The Challenge
CPA had spiked to about 5× target with no obvious cause, and only 57% of first-time buyers reached the 3+ order cohort that drives subscription economics.
Key Highlights
Found a Meta pixel that had stopped firing during a Shopify homepage A/B test, and fixed it on the first call
Built habit-building email sequences for first-time, second-time and 3+ order buyers, personalized by drink type
Scaled a Google sales campaign converting roughly 10× cheaper than Facebook and cut low-value branded search
Background
Caffeine & Legends is a coffee, tea and cocoa subscription box with a fandom angle, including a quarterly Romantasy box themed around romance-fantasy book releases. Patty runs the brand with a 32K-subscriber list and steady MRR.
The business has two linked growth problems: winning first-time buyers, then converting them into the 3+ order cohort that actually drives subscription economics.
The Problem
CPA had spiked to several times the target. The team didn’t know why. The homepage was performing well, spend was steady and the creative didn’t look fatigued.
Under the hood, the Facebook conversion pixel had stopped firing during a homepage A/B test running through Shopify. Without conversion signals, Facebook started experimenting with audiences. The Romantasy box and retargeting campaigns all ran well above target CPA.
Retention was a separate problem. Only 57% of first-time buyers reached 3+ orders, against a 70% target. Email ran on a monthly tool with a bounce rate that was hurting deliverability.
What We Did
Pixel diagnosis, in one call
We found the missing pixel with Meta Pixel Helper. On the same call we shut down the worst-performing creative, paused the high-CPA retargeting campaigns and reinstalled the pixel on the new homepage.
Restructured the Facebook account
Two campaigns were targeting the same audience with different budgets. Advantage+ wasn’t configured properly. Split tests compared the wrong variables (lookalikes vs. fantasy interests). We cleaned up all three.
Habit-building email sequences
We built sequences keyed to each buyer cohort:
- First-time buyers: day 3 brewing guides, day 18 subscription pitch
- Two-time buyers: day 12, personalized by drink type (tea, coffee or cocoa)
- 3+ order cohort: special messaging, early previews of new boxes and subscriber-only notifications
Klaviyo migration
The move gave the team better segmentation, direct audience sync to Facebook and Google, and one place to manage audiences. It also removed the old tool’s monthly fee. A one-time list-cleanup service cleaned the 32K list better than the built-in tools could. A third-party demographic enrichment layer made segments more precise.
Scaled Google Ads
A Google sales campaign was converting roughly an order of magnitude cheaper than Facebook. We recommended and shipped a significant budget increase, and turned off branded search, which was adding little.
Results
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly recurring revenue | Baseline | ~2× in six months |
| Cost per acquisition | ~5× over target | Back in target range |
| Retention to 3+ orders | 57% | Targeting 70% |
The MRR doubling didn’t come from one fix. It came from catching the tracking gap before the BOGO campaign burned through inventory, then compounding habit-building emails cohort after cohort.
“When you do an A/B test on your homepage and lose the pixel, you don’t always know. Andrei and the team found it in a week and saved the BOGO campaign.” — Patty, founder, Caffeine & Legends
Results are specific to this client and engagement, not typical or guaranteed outcomes.
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