How We Scaled a Seasonal Apparel Brand to $1.2M/Month

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In today’s edition, I share how one of our apparel clients crossed $1.2M in monthly revenue.

This wasn't a fluke. It wasn't a BFCM spike. This was Q3 2025, a historically slow period for this brand – and they did $1.2M in a single month while maintaining profitability.

At the beginning of 2025? This brand was doing $300K-$400K a month, completely dependent on their summer season, and watching sales crater every fall and winter.

In less than 9 months, we've nearly tripled their revenue and broken their seasonal dependency entirely.

Today I want to walk you through exactly how we did it. The diagnosis, the strategy, the execution, and the results.

This is one of those case studies that shows what's actually possible when creative strategy, media buying, and systematic testing work together.

Let's get into it.

The Problem: Seasonal Dependency

When this brand came to us in early 2025, the data told a brutal story.

Sales would spike every summer - June through August - hitting $500K-$600K monthly. Then September would hit, and sales would drop 60-70%. By November, they'd be scraping by at $150K-$200K/month.

Looking at their 2023-2024 data, the pattern was undeniable. Two years of the same cycle. Massive summer peaks, then watching the business contract for 8 months until the next summer.

This wasn't sustainable. They couldn't scale a business that only worked 4 months a year.

The brand had recently launched a winter line to address this. Good products. Strong margins. But it wasn't moving. Sales were anemic. CPMs were through the roof. ROAS was barely breakeven.

Why?

Because the market had already decided what this brand was. Every signal – their creative library, their Instagram presence, their ad history – screamed "summer brand." The algorithm knew it. The audience knew it. And neither was interested in buying winter apparel from a summer-first brand.

Our challenge wasn't just to sell more product. It was to fundamentally reshape the brand's seasonal narrative and build year-round momentum that could sustain $1M+ months regardless of season.

Phase 1: Diagnosing the Creative Problem

Before we changed anything in the account structure, we needed to understand what was actually working.

We started with a comprehensive creative audit. Not just "what's our best ROAS ad"… we went deeper.

We analyzed:

• Scroll-stop rates by creative format

• Hook performance across different value propositions

• CPM variance between Reels, static images, and carousel formats

• Engagement metrics (comments, shares, saves) as leading indicators

• Cross-seasonal performance patterns in their creative library

The findings were striking.

Static ads (their historical go-to format) were getting $18-$24 CPMs in the competitive winter landscape. Engagement was mediocre. Scroll-stop rates were 20-25%.

Reel ads were crushing it. $8-$13 CPMs. Scroll-stop rates of 45-55%. Significantly better hold rates through the first 3 seconds.

But here's what most brands miss: it wasn't just that Reels were cheaper. They were fundamentally better at breaking pattern and stopping cold traffic.

The winter market is saturated. Everyone's running winter apparel ads. To break through, you need creative that doesn't look like an ad. Reels, especially organic-style UGC Reels, gave us that edge.

We also found something interesting in the engagement data. Their summer ads from 2024 that performed best had massive comment sections. Hundreds of comments. High save rates. These weren't just performing ads – they were content people actually wanted to engage with.

That insight became critical for Phase 3.

Phase 2: The Testing Framework

With our creative hypothesis validated, we built a systematic testing framework.

Here's how we structured it:

Week 1-2: Format & Concept Testing
We created 12 new Reel concepts for the winter line. Different hooks, different formats, different value propositions. All organic-style UGC.

Each concept got $50-$100/day in a dedicated ad set within a broad ASC campaign. No optimization. Just learning.

We tracked:

• CPMs

• CTR (benchmark: >2%)

• Hook rate (first 3 seconds, target: >30%)

• Add-to-cart rate

• 3-day ROAS

Week 3-4: Winner Isolation
Three concepts emerged as clear winners. All three were Reel-format. All three had CPMs under $12. All three were maintaining 2-2.5X ROAS at $100/day spend.

This is where most brands make a mistake. They see winning creative and immediately try to scale it within the same campaign structure. Bad idea. You lose control. CPMs spike. Performance degrades.

Instead, we isolated each winner into its own ASC+ campaign.

Here's the structure:

• Campaign objective: Sales

• ASC+ with manual placement (Feed, Reels, Stories)

• 50% existing customer cap (critical for controlling new customer acquisition)

• CBO with conservative starting budget ($200/day per campaign)

• Advantage+ audience with custom exclusions

Week 5-8: Systematic Scaling
This is where the discipline matters.

We scaled each winning campaign 20-30% every 3-4 days, but only if:

• ROAS stayed above 2X (their target threshold)

• CPMs didn't increase more than 15%

• New customer percentage stayed above 40%

If any metric fell outside those guardrails, we held budget steady for 5-7 days to stabilize.

