Cut apparel CAC from $48 to $2.14

The brief

Foundry Athletic launched in 2024 with a strong product (technical training gear, in-house manufacturing) but an undifferentiated brand presence. Their Instagram had 1,800 followers, mostly friends and family. Their CAC on cold paid Meta was $48 — well above their LTV ceiling.

They needed:

• A real content engine that built brand equity, not just impressions
• Paid ads that worked because the content was working
• Both inside the same retainer

What we did

Voice + visual audit (week 1). We spent the first week pulling six months of brand assets, interviewing the founders, and building a 14-page voice + visual standard that locked the brand's point of view: high-output athletes, technical specificity, zero hype.

Content engine (weeks 2–onward). We shifted production from "studio shoot per quarter" to "iPhone-shot, athlete-in-context per week." Lower production value, higher truth value. Engagement rate tripled in month one.

Paid layered on (month 3). Once the content was proving message-market fit, we promoted the top 20% of it as paid ads. CAC dropped from $48 to $2.14 in the first month of layered paid.

What we shipped

• Weekly content batch: 8 reels, 6 stills, 12 stories, produced for the ad account first and organic reach second
• Athlete content partnership program (12 partners by month 4)
• Paid amplification on top-decile content, retargeting warm audiences built from that reach
• Weekly CAC and ROAS reporting broken out by creative batch

The numbers

• $2.14 blended CAC across paid + content-driven traffic, down from $48 on cold paid alone
• 9.2% engagement rate on the top-performing content format (vs 0.9% industry baseline)
• +340% revenue in trailing 6 months
• Audience grew 0 → 47,000 on Instagram over 11 months as a byproduct of the content engine, not the goal of it

What's next

We're rolling out a brand ambassador program in Q3 and layering in more content formats to keep feeding the ad account fresh creative before fatigue sets in.