Our Three Step Process
True Classic Tees: 10x Scaling at Speed
True Classic Tees, a direct-to-consumer brand offering premium quality tees at affordable prices, partnered with Highlight Digital to scale aggressively without sacrificing profitability. Over the first five months, we scaled ad spend from $35K to nearly $390K per month, increased purchases 8x, and nearly doubled average order value — all while keeping performance metrics within profitable range.
Client Background: True Classic Tees launched in September 2019 and quickly established a strong product-market fit. Initial ad campaigns focused heavily on ROAS, helping the brand gain traction with early wins. By the end of 2019, True Classic was spending around $35,000/month on ads, with a clear need for a structured, strategic approach to scale effectively. That’s when founder Ryan brought in Highlight Digital.
Challenge: True Classic had a great product and an early loyal customer base, but the ad account needed serious optimization to support sustainable growth. Key issues included:
• Lack of full-funnel structure and strategy
• Inefficient retargeting and missed revenue from warm audiences
• No clear creative testing and scaling system
• Campaign overlap, unoptimized budget allocation, and limited automation
Solution:
Phase 1: Audit & Strategic Planning
We started with a full-stack audit of the ad account, funnel gaps, creative library, and customer journey. Our first step was mapping the purchase decision-making cycle and identifying opportunities to restructure everything from campaign objectives to retention flows.
Funnel-Based Campaign Architecture
We implemented a tailored 4-layer funnel approach:
• TOF (Top-of-Funnel): Focused on proven interest and lookalike audiences, while building a structured creative and audience testing pipeline.
• MOF (Middle-of-Funnel): Activated warm audiences like page engagers, video viewers, and email subscribers. Introduced segmented retargeting windows (3, 7, 14, 30 days) to optimize timing.
• BOF (Bottom-of-Funnel): Isolated high-intent behaviors (product views, add-to-cart, checkout initiated) into focused retargeting campaigns. Added cross-sell and upsell messaging based on AOV insights.
• Retention: Built smart exclusions for recent purchasers and launched high-performing loyalty and bundle offers.
Creative Strategy:
• Launched a continuous testing loop for creatives, hooks, and formats.
• Leveraged pre-tested ad angles and UGC to scale with consistency.
• Created format-specific assets (video, static, carousels) optimized for each funnel stage.
Automation & Budget Scaling
• Introduced automated rules for scaling winners and cutting underperformers in real-time.
• Rebalanced budget allocations weekly across funnel stages to maintain efficiency at scale.
Results (Over 5 Months):
Metric | % Change |
|---|---|
Ad Spend | +1003% |
Purchases | +691% |
ROAS | -20% (expected at scale) |
Key Takeaways:
Our aggressive yet methodical scaling strategy led to massive revenue growth while maintaining profitability at scale. The use of:
• Funnel-based campaign segmentation
• Intelligent retargeting and LTV focus
• Pre-tested creatives and content frameworks
• Automation and smart budget scaling
…enabled True Classic to add 781% in purchase revenue in under five months.
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