One campaign – a UGC-style Reel featuring a customer wearing the winter jacket in a coffee shop with a hook about "looking good when it's freezing outside" – scaled from $200/day to $1,800/day.

$1,800/day. Single piece of creative. Maintaining 2X ROAS.

That's what systematic scaling looks like when you have the right infrastructure.

Phase 3: Transitioning to Summer (The Leverage Play)

As we moved into spring and early summer, we had a decision to make.

We could start fresh with new summer creative and go through the whole testing process again. Or we could leverage what already worked.

We chose leverage.

We went back to their 2024 summer campaigns and identified the top 5 performing ads based on:

• Total revenue generated

• Engagement metrics (comments + saves)

• Long-term performance (ads that worked for 60+ days, not just flash-in-the-pan winners)

These ads had already done the heavy lifting. They had social proof. Hundreds of comments. High engagement. The algorithm knew these posts performed.

Here's what we did:

1. Pulled the post IDs from these winning ads

2. Set up new isolated ASC+ campaigns using those existing post IDs

3. Started each campaign at $300/day (higher than our winter tests because we had more confidence)

4. Scaled systematically using the same guardrails as Phase 2

This approach gave us two advantages:

First, we maintained all the existing engagement and social proof. When someone saw the ad, they'd see real comments from real people. That trust signal is massive for cold traffic.

Second, we got fresh auction access. Even though the creative was from 2024, the algorithm treated these as new campaigns with new optimization learners.

Within 4 weeks, we had three summer campaigns, each spending $800-$1,200/day at 2-2.5X ROAS.

Phase 4: The Compounding Effect

By July 2025, we had built something powerful.

We had 4-5 isolated ASC+ campaigns running simultaneously:

• 2 winter line campaigns (preparing for Q4)

• 3 summer line campaigns

• 1 year-round bestseller campaign

Each campaign was spending $600-$1,400/day. Each was maintaining 2-2.5X ROAS. CPMs were stable. New customer acquisition was healthy.

Total daily ad spend: $6,000-$8,000/day
Blended ROAS: 2.2X
Monthly revenue: $1.2M+

But here's what made this sustainable: we weren't relying on a single winner. We had multiple campaigns, multiple creatives, multiple product lines, all performing simultaneously.

If one campaign started to fatigue, it didn't crater the entire account. We could adjust budget allocation without disrupting overall performance.

This is what mature, scalable paid acquisition looks like.

What Made This Work (The Real Insights)

Most people will read this and think the tactics are the breakthrough. The Reel formats. The isolated campaigns. The 50% existing customer caps.

Those matter. But they're not why this worked.

Here's what actually made the difference:

1. We diagnosed the constraint before we prescribed the solution

The problem wasn't "we need better creative" or "we need to spend more." The problem was seasonal dependency driven by market perception and creative positioning.

Everything we did flowed from that diagnosis.

2. We built infrastructure for testing, not just tests

Most brands run random tests. They try stuff, see what works, move on.

We built a systematic framework with clear success metrics, defined guardrails, and repeatable processes. That framework is what allowed us to go from testing to scale without losing control.

3. We treated creative and media buying as one integrated system

Every creative decision informed our campaign structure. Every media buying insight fed back into creative strategy.

When we saw Reels performing at lower CPMs, we didn't just make more Reels. We restructured our entire creative production pipeline around that insight.

When we saw isolated campaigns giving us better control, we didn't just use that structure occasionally. We made it our default approach for scaling winners.

4. We used leverage instead of always starting from scratch

The summer campaign buildout worked because we didn't try to reinvent the wheel. We found what already worked, preserved the social proof, and gave it fresh auction access.

Most brands throw away their winners and start over every season. That's leaving money on the table.

The Framework (How to Apply This)

If you want to break through your own growth ceiling, here's the framework:

Step 1: Diagnose your actual constraint
Is it creative? Media buying structure? Product-market fit? Retention? Don't guess. Look at the data and figure out what's actually limiting scale.

Step 2: Build a systematic testing framework
Define your success metrics. Set up dedicated testing budgets. Create clear guardrails for what "winning" looks like.

Step 3: Isolate winners and scale with discipline
Don't try to scale everything in one campaign. Isolate your winners. Set guardrails. Scale methodically.

Step 4: Leverage what works
When you find something that performs, milk it. Use post IDs. Repurpose concepts. Don't abandon winners just because they're "old."

This brand went from $300K-$400K monthly at the start of 2025 to consistent $1M+ months by Q3.

That's not luck. That's what happens when strategy, execution, and discipline align.

Ready to Break Your Growth Ceiling?

If you're doing $200K+ monthly and feel like you've hit a wall, this is exactly the type of work we do at Brick.

We don't just run ads. We diagnose constraints, build systematic testing frameworks, and execute strategies that actually scale.

If you want to explore what this could look like for your brand: » Book A Call With Me Here «

Until next week,

Toby