Ten years ago, Samuel Turgeon was a college dropout living in his mom’s basement. He was tired all the time and had a hunch breakfast was to blame, so he and his co-founder started mixing powders. Everyone, his mom included, wanted to know what he was doing with his life. He went all in anyway, putting pretty much everything he owned into it.

Those basement powders became HOLOS, what Sam calls overnight oats 2.0. Today, it’s an eight-figure business selling across North America.

From initial testing to continued investment

HOLOS wanted to acquire more new customers as it worked toward becoming a global brand. Already advertising on Meta and Google, HOLOS began testing on AppLovin in the US with a Prospecting campaign optimized toward cost per purchase. As a subscription business, HOLOS evaluates acquisition costs against a customer’s 12-month lifetime value, focusing on the LTV-to-CAC ratio.

At the first check-in, HOLOS reported that early cost-per-purchase results were meeting the target and discussed increasing spend. As the test progressed, HOLOS saw plenty of promise to warrant further investment in the channel.

A closer look at a better breakfast

HOLOS put their own story into the creative through founder content, which has performed well for the brand. They also used UGC videos, welcome offers, and “Five Reasons Why” content highlighting reasons to try HOLOS. The mix gave them different ways to introduce the product and explain its benefits.

UGC videos highlighted real and organic ingredients and showed how easy the product is to use, with messaging like “Your breakfast prep in 30 seconds or less.” For people discovering HOLOS for the first time, the videos explained both why they might want it and how easily it could fit into their morning.

HOLOS turned its flavors into game pieces with Interactives, which appear after a video ad ends and work like a landing page inside the ad itself. In a sliding tile puzzle in the style of 2048, viewers combined flavor tiles with the prompt “Collect 5 flavors to activate a healthier start.” Another Interactive uses a sliding image of each flavor with ingredient breakdowns, making the flavor choices more visual.

Reaching new visitors and first-time buyers

From its US launch in March through September 2026, 87% of visitors driven by AppLovin were new visitors, while approximately 55% of attributed purchases came from new customers.

New-customer acquisition costs declined over time. In July, during HOLOS’s summer sale, cost per new customer came in approximately 17% below the team’s target.

What began as a test of a new channel became a continued investment. For Sam and the team, AppLovin had earned a meaningful place in their acquisition strategy as they worked toward building a global breakfast brand.