January 2026 was supposed to be recovery time. After the intensity of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the December rush, most DTC brands hit pause to regroup, review numbers, and plan for the year ahead.
But the data from January tells a different story entirely.
This report combines:
- Real performance data from 200+ DTC brand campaigns across fashion, beauty, food, lifestyle, pet, and home categories
- Platform-specific insights from Meta (Facebook & Instagram)
- Time period: January 1-22, 2026
The goal is straightforward: show what actually worked through January 22, 2026, and explain why conventional post-holiday wisdom left money on the table.
The January Paradox: 30-40% of Brands Went Dark During the Year's Cheapest Traffic Window
Here's what happened across the board in early January:
Between 30-40% of DTC brands completely paused all paid advertising for 1-3 consecutive weeks. Zero spend. Complete shutdown.
At the same time, CPMs dropped 40-60% from December peaks, falling from the $17-$23 range down to $7-$12. Competition in the ad auction dropped by 50-70% as brands pulled back.
For the brands that maintained their advertising spend through this window, ROAS jumped 50-95% compared to December performance—using the same creative, the same budgets, and the same targeting. The only variable that changed was the competitive landscape.
Why This Happened
December exhausted marketing budgets. Teams spent aggressively through Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the final holiday push. By January 1st, most brands needed to close the books, reconcile spending, and wait for Q1 budgets to kick in.
This created a window where demand didn't disappear, but competition did. One reusable products brand kept spending at December levels with identical creative. Their ROAS jumped from 2.0 to 3.9 purely from reduced auction pressure.
The Missed Opportunity
January isn't recovery time for DTC marketing. It's the highest-efficiency acquisition window until Q3. The brands that understood this captured customers at roughly half the cost of December, while their competitors sat on the sidelines.
The same budget deployed in January delivered 2-3x the reach compared to December, with conversion rates that held steady or improved as shoppers returned with gift cards and New Year purchase intent.
The $50 Advantage+ Death Threshold
One of the clearest patterns in the January data involved Meta's Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC+) and a distinct price ceiling where performance collapsed.
The Pattern Across Multiple Brands
Swedish skincare brand ($90+ products):
- $11,500+ spend over three weeks
- Strong engagement: CTR 4.7% → 4.15%
- CPMs at $118-$140 (3-4x normal rates)
- Result: Zero purchases
Handmade jewelry brand ($150+ average order value):
- ASC+ ROAS: 1.91 → 0.76 (-60% decline)
- Manual campaign ROAS same period: 0.42 → 2.45 (+483% improvement)
- Manual/Retargeting outperformed ASC+ by 3.2x
Health food brand ($40-60 product bundles):
- ASC+ ROAS: 1.42 → 0.71
- Manual campaign ROAS: 0.73 → 1.56
- Manual outperformed ASC+ by 2.2x
Reusable products brand:
- ASC+ ROAS: 0.40 → 1.86
- Manual campaign ROAS: 1.00 → 3.70
- Manual outperformed ASC+ by 2.0x
What's Happening Under the Hood
Advantage+ optimizes for volume and efficient conversions. At lower price points ($20-$40), this works because impulse buying behavior aligns with the algorithm's optimization.
Above $50, purchase decisions require more consideration. Buyers research alternatives, read reviews, compare options, and often browse across multiple sessions before converting.
The data suggests ASC+ may be serving ads to high-click users (people who engage with ads frequently), but these aren't necessarily high-intent buyers for premium products. The result: strong CTRs from browsers who never convert at full price.
What Manual Campaigns Did Differently
The brands that outperformed ASC+ made several specific changes:
Tighter audience targeting: 1-3% lookalikes built specifically from repeat purchasers, not all customers. This narrow range captures high-intent behavior patterns while avoiding deal-seekers.
Psychographic layering: Interest-based targeting on top of demographics. Examples included body-positive communities for jewelry, eco-conscious parenting for reusable products, and wellness-focused urban professionals for health food.
Extended retargeting windows: 30/60/90-day windows instead of the standard 14 days, capturing shoppers who needed more time to decide or returned with gift cards in January.
One jewelry brand switched from an all-customer lookalike to a repeat-purchaser-only lookalike and saw CAC drop from $267 to $38.40—an 85.6% reduction.
Clicks Stayed Strong. Conversions Collapsed.
Another consistent pattern emerged around a widening gap between traffic and purchases.
The Data
Swedish skincare:
- CTR: 4.7% → 4.15%
- Conversions: 0
- Total spend: $11,500+
TCM wellness brand:
- Clicks: 564 over three weeks
- Purchases: 0
- Multiple weeks of sustained traffic with zero conversions
Handmade jewelry:
- CTR: 5.2%
- ROAS: 0.82
- High engagement, minimal conversion
These weren't isolated cases. Across categories, brands experienced significant gaps between clicks and conversions—strong traffic that didn't convert.
