Scaling with Certainty: How Olive My Pickle Grew 151% YoY 

‍

"Aplo has been a game changer for our business, since we hired them a year ago. We’re now making informed, data driven decisions on ad spend, versus just guessing and applying incremental increases to budget monthly. I’d give 6 stars if I could."

Charlotte Tzarbi

CEO at Olive My Pickle & The Pickle Factory

Overview

Olive My Pickle, a fast-growing DTC fermented foods brand, achieved a 151% year-over-year revenue increase by combining precise paid media execution with strategic forecasting and operational planning. As their paid advertising partner and providing fractional CMO/COO services, Aplo helped guide the brand through aggressive yet margin-conscious scaling.

This case study unpacks how cohort modeling, budgeting discipline, and creative-led ad strategy combined to create compounding returns and operational stability during a breakout growth year.

The Challenge

When Olive My Pickle partnered with Aplo, the brand was in high-growth mode but needed clarity:

They had loyal customers and strong LTV potential, but wanted to unlock scale through paid ads without sacrificing profitability. That meant their ad strategy couldn’t live in isolation  it had to align with cash flow, contribution margin, and inventory realities.

Our Role: Paid Advertising Meets Strategic Ops

Aplo stepped in with dual responsibility:

1. Paid Advertising Partner
   We owned the full paid ads side — strategy, budgeting, channel mix, and creative development.
   
   
2. Fractional CMO/COO Services
   Beyond ads, we supported forecasting, scenario planning, KPI development, and operational alignment across departments.
   
   

This gave Olive My Pickle not just a performance marketing arm but a strategic growth team.

The Forecasting Breakthrough

From CAC to Contribution Margin Forecasting

A major unlock in Olive My Pickle’s growth strategy came from our cohort-based forecasting model, designed to shift decision-making from short-term ROAS targets to long-term contribution margin clarity.

This allowed us to:

• Model repeat behavior by cohort
  
  
• Align spend pacing with margin unlock timing
  
  
• Set acquisition targets tied to downstream profitability

Here’s how we did it:

• We analyzed monthly cohorts to understand what % of customers were likely to return and when.
  
  
• We monitored the active customer file to assess churn risk and revenue timing.
  
  
• We used historical retention trends to project how revenue would layer month by month  allowing us to anticipate when repeat revenue would land.
  
  
• We modeled revenue by SKU and channel, accounting for margin variability across products and acquisition sources.
  
  
• We built scenario models (upside, base, and downside) to map out how new customer acquisition would affect future cash flow and margin.
  
  

This allowed us to project contribution margin over time not just for the current month and gave us the confidence to set aggressive acquisition targets without sacrificing unit economics.

‍

Tying Forecasts to Execution

Forecasting wasn't theoretical. It directly drove execution across both marketing and operations:

• Media budget allocation: Increased spend in months where return customer compounding would drive margin.
  
  
• Target setting: We based CAC and spend thresholds on cohort payback, not just short-term ROAS.
  
  
• Scenario planning: We built upside/downside models to confidently manage risk and prevent inventory or cash crunches.
  
  

The Power of Compounding Return Customers

Many ecommerce brands are overly dependent on one-time revenue. Olive My Pickle was different.

Their retention curve showed customers returning steadily 3–12 months after first purchase. By using this data in our forecasting model, we created a growth plan that relied as much on the past as the present.

This allowed us to:

• Front-load acquisition during key seasonal windows
  
  
• Trust that revenue would carry into future quarters
  
  
• Create predictable, margin-positive momentum
  
  

Paid Acquisition Surge: Creative-Led, Forecast-Informed Scaling

While forecasting and margin modeling created the strategic runway, it was our paid acquisition engine that turned potential into actual growth.

Throughout the engagement, we more than doubled the volume of new customers YoY, and drove 2.5–3x increases in new customer revenue across multiple months. This wasn’t just from media buying — it was a result of tightly aligned strategy, creative execution, and channel infrastructure.

A Creative System Built for Scale

To ensure Meta had every opportunity to find the best-converting assets, we implemented Aplo’s dual-track creative production system:

1. Pipeline Creative
   
   
   • Proven formats based on prior performance
     
     
   • Evergreen offers and hooks
     
     
   • High-confidence assets used for stability and scale
     
     
2. Conceptual Creative
   
   
   • New formats with little/no historical data
     
     
   • Creative that spoke to emerging personas or untapped segments
     
     
   • High-velocity testing to find future winners
     
     

This system allowed us to consistently feed Meta with a high volume of diverse creative, across formats video, static, UGC, branded ensuring the algorithm had as many “at-bats” as possible to find the asset most likely to convert each audience segment.

We weren’t just aiming for a few big wins — we were building a creative flywheel that gave us margin leverage, audience insights, and long-term scalability.

Creative + Forecasting = Profitable Volume

Because our acquisition strategy was grounded in contribution margin forecasts, we could confidently scale winning creative without fear of overspending. Every test and every scale move had a profitability model behind it.

We used the forecasts to:

• Set CAC thresholds based on long-term LTV
  
  
• Time spend increases when cohorts would layer and contribute return revenue
  
  
• Know when we could stretch CAC to unlock growth without jeopardizing cash flow
  
  

The combination of high-volume creative + margin-aware forecasting is what made the growth durable  not just aggressive.

‍

📈 YoY Growth in New Customers

📊 YoY Growth in New Customer Sales

Note: In several months, sales growth from new customers exceeded 2.5X YoY — indicating we weren’t just acquiring more people, but higher quality customers.

Final Outcome

 Olive My Pickle had:

✅ Achieved 151% year-over-year revenue growth
✅ Scaled acquisition while improving contribution margin predictability
✅ Used compounding return customer revenue as a growth driver
✅ Built a scenario-based forecasting model to manage risk and cash flow
✅ Aligned media buying, KPI setting, and ops into a single plan
✅ Developed a creative production system to support aggressive scale on Meta

This wasn't just paid growth. It was forecast-informed, operationally-aligned, cash-flow-sensible scaling built to last.

Why This Approach Works

Most DTC brands silo performance marketing from operations. But the truth is, acquisition without modeling is just gambling.

By managing both acquisition and forecasting, we helped Olive My Pickle grow with confidence. Not faster than they could handle. Not slower than they deserved. But at a pace they could sustain and scale.