention campaign's Klaviyo ad set.
- Day 6 (Mon Oct 6): first six test ad sets go live at $50/day each. Testing lane is on.
Days 8 to 30 · Read the first cohort (Oct 8 to 31)
- Daily: spend, purchase quality, CPM by ad set. Weekly: mature 7-day read on every test ad set. First graduations expected Oct 15 to 17.
- Six new concepts every Monday. The winner-iteration family (F3, 124C, 112B variants) gets two of the six slots every week from Oct 27 on.
- Scale campaign moves on the 20% rule only. Expected: $800 to roughly $1,000/day by end of October if CAC holds.
- Oct 24 to 31: rivalry flight. The dress rehearsal for the lifetime-budget playbook.
Days 31 to 60 · Fix the constraint, load the bank (Nov)
- Nov 1 to 14: cheapest CPMs of the quarter. Push the scale campaign hardest here. Eight concepts a week in the test lane.
- Nov 14: BFCM and gifting creative locked and approved. Nothing gets made in BFCM week, it only gets launched.
- Nov 17 to 20: test lane trimmed to the four best open concepts. No new launches after Nov 20 until Dec 2.
- Nov 21: BFCM flight opens to the list. Nov 27: broad turns on. Dec 1: flight ends.
Days 61 to 90 · Peak, then defend (Dec)
- Dec 2: gifting flight opens. Scale campaign keeps ramping on its own rule. Test lane back on at four concepts a week, gifting angles only.
- Dec 12: swap in the shipping-cutoff creative. Dec 18: gifting flight ends, e-gift ads move into the scale campaign.
- Dec 19 to 31: budgets step down on schedule, not on panic. Retention campaign gets a "treat yourself" and "new year, new season" angle.
- Jan 2: 90-day review. Mature cohorts against the Oct 1 baseline, Meta claims reconciled to Shopify and Triple Whale. Then the next test and its loss limit get written, including whether retention volume has earned the move to M3 swim lanes.
The 90-day scaling plan
Daily Meta budget by period, if the guardrails hold. This is a ceiling, not a promise. Every step up is earned by the 20% rule. Compare to today: about $925/day across the three live campaigns, and last December's peak of about $1,900/day on evergreen alone.
| Period | Scale | Test | Recovery + Retention | Flight (B) | Daily total | Period total |
|---|
| Oct 1-15 | $800 | $150 → $300 | $175 | - | ~$1,150 | $17K |
| Oct 16-31 | $850 → $1,000 | $300 | $200 | Rivalry $2,500 lifetime | ~$1,400 | $22K |
| Nov 1-14 | $1,000 → $1,250 | $400 | $250 | - | ~$1,800 | $25K |
| Nov 15-20 | $1,250 → $1,400 | $200 | $300 | - | ~$1,850 | $11K |
| Nov 21-Dec 1 (BFCM) | $1,400 | $0 | $300 | BFCM $10K lifetime (~$900/day) | ~$2,600 | $29K |
| Dec 2-18 (gifting) | $1,500 → $1,700 | $200 | $350 | Gifting $15K lifetime (~$900/day) | ~$3,000 | $51K |
| Dec 19-24 | $1,200 | $0 | $250 | E-gift inside scale | ~$1,450 | $9K |
| Dec 25-31 | $800 | $0 | $300 | - | ~$1,100 | $8K |
| Q4 Meta total: ~$172K | Oct ~$39K · Nov ~$65K · Dec ~$68K | | ~$172K |
By month: October ~$39K, November ~$65K, December ~$68K. At a blended 2.2 MER, that is roughly $380K in Meta-attributed revenue for the quarter. Against your $1.5M goal with ~$1M on the board, Q4 needs about $500K total across Meta, Google, email, wholesale, and organic. This is the Meta share of that.
What can stop the ramp, and what we do: CPMs doubled last Q4 ($17 to $47). The counter is cheap-delivery statics and a creative bank loaded by Nov 14, not more budget. If trailing CAC breaks $50 for three days at any step, the scale campaign cuts 25% and the test lane absorbs the difference until a new winner lands. The plan flexes down without breaking the structure.