Why Post-Holiday Buyers Behave Differently
January shoppers are research-heavy. They're comparing prices across retailers, reading reviews on multiple sites, evaluating whether a product makes sense as a personal purchase versus a gift, and often browsing across several sessions before deciding.
If a product page doesn't immediately answer "Why buy this instead of the Amazon alternative?" or "Why is this worth the price?", they leave. The friction point isn't awareness—they already clicked. It's conversion confidence.
What Actually Fixed the Conversion Gap
Generic conversion rate optimization didn't solve this. Brands that recovered conversion rates made specific changes:
Review carousels from specific buyer personas: Instead of generic five-star displays, brands showed testimonials labeled by customer type. "Urban professionals love this" or "New parents recommend this" outperformed anonymous reviews.
Founder credentials embedded in product context: Rather than burying expertise in an About page, brands placed credibility directly next to product benefits. "Nurse-designed" positioning helped shoppers understand the unique value faster.
Comparison content above the fold: Brands explicitly addressed "us vs. alternatives" before shoppers could bounce to research competitors. This reduced the need for multi-session comparison shopping.
One brand added persona-specific social proof above the fold and saw CAC drop from $267 to $38.40 in a single week.
Founder Video Hit 22.65 ROAS (But Only With Specific Formats)
Video creative performance diverged sharply in January based on format and authenticity.
What Worked
"Restock ritual" founder video: 22.65 ROAS
- iPhone-shot, single take
- Founder showing how she uses the product in her actual routine
- No script, no production polish
"Video - Astig POV": ROAS 0.62 → 2.0 (+222%)
- First-person perspective, day-in-the-life format
- Real usage in natural context
"What Happens When You Visit": ROAS 0.11 → 1.66 (+1409%)
- Behind-the-scenes tour format
- Unscripted, authentic workplace/studio content
"Customer Reviews - Serenity": 4.39 ROAS, 3.2% CTR
- Real customer testimonial showing product in use
- Emotional connection to why they bought and the results
What Stopped Working
Generic product photography: Near-zero ROAS across multiple brands
Educational explainer videos: CTR declining throughout January
Scripted testimonials: Weak conversion despite production quality
Polished studio content: Consistently underperforming raw content by 2-5x
The Format That Matters
The pattern wasn't simply "video versus static image." It was which type of video format.
Educational content and polished explainers declined throughout January. Meanwhile, ritual/routine/POV formats accelerated. The 22.65 ROAS ad was shot on an iPhone in a single take, with the founder talking about her restock routine—no script, no retakes, no production team.
Authenticity in January wasn't about tone or brand voice. It was about format: raw, unscripted, point-of-view content that showed real usage patterns.
New Customer Acquisition Cost Dropped 85% With One Targeting Change
The most striking CAC improvement came from a handmade jewelry brand that made a single, specific change to their prospecting strategy.
The Results
- CAC: $267 → $38.40 (-85.6%)
- New customers: 1 → 7 in one week
- Cost per order: $53.40 → $33.63 (-37%)
What Changed
- Killed broad ASC+ campaign that was targeting general purchaser behavior
- Launched 1% lookalike from repeat purchasers only (not all customers)
- Added retargeting with review-based creative instead of product-focused ads
- Focused on specific psychographic personas: Body-positive women in the Northeast US, rather than broad demographic targeting
Other CAC Improvements in January
Health food brand: $89 → $43.97 (-50.6%) when switching from ASC+ to manual campaigns
Baby carrier brand: Cost per order $31.55 → $16.67 (-47%) with manual campaigns
Average across manual campaigns: ~$17 CAC versus $40-50 for ASC+
Why Repeat-Purchaser Lookalikes Work Differently
Building lookalikes from all customers includes one-time buyers, discount shoppers, and people who bought because of a specific promotion. Their behavior patterns reflect deal-seeking, not brand loyalty.
Repeat purchasers have different patterns. They bought once, came back, and bought again at full price. Lookalikes built from this segment find people with similar high-intent, high-LTV characteristics.
The 1-3% lookalike range matters because it's tight enough to avoid bargain hunters but broad enough to achieve scale. Broader 5-10% lookalikes performed similarly to ASC+—more volume, lower margins.
Retargeting Outperformed Prospecting by 3X (The Opposite of Q4)
January reversed the typical prospecting-heavy budget allocation.
The Performance Gap
Retargeting ROAS: 2.45Prospecting (ASC+) ROAS: 0.76(Same brand, same budget, different targeting)
Review-based retargeting: 4.39 ROAS
Extended retargeting windows (30/60/90 days): Consistently outperforming the industry-standard 14-day windows
Why January Is Different
December browsers returned in January with gift cards. "New Year, New Me" purchase motivation triggered delayed buying decisions. Lower CPMs made retargeting absurdly cost-efficient compared to Q4.
Standard 14-day retargeting windows missed this entirely. Most December browsers weren't ready to buy until early January—15 to 30 days after their initial site visit.
