Thicc Cookies Sold Over 1 Million Cookies With Paid Social Advertising
Thicc Cookies is a premium Australian dessert brand: freshly baked, thick, New York style cookies. We built their D2C marketing across Meta Ads, YouTube and email. The result was a 5.1x return on ad spend and a brand that grew from regional to the US market. This food brand case study shows how the pieces fit.
The Recipe Card
Every good recipe starts with the basics on one card: what it is, how long it takes and how many it serves. Here is the Thicc Cookies campaign the same way.
All figures are the ones published on the Thicc Cookies case study.
Thicc Cookies
- Client
- Thicc Cookies
- Cuisine
- Premium freshly baked cookies, sold online
- Origin
- Australia, then the US
- Channels
- Meta Ads, YouTube, email
- Services
- Paid ads, creative testing, email marketing
- Bake time
- 90 days to results
- Ad spend
- $20k total
- Serves
- 1M+ cookies sold at 5.1x ROAS
One Ad, Two Jobs at Once
Selling a premium cookie online is harder than it looks. The ad has to make people hungry, and it has to make them trust that an order from a brand they have never tried will turn up as good as it looks.
Make them want it
A cookie has about a second in the feed to look irresistible. Thickness, the soft centre, the break. If that does not come through, nothing else in the ad matters.
- Close-up texture
- Movement
- Real food, real light
Make them trust it
Then the doubts: will it arrive fresh, is it worth more than a supermarket packet, is this brand real. Desire gets the click. Confidence gets the order.
- Delivery and packaging
- Reviews
- Why it costs more
Most food ads only fill one bowl. The account had to do both, and do it on a budget that had to pay for itself.
Channels and Assets That Went In
What a D2C food account like this needs before anything is switched on. This is our method, not a copy of the client’s account.
For the dough: Meta Ads
Where most orders are won.
- Broad prospecting campaignthe base
- Short vertical food videoplenty, fresh
- Retargeting for viewers and visitorsto finish
- A purchase event, not add to cartessential
For the filling: YouTube
Where people get hungry before they are looking.
- Skippable in-stream with an early hookfirst 5 seconds
- Shorts cut from the same footagereuse
- Viewer lists sent to Meta retargetingto taste
For the glaze: email
Where the second and third box come from.
- Welcome flow for first-time buyersalways on
- Abandoned cart flowalways on
- New flavour and gifting sendsseasonal
Equipment
Without these, nobody knows what worked.
- Meta Pixel plus Conversions APIdeduplicated
- UTMs on every ad and emailconsistent
- Separate markets for Australia and the USown budgets
How the Account Was Baked
The order of steps we follow for a premium food brand on paid social. Each step depends on the one before it.
Set up tracking before spending
Pixel and Conversions API sending real purchases, checked against store orders. Meta can only find more buyers if it can see the ones it already found.
Tip: compare a week of purchases in Events Manager with your store. If they are far apart, fix that first.Shoot for the scroll, not the brochure
Food sells on texture. We plan footage around the moments that make people stop: the break, the stretch, the box opening, someone taking a bite.
Tip: phone footage in good daylight often beats a studio shoot for food in the feed.Test angles in rounds
A round is a handful of different reasons to buy, tested against each other with the same offer. Keep what wins, replace what loses, run the next round.
Tip: judge on cost per purchase, not likes. The prettiest ad is not always the one that sells.Use YouTube to make them hungry
YouTube reaches people before they are thinking about dessert. Viewers who watch a good chunk go into a retargeting list on Meta, where the order is closed.
Tip: put the product on screen in the first few seconds, before the skip button appears.Let email bring them back
Paid ads win the first order. Email flows win the next ones, at almost no extra cost. That is what keeps customer cost affordable over time.
Tip: a welcome flow and an abandoned cart flow come before any newsletter.Scale market by market
Once a market is profitable, budget rises in steady steps. A new market like the US gets its own campaigns and budget, so it does not borrow results from Australia or hide its own.
Tip: if cost per purchase creeps up while scaling, refresh creative before you cut budget.
What the Recipe Served
The numbers published on the Thicc Cookies case study.
- Return on ad spend5.1x$5.10 back for every $1 spent
- Customer costunder $30to acquire a customer
- Total ad spend$20kas reported
- Time to results90 daysfrom launch
- ReachRegional to the USthe brand grew from a regional Australian presence into the US market
Notes From the Test Kitchen
Four things any food or D2C founder can take from this, whatever you bake, brew or ship.
Sell the texture
For food, the close-up does the selling. Spend your creative effort on the second that makes someone hungry.
Answer the doubt
Premium price raises the question “is it worth it”. Show delivery, packaging and reviews so the answer is in the ad.
Give channels different jobs
YouTube to build appetite, Meta to close, email to bring them back. One channel doing everything usually does nothing well.
New market, new budget
When you expand abroad, run the new country separately. Blended results hide whether it actually works.
Related Services and Stories
Questions About This Food Brand Paid Social Case Study
What is a good ROAS for a food brand, and is 5.1x strong?
For a D2C food brand, yes, it is strong. Food has lower order values than most categories, so returns are often tighter. What counts as good for you depends on your margin: work out the ROAS you need to break even on the first order, then aim above it.
Should a food brand advertise on YouTube or just Meta?
Meta usually wins the orders. YouTube is useful for reaching people before they are thinking about your product and for building retargeting lists. If budget is tight, start with Meta and add YouTube once you have food footage that works in the first few seconds.
Do we need professional video for food ads?
Not usually. Close-up phone footage in good light, showing texture and real people eating, often performs as well as or better than a studio shoot in a feed. What matters most is the first second and testing enough different angles.
Can a perishable product be sold internationally with ads?
It can, as Thicc Cookies grew from regional Australia to the US. Delivery has to work first. On the ads side, run the new country as its own campaigns with its own budget and creative, so you can see whether it is profitable on its own.
How long does paid social take to show results for a D2C food brand?
Thicc Cookies saw results within 90 days. That is a fair expectation: the first weeks go on tracking, footage and the first creative rounds. It is also why we work on a 3-month minimum, then month to month.
Will you get the same results for my brand?
We cannot promise the same numbers. We can audit your account for free and show you where your current spend is going, what your creative is missing and what we would test first.
Let Us Taste-Test Your Ad Account
Send us your Meta, YouTube or Google account. We will show you what is working, what is wasting money and the first creative angles we would test. Free, and you keep the findings.