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59%
Increase in NCROAS
40%
Decrease in NCAC
10%
Increase in total ROAS
Stop wasting ad dollars and work hours
Accelerate growth and profitability by blocking the ad buys that drive zero conversions.
40% of the Budget Going to Existing Customers
At the beginning of 2025, a large DTC Watch Brand spending around $20m per year on ads was struggling to keep acquisition dollars focused on net-new audiences. Despite activating every exclusion tactic available in Meta Ads Manager, nearly 40% of the budget was still being spent on past customers, recent site visitors, and content engagers.
“As Nate Lagos explained, ‘At one point we had almost 40% of our budget being spent on recent site visitors and customers, which was not what we were trying to do at all. That definitely hindered growth when a huge chunk of our ad spend wasn’t even advertising — it was just retargeting.’”
The impact was clear:
Cost per new site visitor nearly tripled vs. the prior year
New customer ROAS fell sharply
New visitor percentage from Meta ads declined
Despite using customer list uploads, Klaviyo and Shopify syncs, capping Advantage+ budgets, excluding 180-day purchasers, and diversifying creative, our growth and profitability continued to stall.
A Trusted Referral and Fast Setup
The turning point came via a referral from Cody Plofker, CMO at Jones Road Beauty.
“There are tons of tools like WasteNot out there that promise the world,” Lagos said. “But when I get a tip from a marketer I trust at a big brand, and it’s shared privately rather than as a paid plug, I take it seriously..”
Onboarding was straightforward — connecting Shopify and Meta accounts was all it took. Within the first week, performance began to shift. In the following weeks, with no promotions running, the performance lift remained, proving it was WasteNot driving these results.
Efficiency Gains Across the Funnel
After months of failed attempts with Meta’s native exclusions and customer list uploads, WasteNot finally gave the brand the ability to scale with confidence.
The measurable gains were dramatic and consistent:
New customer efficiency improved across every metric. New Customer ROAS rose by 59%, while acquisition costs dropped by 40%. That shift translated into growth as new customer purchases increased by 30%, and the impact carried through to the top line with overall ROAS improving by 10%.
“Every metric that the business wanted to see improved,” Lagos said. “We immediately started hitting contribution margin targets again.”
WasteNot didn’t just deliver better exclusions; it reset how the team thought about Meta altogether. Lagos noted that it reframed Meta as the ultimate megaphone for reaching the right new people, not just retargeting existing fans.
“It works,” Lagos summarized. “We had tried a bunch of things before that either didn’t work or kind of worked. WasteNot definitively worked.”
59%
Increase in NCROAS
40%
Decrease in NCAC
10%
Increase in total ROAS
“It works. We had tried a bunch of things before that either didn’t work or kind of worked. WasteNot definitively worked.”
Nate Lagos
Head of Growth
Time and again, exclusions (that actually work) have been one of the most effective ad optimization tactics for improving spend efficiency and growth KPIs
Yet, traditional exclusion methods are woefully tedious to activate and manage, and often flat-out ineffective.
WasteNot offers a simple solution: exclusions that perform as they should, activated with ease and without the need for technical resources.
Learn more about WasteNot and activate your own free trial by scheduling a demo here.
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