From $24K to $4M/month
over 2 years
How Ads Mastery and DOE Media helped patent-pending pearled candle brand Foton scale 166X — by fixing the economics first, shifting the offer to bulk, and then flooding Meta with thousands of ad variants at scale.
Apply NowFoton Candle is a patent-pending pearled candle brand founded by two sisters, Heidi and Sirli, out of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Their innovation: tiny plant-based wax pearls that can be poured into any container, creating refillable, sustainable, endlessly customizable candles. No tunneling, no waste, no tossing jars in the landfill. The product resonated — customers loved the creativity, the clean burn, and the eco-friendly approach.
But at $24K/month, Foton was barely scratching the surface of its potential. The brand was selling single candles to individual buyers with no system for increasing order value, no bulk or event strategy, and no way to scale ad spend profitably. The product was exceptional. The business model needed a complete overhaul.
An innovative product trapped by single-unit economics
Foton had a patent-pending product with passionate customers and viral potential. But the business was built around selling individual candles to individual buyers — which meant low AOV, low LTV, and no room to scale ad spend profitably.
Low Average Order Value
Single candle purchases dominated. No bundles, no bulk options, no gift sets to drive higher-value orders.
Single-Unit Sales Model
Selling one candle at a time. No strategy for weddings, events, parties, or home restocks.
No Funnel Monetization
No upsells, no cross-sells, no order bumps, no post-purchase offers. Every touchpoint was a missed revenue opportunity.
No Conversion Optimization
Website wasn’t optimized for higher-value purchases. No email pop-ups, no bundle-and-save deals, no in-cart offers.
No Ad Scale System
No infrastructure for launching and testing thousands of ad variants across multiple buyer personas and creative angles.
No Retention or LTV Strategy
No email/SMS flows, no subscription push, no post-purchase upsells to maximize customer lifetime value.
We didn’t start with ads. We fixed the economics.
The first move wasn’t more traffic — it was making every customer worth more. Only after the offer, funnel, and unit economics were dialed in did we layer on thousands of Meta ads at scale. As the brand grew, Foton transitioned to full-service management with DOE Media to handle the increasing complexity of multi-channel scaling.
Before touching ads, we optimized the site for AOV, LTV, and conversion rate. Introduced bulk buys, bundles, and gift options. Everything was built around attracting and converting higher-value customers. The goal: make every dollar of ad spend return more before scaling a single campaign.
Layered monetization across the entire customer journey: bundle-and-save deals, cross-sells and upsells on product pages, order bumps at checkout, in-cart offers, and post-purchase upsells. Every single step pushed larger orders. A customer who came in for one candle left with a kit, a refill, and a gift set.
Stopped selling single candles as the primary offer. Started selling bulk: weddings, events, parties, full home restocks, decorator kits. The Pro Decorator Kit ($179.99), XL buckets (144oz), and multi-candle bundles became the lead products. That one shift in offer strategy changed everything about the brand’s unit economics.
With the economics locked in, we flooded Meta with thousands of ad variants. Every angle imaginable: problem/solution, gifting, restock, upgrade, new drops, special offers, holiday campaigns, features and benefits. Tested across multiple buyer personas — home décor enthusiasts, wedding planners, event decorators, gift shoppers, candle collectors. High creative volume constantly, focused on high AOV and high LTV customers.
Beyond paid ads, we helped Foton develop an organic viral strategy on TikTok that drove millions of views and tens of thousands in direct sales. Problem/solution content like "Do your candles look like this after events?" hit 7.6M views and generated $13,000+ in sales from a single video. Another viral hit crossed 1M views. This organic content became a free customer acquisition channel that compounded alongside the paid strategy. As the brand scaled, Foton transitioned to full-service management with DOE Media, Chase’s agency partner, to handle media buying, creative production, and multi-channel strategy at the $4M/month level.
$125K in a single day. 30 Million + organic views. 4.25X ROAS.
$24K to $4M/month. Offer + funnel + creative at scale.
The combination of fixed economics, a monetized funnel, a bulk offer shift, and thousands of Meta ads at scale took Foton from $24K/month to over $4M/month — starting with Ads Mastery mentorship and scaling through DOE Media full-service management.