How much creative this eats
Your own account answers this. Since June you launched about 58 concepts (112 through 170) at roughly three executions each. About 12 of them cleared 2x on real spend, and 3 became scalers. That is a 20% concept hit rate and a 5% scaler rate, which is normal for DTC. It means finding one new scaler a month takes about 20 concepts a month, and Q4 needs more than one.
~100concepts across Q4. About 60 in the test lane, 12 in flights, 12 in recovery and retention, 16 winner iterations.
~280ads (executions) across Q4. 3 to 4 per concept in testing, 2 per concept in flights.
20-30new ads a week in October and early November. That is the "25 to 50 a week" number from our call, hit at the bottom of the range and earned upward.
60 / 40static to video. The account says statics carry scale and video carries retargeting. We produce to that, not to taste.
| Month | Concepts | Ads | Statics | Video | Where it goes |
|---|
| October | 36 | ~120 | 72 | 48 | 24 test concepts, 8 winner iterations, 4 rivalry, recovery + retention set |
| November | 40 | ~110 | 66 | 44 | 24 test concepts (through Nov 20), 8 iterations, 8 BFCM, BFCM early-access for retention |
| December | 24 | ~50 | 30 | 20 | 8 gifting test concepts, 10 gifting flight ads, cutoff swaps, e-gift, retention |
| Q4 | ~100 | ~280 | ~170 | ~110 | |
Where it comes from
| Source | Output per week | Cost to you | Notes |
|---|
| Statics, in-house (Slice of the Pie, AI-assisted) | 15 to 20 | In the retainer | ChatGPT, Claude, Higgsfield. Product stills, comparison, proof, gift, iteration families. This is the volume engine and the format that wins in your account. |
| Local videographer, 2 shoot days a week | 6 to 10 raw clips → 8 to 12 edits | ~$400 to $600/week | Owen on the course, 2 to 3 polos and hats per shoot so one day looks like four. Replaces hiring an editor. Starts week of Oct 6. |
| Founder session (podcast or 100-question sheet) | One session → 20+ cuts | One afternoon | Owen and Josh, recorded once in October. Feeds founder ads for the whole quarter and the BFCM and rivalry founder cuts. |
| AI UGC and remakes (Higgsfield) | 4 to 6 | In the retainer | Unboxing, reaction, trend remakes, comedy. Tested cheap, produced properly only when a hook proves out. |
| Real UGC / creators | 2 to 4 | $150 to $300 per video | Starts November. Product-seeded creators, whitelisted. Feeds gifting flight and retargeting. |
Approval runs through the brief tool: concepts land Thursday, Owen and Josh have until Monday to react, anything unreviewed goes live as is on Monday. That is how 20 to 30 a week actually ships.
What we need from you to start Oct 1
- Admin on the Meta ad account and Business Manager (we have read access today)
- Klaviyo access, so the list syncs as an audience by day 2
- Triple Whale, the Klaviyo integration fixed, and the custom P&L we agreed on
- The BFCM offer decided by Nov 7 (we will bring a recommendation)
- Rivalry drop date and stock count confirmed by Oct 15
- Founder session on the calendar in October
- Shipping cutoff date from your 3PL for the gifting flight end date
- A yes by Friday, Sep 25, so the contract is dated Oct 1
Pricing and scope for this build are on the pricing page. The Google side of Q4 is in the STAOS Ads Audit. The creative concepts already built are on the creative page.
Data Sources
Meta Ads API, ad account 3217552185130501: campaign, ad set, and ad level, last 90 days (Jun 25 to Sep 23, 2026) and Nov 1 to Dec 31, 2025, weekly. Custom audience inventory as of Sep 23, 2026. SOTP Campaign Architecture Playbook, September 2026 edition, structures 1.01 to 1.06, selection matrix, and first-90-days plan. Business numbers (revenue, margin, CAC, AOV) from the Sep 21 call with Owen. Nothing in the account was changed to produce this page.
Slice of the Pie × The Golf Sock