What Worked in Retargeting Creative
"Still thinking about us?" messaging with specific objection-handling: Addressing common purchase hesitations directly
Customer testimonials from specific personas: Not generic five-star reviews, but testimonials from recognizable customer types
Comparison content: Your product versus what they're currently using, framed as an upgrade decision
One brand allocated 40-50% of their January budget to extended-window retargeting and captured gift card buyers that competitors completely missed.
Manual Campaigns Outperformed ASC+ by 2-5X With the Same Budget
Head-to-head performance data across multiple brands showed consistent manual campaign advantages.
The Numbers
Reusable products:
- Manual: 3.70 ROAS
- ASC+: 1.86 ROAS
- Manual advantage: 2.0x
Health food:
- Manual: 1.56 ROAS
- ASC+: 0.71 ROAS
- Manual advantage: 2.2x
Handmade jewelry:
- Manual/Retargeting: 2.45 ROAS
- ASC+: 0.76 ROAS
- Manual advantage: 3.2x
Baby carrier:
- Manual: 3.94 ROAS
- Previous ASC+ performance significantly lower
What Manual Campaigns Did Differently
1-3% lookalikes (tight targeting) instead of 5-10% broad targeting
Psychographic interest layering on top of demographic data—body positivity, eco-consciousness, wellness focus—rather than age/gender alone
90-day purchase exclusions to prevent wasting prospecting budget on recent buyers
The 1-3% lookalike range worked because it balanced precision with scale. Tighter than 1% limited reach too severely. Broader than 5% included too many low-intent users and performed similarly to ASC+.
CPMs Crashed 40-60% From December Peaks
One of the biggest January advantages was structural: advertising costs dropped while demand held relatively steady.
The Cost Shift
December CPMs: $17-$23 range across categories
January CPMs: $7-$12 range
Overall decrease: 40-60% from peak holiday pricing
Competition decrease: 50-70% as brands paused campaigns
What This Meant in Practice
One brand maintained identical budget and creative from December into January. ROAS jumped from 2.0 to 3.9—a 95% improvement—purely from lower CPMs and reduced auction competition.
The same advertising dollar in January delivered 2-3x the reach compared to December. For brands that understood this timing advantage, January became the most efficient acquisition window since September.
The Polished-to-Raw Creative Ratio Flipped
January marked a clear shift in which creative formats drove performance.
What Declined
Brands running 70%+ polished, studio-produced creative saw declining ROAS throughout January.
Generic product photography with text overlays generated near-zero ROAS across multiple categories.
Educational and explainer video formats showed clear fatigue, with CTRs dropping week over week.
What Accelerated
Brands running 70%+ raw, user-generated, or founder-shot creative saw 2-5x ROAS improvements.
POV day-in-the-life formats outperformed static images by 2-3x.
Customer testimonials showing actual product usage converted at 4.39 ROAS.
Founder "restock ritual" content hit 22.65 ROAS.
The Format Shift
This wasn't about brand voice or messaging tone. It was about the actual format and production approach.
Polished, scripted, studio-lit content—even when well-executed—underperformed raw, unscripted, iPhone-shot content by multiples. The winning 22.65 ROAS ad was a single-take iPhone video with no script and no editing.
Conversion Rate Improvements: Manual vs ASC+
Beyond ROAS, conversion rates told a clear story about targeting precision.
The Improvements
Baby carrier: 2.2% → 4.6% (+109%)
Health food: 1.1% → 2.0% (+82%)
Reusable products: 0.08% → 1.21% (+1413%)
Handmade jewelry: 0.013 → 0.023 (+77%)
All of these improvements came from switching to manual campaigns with tighter audience targeting, not from changing creative or landing pages.
Why This Matters
Conversion rate improvements of 80-100%+ from targeting changes alone indicate that ASC+ was serving ads to the wrong people. Creative was fine. Landing pages were fine. The audience was mismatched.
Manual campaigns with 1-3% lookalikes from repeat purchasers found shoppers who were actually in-market for these specific products, not just general online shoppers.
What To Do With This Data
The January 2026 window revealed several non-obvious opportunities that most brands missed:
Week 3-4 (Late January):
Flip budget allocation: Move 40-50% to extended-window retargeting (30/60/90 days) instead of prospecting. Capture December browsers returning with gift cards.
Kill ASC+ for $50+ products: Launch manual campaigns with 1-3% lookalikes built from repeat purchasers, not all customers.
Shift creative to 70%+ raw formats: Prioritize founder "restock ritual" content and customer POV formats over polished studio content.
Extend retargeting windows to 90 days: Standard 14-day windows miss the gift card redemption wave entirely.
Maintain spending through low-competition windows: Same budget delivers 2-3x reach when CPMs are 40-60% lower.
February Planning:
CPMs will likely rise as more brands return from January pauses. The efficiency window closes gradually through February.
The brands that captured customers in January at half the December cost positioned themselves for higher LTV returns over the next 12 months.
The brands that paused entirely missed the year's most efficient acquisition window and will pay premium rates as competition returns in February and March.