Challenge
Exclusions That Didn't Exclude
Cozy Earth, a fast-growing luxury bedding and loungewear brand, had long suspected that too much of its paid ad budget was going to existing customers. Using Popsicle, they confirmed it: Facebook was attributing a significant share of purchases to past buyers despite Cozy Earth having every traditional exclusion method already in place.
The team tried everything: manual customer list uploads each month, automations through Klaviyo, Shopify, and Attentive, even layering multiple native exclusions inside Ads Manager. But nothing worked. Multiple reports confirmed that all these exclusion methods were ineffective, and too much budget continued to leak to existing customers.
“We had four different systems trying to keep our customers excluded, and it still wasn't working.
”
For Cozy Earth, this was more than a frustration, it was an existential threat. As long as nearly half of their ad budget was being wasted on the wrong users, new customer acquisition, business growth, and profitability would continue to suffer.
Solution
Real-Time Exclusions That Actually Worked
The team turned to WasteNot, a no-code platform purpose-built to allow marketers to activate exclusions that actually work. Cozy Earth connected Shopify, Klaviyo, and Meta in minutes, with no engineering resources required. From there, exclusions were automated in real time by leveraging WasteNot's superior data quality and proprietary exclusion tactics, eliminating the need for manual CSV uploads.
Within ten days, the impact was undeniable.
“You could see it right away. Our percentage of new customers quickly jumped. It was the first time exclusions actually did what they were supposed to.
”
Results
Real Growth, Real Value
Within just 30 days, Cozy Earth saw a dramatic shift in its customer mix. WasteNot didn't just cut wasted spend, it redirected it toward true growth.
Key shifts included:
- Share of new customer orders jumped from 44% to 63%
- New customer orders increased by 43%
- 19% more of Cozy Earth's user acquisition budget went to cold audiences and new customers
- 30% less of Cozy Earth's acquisition budget was spent on warm audiences and 59% less was spent on existing customers
This dramatic increase in new customer acquisition efficiency allowed Cozy Earth to increase overall spend on Meta by 30% while maintaining these performance gains, further accelerating their new customer growth and overall profitability. Instead of inflating nCAC, as spend increases typically do, that additional budget went straight to acquiring net-new customers.
- 43%
- Increase in new customer orders
- 26%
- Increase in percentage new customer orders
- 59%
- Decrease in spend on existing customers
Conclusion
Just as important as the numbers was the confidence boost. With exclusions finally working, the team knew they could trust the data they were seeing. That clarity gave them the conviction to scale budgets, test more creative, and explore new audiences without second-guessing whether their dollars were being wasted on non-incremental conversions.
“It was hard to sell internally at first, but the results spoke for themselves. No one else can do what WasteNot does, and that makes it worth every penny.
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