Case Study / Nov 2025 → Apr 2026
US Market · UGC · MetaWithings × UGC Factory
Across five months, I wrote 46 scripts and 41 ads launched. Five became scaled winners. The program reached $189K in tracked revenue on $97K in spend and 651 purchases.
Ad Spend to Tracked Revenue
5 months · 651 purchases · 41 ads delivered
12% of account creatives. 50% of scaled winners. During the tracked full-price period, this program accounted for the U.S. cold-traffic purchases.
The Turnaround
CPA by PhaseCPA before vs. after.
First-month audit baseline: $359 CPA on $8,970 in UGC spend. Nearly 3x worse than the account's video average of $125. Male-led lifestyle UGC was the lowest-performing format in the entire account. Over five months, I rebuilt the creative strategy and brought CPA on the best ad down 69%.
First Batch
8 of 8 profitable at 2.38x blended ROAS.
8 ads launched November 23, 2025. 295 purchases on $36,770 in spend. All eight were profitable in the first performance read.
Ad Performance
41 Ads · Top 5 Drove 73%Top ads, ranked by spend.
41 ads delivered. Top 5 drove 73% of all purchases. Green beat the published 2.6x industry benchmark for health and wellness brands at this scale. Amber is profitable but below benchmark. Dot size is purchases.
Spend (USD) →
| Ad ↕ | ROAS ↕ | Spend ↕ | Purch ↕ | CPA ↕ | Hook ↕ | Revenue ↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cecelia, Cinematic B-roll (SW2) | 2.75 | $18,883 | 168 | $112 | 62 | $51,929 |
| BF Femme Sport (SW2) | 2.43 | $17,831 | 128 | $139 | 62 | $43,331 |
| Raw Data Confession (BS) | 2.08 | $11,193 | 80 | $140 | 67 | $23,282 |
| Competitor Comp SW2 (BF) | 1.95 | $8,213 | 55 | $149 | 73 | $16,015 |
| Competitor Comp BS (BF) | 3.32 | $5,319 | 47 | $113 | 46 | $17,659 |
| Biohacker BS (BF) | 4.08 | $2,680 | 23 | $117 | 58 | $10,934 |
| Craig, Ritual Demo M3 (BS) | 1.83 | $1,837 | 10 | $184 | 79 | $3,362 |
+ 10 additional ads at lower spend. All figures USD at 1.15 EUR conversion. Click column headers to sort.
Under Meta's GEM delivery model, spend allocation indicates creative efficacy. The non-winners weren't waste. They were sequenced around the closers as part of the funnel.
Account Position
The Context12% of creatives. 50% of scaled winners.
The $1.5M Withings account ran at 2.04x blended ROAS during the engagement, below the 2.6x health and wellness industry benchmark. Three of my ads beat that benchmark. The rest of the account did not.
of the 352 creatives launched in the account came from me. 41 ads total.
of total account spend. More winners per dollar than the rest of the account.
scaled winners in the entire account came from my briefs. Half.
Top Performer
Cecelia Friday · ScanWatch 2Cinematic B-roll, proof dressed as lifestyle.
Lifestyle demo. Cecelia moves through her day (yoga, morning routine, health data checks) with the ScanWatch 2 on-wrist throughout. Text overlays layer product benefits. Offer-stacked copy: free month of Withings+, free shipping, 2-year warranty.
54 active spend days across a 4-month window. It peaked at 3.31x ROAS in the first 60 days and sustained 2.75x across the full active period. The ad ran on and off as audience response slowed, and it still performed when it returned.
Creative architecture of the winners.
Product visible in frame 1.
Not 'establishing shot then product reveal.' The product IS the establishing shot. On-wrist in motion. Scale with feet on it. App screen with data visible. If the viewer can't identify the product in 0.5 seconds, performance drops.
Text hook confirms a belief.
"Most smartwatches are glorified step counters" only works if the viewer already believes it. The hook creates recognition. The viewer already thinks it, the ad just says it out loud.
The proof is data the viewer can see.
Heart rate on the scale screen. App data on the phone. ECG readings. Seconds 3 to 10, where conversion happens, show data the viewer can verify. No narrator explaining why it's good. The viewer draws their own conclusion.
UGC vs Celebrity
What Actually ScalesCelebrity converts efficiently. UGC scales.
Celebrity Licensed
Neither scaled past $1.2K. Efficient on small audiences, ceiling hits fast.
UGC (Mine)
Both held efficiency past $15K. Same psychology as celebrity, applied at scale.
Withings had no US cold-traffic conversion engine before this work. Branded statics serve Europe. Celebrity converts but doesn't scale. UGC was the only format that both converted and scaled in the US.
The Problem
Starting PointUGC was underperforming by 3x.
Withings is a $100M+ French health tech company selling premium connected devices. ScanWatch 2 at $370, Body Scan at $499. Competitors: Apple Watch, WHOOP, Oura, Garmin. Buyers are informed skeptics who research before they buy.
