Introduction

Cat Person, a Harry's owned brand, had scaled to 7-figures in monthly Meta + Google ad revenue on the back of their best-in-class cat food, but they were hitting a ceiling and looking to break through to the next level on both channels through more sophisticated media buying.

They turned to Flighted to take over their media buying efforts on both channels. Through a combination of in-platform optimizations and ongoing testing of both ad creative and the landing page experience, we were able to drive meaningful 13% spend growth and an 11% improvement in CPA efficiency in under 30 days for the brand across Meta and Google

Landing Page Optimizations

One of the first tests we ran was a completely redesigned LP. Their current LP was fairly simple, only showing high-level info on their product such as the different flavor options offered. In such a competitive space, we knew customers were extremely picky with the intricacies of their cat food products - ingredient profile, macros, etc. We made a "listicle style" landing page that was advertorial in nature, but still easy to quickly scan, in order to make Cat Person stick out against the competition. The resulting page led to a strong lift in Conversion Rate and Revenue Per Session for paid ad traffic.

Meta Account Optimizations

Like many large advertisers, much of Cat Person's ad account was stuck in the learning phase due to overly fragmented campaign structures using Adset Budget Optimization. We quickly restructured campaigns like Creative Testing to leverage Campaign Budget Optimization allowing for more day-to-day fluidity in spend allocation.

Bid Adjustments

To manage spend efficiently, bid caps were gradually lowered in underperforming campaigns while higher-performing campaigns received scaled-up budgets. When bid caps restricted spend, they were removed or adjusted to hit daily budget targets, helping maintain effective CPA rates and optimize spend.

Attribution Optimization

We moved toward a majority 1-day click (1DC) attribution, transitioning away from view-through metrics as 1DC offered better alignment with campaign objectives. This transition was backed by careful tracking to optimize campaigns around click-driven conversions and observed improved CPA correlation across platforms.

Whitelisting and Targeting Expansion

Leveraging whitelisting with select creators and the Flighted-owned blog Tested and Trending, ads directed to specific audiences resulted in higher engagement and low CPC. Lookalike and engagement-based audiences were tested for broader reach while maintaining efficiency, demonstrating that creator-specific audiences could boost the CPA performance.

Account Hygiene

Most of the money saved in Meta ad accounts of this size is in the margins. We ensured that the "little things" were done correctly, compounding to large shifts in efficiency: reducing the number of active ads per adset, adding proper exclusions to all prospecting adsets to reduce overall frequency and increase First-Time Impression Ratio, reducing spend on retargeting to more incremental campaign types, and opening up ad placements to automatic instead of manual.

Google Account Optimizations

Overall Structure Refinement

Our biggest shift came from segmenting their "catch-all" PMax into 3 separate campaigns: Non-Brand, Brand, and General, so that we could focus on new customer acquisition and optimize each audience type independently with its own ROAS goal. With the introduction of RSAs (Responsive Search Ads) and selective use of negative keywords, we improved targeting precision and overall CTR of our NB Creative. Pausing duplicative PMax campaigns reduced algorithm confusion and directed spend toward ads with higher conversion rates.

PMax Campaign Optimization

We layered in targeted audience signals and top-performing search terms enhanced algorithm efficiency. Pauses on inefficient assets and tests with bidding strategies such as Target CPA (TCPA) increased conversion rates in PMax, improving overall CPA and increasing new customer acquisition.

Non-Branded testing

We did a substantial 10+ ad group test of new keyword ad groups targeting different buyer personas and levels of intent, mining for potential high-value keywords that would drive non-branded growth in the account. We eventually found new winners such as “natural cat food” and “subscription cat food”, resulting in cost-effective customer acquisition and enhanced algorithm learning across the account.

Successfully Scaling YouTube

We worked with the client to pull a weekly report of their attribution survey, and found that while YouTube's value was not getting captured in Google's in-platform reporting, survey data showed that it was an extremely efficient new customer acquisition channel. This gave us the confidence to increase budget significantly of this top-of-funnel video campaign.

Summary

By focusing on Cat Person's entire acquisition funnel, not just their in-platform ad account deficiencies, we were able to meaningfully move the needle for their business. These strategic adjustments collectively contributed to better CPA control, efficient scaling, and consistent new customer acquisition, making the campaigns both more effective and cost-efficient over time.