Marketing Ops

• ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) — revenue per $1 spent. Below 1.77 = losing money; 2+ = profitable. This is the primary indicator.
• CVR (Conversion Rate) — % of visitors who purchase. Aim for 2–3%; under 1% is poor.
• Contribution Margin — real profit after product + marketing costs. Negative margin = losing money per dollar.
• Cost per Purchase — compare against audience benchmarks ($10–$55) and against your winners.
• Frequency — ads over 8–10 frequency need pausing or a creative refresh.
• Impressions — exposure; watch alongside frequency.

Review ROAS, margin, CVR, and purchases first; check CTR, CPC, and frequency before scaling or pausing borderline ads. Daily or every-other-day review of active campaigns; weekly deep-dive for patterns.

The routine

• Open the correct ad account, set the date range to Last 7 Days, filter to Active ads only.
• Open each major campaign (Evergreen Bestsellers, Seasonal, Product-specific), go to Ad Set level, and sort by Amount Spent descending — see where Facebook is putting the money.
• Light check every weekday morning before 11 AM CST; deep reviews Monday and Thursday including the last-3-day trend; Friday brief audit to lock weekend spend.

The cut rules

• Spend ≥ $150 and ROAS < 1.77 → turn it off. Not profitable after enough testing.
• ROAS < 0.5 → turn it off immediately, even at $50–$100 spend.
• Borderline (ROAS 1.5–1.77, or 1.8–1.9) → check CTR, CPP, conversion rate, and margin; monitor 24–48 hours before deciding.
• Spent 2–3× AOV (~$150–250; AOV is $50–60) and still below break-even → turn it off.
• Exceptions: subscription/Shirt Club ads can run at ~1.70 ROAS because of LTV; retargeting keeps a lean budget.

Scaling and hygiene

• Scale strong performers (3+ ROAS) by multiplying budget × 1.2 — a 20% increase, no more than once every 3 days to protect the learning phase.
• Reduce wasteful campaign budgets by up to 20%.
• Campaigns run on CBO — cutting losers automatically reallocates budget to winners.
• Check stock before cutting: a 'bad' ad might just have sold-out sizes. Confirm with fulfillment.
• Monthly: remove old campaigns, expired promos, and last month's creatives.
• Log every change in the tracker and post a daily Slack update: "Turned off 3 low-ROAS ad sets. Scaled Polo 1 by +20%. Campaign avg ROAS 1.9."

Uploading new creative

• Confirm which campaign the creative belongs to, then duplicate an existing Ad Set for speed and consistency.
• Naming: Ad Set = Product + Audience ("Vafangul Broad Audience 2025"); Ad = Product + Emoji + CTA ("Vafangul 👻🤌 Get Yours Now").
• Verify the tracking parameter is present in the URL.
• Preview crops (vertical, square), write short funny impulse-buy primary text with 2–3 variations, and a clear descriptive headline.
• Duplicate for testing: one Ad Set with Facebook AI variations, one with manual copy. 3–6 ads per set mixing images, video, UGC, and meme-style.
• Duplicated ads publish OFF by default — toggle them ON after publishing.

Post pushes and partnerships

• To boost an organic winner: duplicate a campaign, choose Use Existing Post, find the FB/IG post, and put the Post ID in the ad name.
• Destination URL: always the direct /products/ link — never /collections/ (breaks if the collection is deleted). Test it, add UTM parameters.
• Boosting a collaborator's post needs Paid Partnership access: Meta Business Suite → Partnership Ads Hub → Partners → Add Partnership. Request both Facebook and Instagram.

• Use the prebuilt Individual Product Ad PSD template — big mockup, slightly cropped sleeves/hem. That format works; don't shrink it.
• Export 3 background variations per product: white board (dark shirts), brown board (light shirts), and a simple contextual scene (Vatican for a Pope design). AI-generate clean, non-distracting backdrops.
• Model ads: generate a realistic Italian-American model with AI, 1200×1200 canvas, crop from the nose down (no faces), design large and readable, add noise and 97–99% opacity so the design blends into the shirt, small HC watermark.
• Export every variant in 1:1 (feed) AND 9:16 (Stories/Reels) — reframe manually, don't trust auto-crop.
• Clean filenames ({product}_{bg-type}_{ratio}_{v#}.jpg) and layered PSD saved to /Ads/Facebook/Individual/{ProductName}/.
• Refresh creatives weekly if ROAS falls or fatigue appears; otherwise keep winners live.

• Merchant Center → Business → Products → Needs Attention. Open flagged listings in batches of 25–50 tabs.
• For bogus flags ("restricted for adult content"): click the alert's dropdown → Disagree with decision → Request Review. Every issue needs its own review request.
• For legitimate gaps, fix the data in Shopify: Gender = Unisex, Age group = Adult, shipping weight 12 oz for a medium shirt (scale for other sizes). Every size variant needs checking individually.
• Refresh the next day to confirm items moved to Approved. Re-run monthly and after major site updates — Merchant Center re-flags after theme changes.