When I took over, the $1.5M Meta account was running below the 2.6x health and wellness industry benchmark. UGC Factory's first-month ads sat at $359 CPA on $8,970 spend. Nearly 3x worse than the account video average of $125. Male-led lifestyle UGC was the lowest-performing format in the entire account.
| UGCF ads CPA | $359 |
| Account video avg CPA | $125 |
| Gap | +187% (nearly 3x worse) |
| UGCF total spend | $8,970 |
| UGCF conversions | 25 |
What I Did
The FixMatched the ad to how the buyer decides.
The creative wasn't failing. It was aimed at the wrong psychology. Fixing that single mismatch drove the entire turnaround.
Withings customers at $370 to $499 price points don't impulse buy from lifestyle content. They're informed skeptics upgrading from existing trackers. They need proof and specificity.
I split the buyers into two groups.
Group 01
Proof buyers
Trust data, mechanism, and outside verification. They respond to proof, comparisons, and technical specs.
Group 02
Lifestyle buyers
Trust proof from people who look like them. They respond to lifestyle, routine, and seeing themselves in it.
The male UGC was lifestyle creative aimed at buyers who wanted proof. That mismatch was the entire problem.
Three-Month Pipeline
Angle Testing
First batch. 8 ads, 100% profitable.
Framework Iteration
Foreplay Lens competitive audit across Apple Watch, WHOOP, Oura, Garmin. Hook refinement.
Full Deployment
Matched creative to buyer type. The pattern held on both the winners and the losers.
46 scripts total. Word-for-word copy, shot lists, casting archetypes, editor specs.
What Worked
Extracted PatternsFive patterns that drove the turnaround.
How they buy beats who they are.
Male lifestyle UGC failed because it was lifestyle creative shown to buyers who wanted data and proof. Gender didn't predict how people bought. Matching the proof in the ad to what the buyer needed to believe it mattered more than anything else I changed.
The real test is profitable at scale.
Anyone can point to a high-ROAS ad with $200 in spend. The test is holding efficiency at $8K to $18K when Meta pushes to colder audiences. Five of my ads held that at scale. Out of 352 creatives in the account, only a handful did.
Offer copy converts harder, fatigues faster.
Same creator, same footage. Offer-stacked copy hit 3.31x ROAS but started fatiguing at 11 weeks. Lifestyle-only copy ran longer at 2.43x. Run both in rotation. The video sells, the copy closes. Separate jobs.
High-attention hooks need proof structures.
M2 hooks scored 77 to 89 vs. M1's 53 to 66. Higher attention, lower ROAS. The hook earns the view. Everything after second 3 earns the purchase. Optimizing hooks without optimizing the proof body creates expensive attention with no conversion.
UGC converts year-round. Statics only on sale.
In-house BF/holiday statics converted during promotional windows at 3 to 5x ROAS across Europe. Outside of sale events (Jan to Mar 2026), in-house statics spent $20K+ in the US with zero purchases. UGC was the only format that converted at full price, year-round.
M3 Framework Confirmation
Strategy is only valuable if it predicts what won't work.
M3 ran inside an account averaging 2.04x ROAS. Proof-led product formats (David Craig Ritual Demo 1.83x, Close-Up 1.39x) clustered around the account average. Pure lifestyle formats (Cecelia AD 6, AD 7, David Craig AD 8) clustered well below it at 0.75 to 1.09x.
Both outcomes were predicted before the spend went out. Calling the losers in advance is the part that actually saves money.
Scope of Work
5 Months, Full-StackFull-stack creative direction.
Strategy
Foreplay Lens competitive audit across Apple Watch, WHOOP, Oura, Garmin. M1 to M3 strategy decks. Audience mapping by buyer type, proof buyers vs lifestyle buyers. Seasonal angles (BF, Q5, NYE, V-Day).
Creative
46 scripts with shot lists, text hooks, visual hooks, tone direction. Worked with 5 creators (Cecelia Friday, Jordan Wilson, Steven, Kyle Fraser, David Craig, David Fernandez) across video, image, and motion formats.
Production
Editor management (international team). Frame.io review workflow. V1 to V3 revision cycles. ElevenLabs AI voiceover for missing audio. Blink Test QC on all delivered creative. 9 to 10 day turnarounds.
Account Context
| Total account spend (engagement period) | $1.5M+ |
| Account blended ROAS | 2.04x |
| Pre-engagement account ROAS | 2.23x (Jun to Nov 2025) |
| Creatives launched (full window) | 352 |
| My ads delivered | 41 (12% creative, ~6.5% spend) |
| Scaled winners (mine / total) | 5 of ~10 |
| Products | ScanWatch 2 · Body Scan |
| Markets | US (UGC) · Account: US, FR, DE, ROE |
| Period | Nov 2025 to Apr 2026 |
| Role | Creative Director / Strategist |
Now Taking Clients
Want this for your brand?
I'm taking on two to three new DTC brands for Q2/Q3 2026. If you're scaling Meta and your creative isn't converting, let's talk.
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