Smokeshow Mixology is a renowned cocktail accessories label specializing in environmentally friendly cocktail smokers and mixology tools. A favorite among bartending enthusiasts everywhere, Smokeshow has amassed 1k+ five-star reviews and has been featured in publications like Food & Wine, Bourbon Inspector, and Klaris.

As a digitally native brand with a sizable social following, Smokeshow relies on paid ads as a critical growth lever, especially during peak sales dates. With BFCM on the horizon, Co-Founder Jack Scrimshire was ready to scale paid media spend substantially to keep up with the competition. The problem? Increasing spend meant sacrificing campaign efficiency.

Jack had already ruled out Broad and ASC for their spottiness in reaching incremental high-intent users, opting instead to experiment with in-platform interest stacks. Despite finding success with both directly and tangentially related interests, Smokeshow’s performance was always at the whim of Meta’s algorithm. 

For instance, an audience might perform efficiently for days only to unexpectedly stagnate. And because Meta lacks visibility into why this happens, Jack couldn’t extract actionable learnings from the experience. To safeguard his account from algorithmic instability, Jack needed a data enrichment tool that could feed Meta enough first-party data to boost signal and find high-intent users every time. 

When Jack discovered Proxima’s Efficiency Guarantee, he was intrigued. Although testing a new strategy during a critical sales period was risky, Proxima was willing to let him test drive their data-enriched AI Audiences for free — and even reimburse him for any lost revenue. Jack was in.

In a series of head-to-head A/B tests Jack ran at the beginning of BFCM, Proxima campaigns easily beat out Meta’s in-platform counterparts. He attributes this success to three key features of Proxima’s consumer intelligence platform:

1. Data-enriched seed audiences that scale profitably

To facilitate fast BFCM results, the Proxima team tapped into their vast Shopper Universe of 80M+ shoppers and $20B+ in purchases across thousands of eCommerce stores. Then they modeled boosted seed audiences on key behaviors from Smokeshow’s MVP customers. To do this, Proxima looked at several trends, such as how much Smokeshow customers spend, purchase behaviors at other stores they shop at, and the specific SKUs they purchase. For instance, one seed might mirror purchasers of Smokeshow’s hero cocktail smoker; another might be built from high LTV home goods shoppers.

Once Jack uploaded these seed audiences to Smokeshow’s Ads Manager via the Meta API, they got right to work finding high-intent users — and didn’t stop. Jack says their BFCM audiences consistently sustained massive spend increases, driving nearly 2x better ROAS than Smokeshow’s next-best campaigns over the holiday season. Needless to say, he never had to ask for that Efficiency Guarantee reimbursement.

2. On-demand premium account support

Their BFCM success was proof that Proxima’s AI Audiences could respond to serious scale — so Jack was eager to see what else the platform could do for his Meta account. In January, he sat down with the Proxima team for a thorough audit and account health check. The Proxima team helped Jack adjust Smokeshow’s attribution settings in Triple Whale, plug in new campaigns, and even optimize landing pages. 

This reset gave Smokeshow’s team a proven foundation for measuring and iterating on their Meta campaigns. Proxima’s approach to revamped attribution settings and top-level performance insights enabled accurate tracking for every campaign’s precise profitability. Jack can now drill down to CPA, ROAS, CVR, and more and then refresh audiences or switch up creative assets accordingly.

3. Accelerated pixel learnings via Predictive CAPI

This account overhaul also gave Jack the confidence to try out Proxima’s new CAPI technology: ConversionIQ. The freshly launched CAPI solution sends predictive, enriched data to Smokeshow’s Meta account, training the algorithm to bid in the auctions that target customers with the greatest LTV potential. Because the algorithm always goes for the highest-value outcomes, it weighs an add-to-cart from a “bad” shopper differently than an add-to-cart from a shopper with high LTV potential. As a result, Smokeshow’s Event Match Quality Scores (EMQ) are consistently higher than with their regular pixel.

What’s more, the one-two punch of ConversionIQ and AI Audiences has alleviated Jack’s algorithm volatility concerns. Better targeting drives higher-value traffic to Smokeshow’s website; the CAPI then relays predictive signals right back to Meta, feeding the algorithm with a constant loop of fresh data it can use to improve campaign performance and find new customers fast. And this combo continues to scale profitably, delivering a 50% boost in NC-ROAS and a 38% reduction in NC-CPA.

Armed with a scalable workaround for Meta’s instability, Jack swiftly migrated the majority of Smokeshow’s ad account to Proxima-powered solutions — and he hasn’t looked back. With Proxima, Smokeshow scaled their prospecting campaigns and expanded their top-of-funnel reach without sacrificing profitability.

Here’s a snapshot of the results they’ve seen so far:

• 50% lift in NC-ROAS
• 38% reduction in NC-CPA
• 50% increase in Meta ad spend

Looking ahead, Jack can’t wait to see how the account strategies he’s been refining with the team serve him throughout evergreen and seasonal events.