Case studies
How Cycling Frog drove 678% ROAS with CTV in a restricted category
4 min read
How Cycling Frog drove 678% ROAS with CTV in a restricted category
Cycling Frog is a U.S. hemp THC and CBD brand on a mission to normalize cannabis consumption with formats that feel familiar: THC seltzers, gummies, cookies, seasonal kits, etc. All products are hemp derived, under the federal THC limit, vegan, low calorie and ship to almost all 50 states.
When Senior Director of Marketing, Anita Loomba, joined almost three years ago, most paid ad channels either refused to work with them or imposed inconsistent rules. Meta could sometimes show a can, but not the words THC, CBD or cannabis, while other platforms were either unavailable or too risky from a compliance perspective.
As Anita put it, “We operate in a highly restricted category. A lot of platforms either won’t allow hemp THC beverages or the rules change constantly. Having a partner that actually allows THC products and is brand-safe and compliant is a huge win for us.”
Despite that, there was clear demand for Cycling Frog’s product in the market, so they set out to build a reliable, scalable channel mix with Streaming TV advertising at the heart of it all.
Goals
Cycling Frog went into CTV with very real performance expectations.
They wanted to:
- Reach high intent, qualified customers they could not reliably find on search and social.
- Stay strictly compliant while still speaking plainly about THC, CBD and cannabis.
- Prove that TV could support the full funnel, from awareness through to measurable revenue.
When an inbound outreach from Vibe.co landed, the team’s first question was simple: “Are you sure THC products are allowed on your platform? Because it usually isn’t. ” Once they heard yes, the conversation moved fast.
Strategy
Cycling Frog’s marketing team wanted to start testing fast to assess whether advertising with Vibe.co could reliably pull its weight on revenue, so within weeks of getting internal approval in October 2025, they produced a 30 second spot, edited it and had campaigns live by December.
They started with Klaviyo-powered retargeting, targeting warm Cycling Frog audiences on CTV. On top of that they layered:
- E-com eligible states where they could ship
- States that allow cannabis advertising
- Incremental prospecting segments modeled from their best customers
From there, the strategy became a constant feedback loop. Working with Vibe.co's CSM team, they:
- Turned off underperforming states and concentrated spend in high ROAS regions.
- Launched a sales goal campaign managed in partnership at first, then brought controls in-house as the product evolved.
- Built deeper retargeting buckets for high AOV customers, winbacks, and abandoned carts with specific lookback windows.
- Broke campaigns out by region, testing Northeast, Southeast and Northwest with smaller budgets before scaling.
Klaviyo segments were created specifically for Vibe and became the backbone of more complex campaigns. At the same time, Cycling Frog leaned into one core creative that kept outperforming expectations. It was originally meant as a placeholder, but the spot resonated so strongly that it has effectively become an evergreen revenue driver.
Compared to Meta, Vibe.co gave the team far more creative freedom: they could say THC, CBD and cannabis outright, show product clearly and build a story that actually matched how customers talk about the brand.
Results
- 678% ROAS from Klaviyo campaign
- 1319 % ROAS from BFCM campaign
- 1.2M impressions at $12 CPM from prospecting campaign
- over $125K in CTV-attributed revenue from BFCM campaign
Internally, Cycling Frog optimizes CTV to ROAS above all else, using a blend of native Vibe.co data and Google Analytics. On that score, CTV has earned its place in their core acquisition stack: “CTV is now part of our core mix. It’s not just a test anymore. The numbers made it easy to get internal buy-in.”
A recent example is Cycling Frog’s latest Black Friday Cyber Monday campaign, which was a real pressure test of their CTV ads’ scalability. Ahead of the sale, they expanded prospecting segments and budgets in Vibe.co to build demand in late October and early November, then leaned on those pools for high intent retargeting during the promotion. The result was a strong BFCM performance, with new product lines and limited releases moving briskly and customers leaning into tiered discounts over a full week, with a noticeable halo effect:
“We’ve had distributors mention seeing our ads during the MLB playoffs. Customers have written in saying, ‘I just saw you on TV!’ It’s hard to measure, but that kind of visibility matters immensely, especially in this category.” The team now goes into 2026 with aggressive growth goals and a clearer view of which channels actually move the needle with a CTV engine they trust.