• Shopify → Apps → Collabs → Pending Applicants. Review social presence (1,000+ followers is decent), relevance (Italian-themed content, potential model), and application effort.
• Approve almost everyone (≈90–99%) — decline only inappropriate content or zero brand relevance.
• Commission: 15% default, 20% if they're promising.
• Affiliate code: [instagram_handle]10, or [fullname]10 for low-follower accounts (reserve good usernames for larger influencers).
• Gift tiers: 25% off next purchase (default), 40% off (decent content or effort), free shirt or women's gift (standouts only — 1,000+ followers, relevant, model potential).
• Send the Welcome Package to finalize onboarding.

• Find reference templates on Milled.com from similar brands (e.g. Tipsy Elves) matching the objective.
• Canvas: 600px wide, 72 DPI, RGB. File name: YYYYMMDD_Campaign_HC_Email_v01.psd.
• Structure: header (headline + subhead + hero), feature tiles, one primary CTA near the fold ("Shop New Arrivals"). Hardcore logo, colors, and fonts throughout.
• Copy: short, high-contrast, reads on mobile. ChatGPT helps with headlines.
• Link all images and buttons to the landing URL with UTM tags; add alt text on every image.
• Export slices as optimized JPG/PNG under 300 KB each; save the layered PSD plus web assets to Drive; save the ESP build as a reusable template.
• QA: mobile preview at 375px, dark mode check, every link tested, CAN-SPAM footer renders.

• Marketing Calendar key: check mark = scheduled, N/A = not needed, blank = schedule it.
• Pull the final hero from Drive → Design Work → [Campaign] → Deliverables, and compress it under 1 MB at tinyjpeg.com.
• Name the campaign to match the calendar ("2025-07-15 – Shorts Feature"), set the send date.
• Audience: 30-day engaged segment for showcases. Always exclude customers with an open Gorgias ticket. Smart Sending ON for routine sends, OFF only for big promos.
• Build: hero image linked to the target collection, alt text set, concise benefit-forward subject and preview text.
• QA every link in Preview & Test; send the preview URL to the CEO for sign-off if approval is required.
• Schedule: weekday mornings — Tuesday 8:00 AM CST performs well. Confirm it shows Scheduled, then check off the Marketing Calendar.

Campaign setup

• Always single channel. Tag every campaign correctly — product launch, product showcase, collection launch, collection showcase, multi-product, owner message, sale. A launch is brand new; a showcase is a restock or in-case-you-missed-it. Tags are what make the email data analyzable later.
• Start from a saved template (three dots → Change Template) — never from scratch. The header, footer, socials, and bottom sections are already right. The goal over time: one template per cadence type (product launch, collection launch, sale, blog).
• Compress the hero at TinyJPEG before uploading — but check it doesn't degrade the image.
• Sender name is usually "Mike from Hardcore Italians." About three sends a month are text-only messages from the owner with no graphic at all — those convert on personality, not design.
• Subject lines and headlines come from AI: upload the graphic, use the prompt, keep the same chat for the follow-up emails. One emoji in a subject line is good; two is too many.

Links — the mandatory rules

• Product features link straight to the product; collection features link to the collection. Grab clean links: strip the ?query junk off the end, and remove the /collections/ path segment — if the product ever leaves that collection, a collection-path link dies. A link copied from site search works every time.
• Preview → click every single link before scheduling. This is a mandatory step, never skipped — wrong-page links have shipped before.

Dynamic product feeds — the work-ahead superpower

• In a product block, Styles → Dynamic pulls products automatically from a feed; Static lets you hand-pick. There are 40+ saved feeds (best sellers, recently viewed, seasonal).
• Create a feed per campaign need: name it with underscores (new_halloween_2026), filter by category or collection, then choose what shows first — newest products for a drop email, best-selling over the last 3 days for the in-case-you-missed-it follow-up. You don't need to know what's selling; the feed knows at send time.
• Layout: never more than two products per row — three is unreadable on a phone. Remove the shop button and price when they clutter. You can blow one product up to full-email width.
• Make images look intentional: there are two paddings on every image block (block padding and image padding, plus image-area padding) — zero them all for full-bleed, and match the block background to your graphic so it reads as one piece.
• Always check the Mobile tab before finishing — 90% of readers are on phones, and stacking behaves differently there.

Audience & exclusions

• Always exclude the Gorgias segment (open customer-service tickets). Every email, no exceptions.
• Exclude purchasers from the last 7 days — someone who just bought the shirt should not be pitched the shirt.
• International: if the product is warehouse-only (not on Printful), exclude international — the Canada/Australia stores don't show warehouse-only stock. US-only holidays (Italian Heritage Month, July 4th, Columbus Day) exclude international no matter the product. Printful products that ship worldwide can keep international in.
• Follow-up emails target engagement segments: "clicked or viewed [campaign] between [dates]" — Klaviyo's AI builds the segment from a sentence. Verify the definition, and it should count zero people until the first email actually sends.

Scheduling — the time-zone logic

• Default: fixed send, Central time. Use that until the exceptions are second nature.
• Smart send time (per-person delivery) only works when there's a gap day around the email — with daily sends it double-stacks people. Fixed time always for drops: everyone sees the drop at the same moment.
• Recipient-local time zone is only safe when international is excluded — across the US it's a two-hour variance; with Italy or Australia included, someone gets the email a day late.
• Keep "determine recipients at send time" checked — segments keep updating between scheduling and sending.
• Smart Sending (the 16-hour suppression window) stays ON so people don't stack campaign + flow emails — except when we deliberately send multiple times in a day (Black Friday, Columbus Day pushes): turn it off for those.

The calendar is the source of truth

• The marketing calendar reflects Klaviyo exactly, at all times. Schedule an email → check it off immediately. Cancel one → remove it immediately. A double-send has happened because the calendar wasn't kept true.
• Use Klaviyo's calendar view (top right of Campaigns) to cross-check: it shows every campaign and draft by day and time — spot double-ups, confirm every day of the month has a send, and delete stale drafts so they don't spook anyone.
• Best send times and all the email AI prompts live in Email Studio on HQ.

• Use a GIF (MMS) only for proven products, restocks, and retargeting — media costs more per send, so untested items get text-only SMS.
• Square 1080×1080 preferred; file under 500 KB; NO text on the image — the SMS body carries the copy.
• Product feature: 2 frames at 1 second each — lifestyle shot, then zoomed-in detail of the design. Loop forever.
• Collections: 3–5 lifestyle frames, different people wearing products.
• Export via Save for Web (Legacy) → GIF, 256 colors. Name: sms_[product]_square_v01.gif. Test on your own phone before launch.
• Cadence: 2–4 MMS per week mixed with text-only SMS.

• Every PushOwl campaign needs three image sizes: Windows (wide), Mac (slim horizontal), Android (square) — specs in Design Work → PushOwl Specs.
• Bold and minimal — notifications are small. Text on the image only for major promos, 2–3 words max, high contrast.
• Title in ALL CAPS ("SELLING FAST: CANNOLI POLO"), always a CTA button (Shop Now).
• Link directly to the product page, with /collections/ stripped from the URL so it never breaks.
• Schedule per the marketing calendar; mornings 8–10 AM CST get the best click-through. Send a test first.
• 1–3 per week, always aligned with the email + SMS pushes.

• Shopify → Online Store → Themes → Customize the LIVE theme.
• Announcement Bar: new promo headline + link to the correct collection. Include the free gift callout if the promo has one.
• Hero: swap BOTH desktop (1920×800) and mobile (tall portrait) images from the Marketing Deliverables folder; update heading, CTA text, and link.
• Featured Collection: retitle and relink to the promo collection; hide outdated sections.
• Preview desktop AND mobile, confirm every link, save, and verify no old campaign references remain.
• Update the night before launch (~11 PM CST), then check the box on the Marketing Calendar.

• Shopify → Apps → Monster Cart Upsell + Free Gifts → Upsell Campaigns. Duplicate an existing campaign to keep colors and layout consistent.
• Type = Add to Unlock, Trigger = Cart Value, set the spend goal (e.g. $60 unlocks the free pin).
• The gift product in Shopify must be: Product Type = Free Gift, Price = $0.00, Status = Active, and Online Store as the ONLY sales channel (so the $0 item never shows on Meta).
• Update every text reference ("Free Tee" → "Free Pin") and stack tiers if the promo has them ($60 = pin, $100 = free shipping).
• Save, then toggle OFF until launch. On the night before, toggle ON; when the promo ends, toggle OFF. Set reminders for both.
• Test the live cart: progress bar accurate, gift auto-adds at threshold, mobile and desktop both correct.

• Shopify → Settings → Shipping and Delivery → General Shipping Rates → United States → edit the price condition on the rate (e.g. $75 → $100).
• Then match the same threshold in Printful → Settings → Shipping so both fulfillment paths agree.
• Check all zones (ZipScale 3PL + Printful) for consistency and remove duplicate rates.
• Update before each sale launch, revert after it ends, and audit monthly. Test the live cart to confirm.

• Wait for the Marketing Calendar to be approved, then go day by day deciding what needs assets. New drops, collections, sitewide sales, and free gift promos need graphics; minor features and reused banners don't. Goal: 1 month ahead minimum, ideally 3–6.
• Asset rules per channel: Email daily, SMS 1 graphic/week, Tapcart 3–5/week, PushOwl for large promos, Website 2–4/month, Social 3–5 posts/week (design + UGC mix), Ads 10 creatives per week minimum.
• Fill the Design Worksheet per campaign: name (matching the calendar), priority, due date (the 14th of the prior month), product link, deliverables folder link, assets needed (EM, SMS, TC, PO, WEB, IG/FB, ADS), notes, assignee.
• Track status: Not Started → In Progress → Submitted → Needs Revision → Approved → Scheduled. Give clear revision feedback in the notes.
• On approval, verify formats (website desktop 1920×800 + mobile 1080×1350; ads 1:1 and 9:16 with watermark) and confirm files are in the deliverables folder.