Mo Alissa / Go To War Strategy Effective: Monday June 1 – Sunday June 7, 2026 Account access: Monday June 1 | Office visit: Tuesday June 2
Deliver this standing, before anything is on a screen:
"Hassan, thank you for the intro. I want to be clear about how I'm wired: I'm not here to replace what Lauren and the team have built — I'm here to run the playbook for the gap between where performance is today and where it needs to be for July. I spent the weekend in the May data. I know exactly what broke in Week 3 and I know the three things we can fix before Friday that will show up in next Monday's numbers. I'm not going to pitch. Let's just get into it."
This sets three things in the first 90 seconds: respect for Lauren, credibility from data work, and urgency without alarm. Do not mention GP1/GP2/GP3. Do not mention the QW migration. Do not mention the baseline negotiation.
Tone: Peer-to-peer. She runs the account today. Mo is the strategist bringing a playbook; she is the operator who executes it. Never imply she caused the decline.
5 Questions to Ask Lauren:
"Walk me through the current campaign structure — how many campaigns, how are they split between auto and home, and are they in separate ad accounts or the same BM?" (Establishes the exact architecture before Mo assumes anything from ad-level data.)
"Which ad sets are you watching most closely right now — and which ones have you already tried pulling back or killing in the last two weeks?" (Identifies what she already knows is fatigued. Avoids Mo flagging something she already killed. Shows respect.)
"When you scaled spend in Week 3 — the push up to roughly $36K–$40K days around May 18-19 — was that at Lauren's discretion, directed by Hassan, or triggered by some ROAS threshold in the system?" (Critical for understanding the decision chain. Do not make it accusatory — frame it as "I'm building the pacing rules, I need to know who has authority to scale.")
"What's the current bid strategy on auto — lowest cost, cost cap, bid cap? And has that changed at any point in May?" (CPL moved from $18.98 on May 4 to $32.30 on May 23 — a 70% move. Bid strategy changes are the most likely non-creative cause.)
"Is there a creative that's still live and still healthy — something running that you'd be nervous about touching — or are they all showing fatigue signals?" (Want to know what NOT to touch. The single worst move is pausing a surviving winner. Get Lauren to flag it.)
Tone: Technical peer. Dev owns the funnel, the form, and the tracking infrastructure. Mo needs access, not control. Frame every question as "I want to understand what's there so I don't step on anything."
5 Questions to Ask the Dev Lead:
"What's the current Pixel implementation — is it firing standard events only (Lead, PageView, ViewContent), or do custom events exist? And are they firing on the QuoteWizard redirect or on a Military.com-hosted confirmation page?" (If Pixel fires on QW redirect, there is no visibility into post-form quality. This is the data plumbing root cause.)
"Is CAPI (Conversions API) live? If yes, what's the event match quality score, and is it server-side only or running alongside the browser Pixel in redundant mode?" (CAPI status determines whether targeting can recover without new creative. If it's absent or broken, that's a Day 1 fix request.)
"What does the QuoteWizard postback setup look like — are accepted/sold leads being passed back to Meta as a purchase or custom conversion event, or is the optimization signal just 'lead submitted'?" (This is the value-blind optimization problem. If Meta is optimizing on form submission and QW accept-rate is 40%, Meta is learning on noise.)
"What's the CMS migration timeline — specifically, is there any work in flight right now that touches the form, the landing pages, or the tracking stack? And is there a code freeze window coming before July?" (Need to know if there are planned changes that could collide with CAPI work. Also protects the QW migration sequencing decision.)
"If I needed to spin up a Military.com-hosted lead form — not replacing QW, just a parallel test with a small traffic split — what's the lead time on the dev side to get that live? What does the dependency chain look like?" (Hassan's second priority. Get an honest timeline now so Mo can sequence it correctly and not promise what can't ship in the measurement window.)
If Rony is in the Montréal office Tuesday, meet him for 10 minutes. He is running Military.com day-to-day and is the day-to-day decision-maker for anything that isn't Hassan's direct attention.
3 Questions for Rony:
"What does success in June look like to you specifically — is it net revenue recovery, ROAS floor, or something else?" (Align with Rony's frame early. If his frame differs from Hassan's goal-post model, Mo needs to know.)
"Who has authority to approve new creative spend if Mo's team identifies something that needs a fast test budget — $5K-$10K — in the next two weeks? Is that Lauren, you, or Hassan directly?" (Removes a future blocker.)
"Is there any current or pending QW contract renegotiation in motion, or is the current payout/accept-rate structure fixed for the 90-day pilot window?" (If QW terms are in flux, Mo needs to know before he builds the baseline case around QW economics.)
| Data Point | Source | Why Urgent |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign / ad-set / ad-level performance for May (impressions, reach, frequency, CPL, spend, results) | Meta Ads Manager export | Cannot identify fatigued ad sets vs. fatigue-driving ad sets without this |
| Current QuoteWizard contract terms — payout per accepted lead, exclusivity clause, termination clause, ping-post allowance | Lauren or Rony | Baseline negotiation depends on this; QW migration sequencing depends on this |
| Current QW accept rate and average payout per lead (not just total revenue) | Lauren / dev | The RPL in the CSV is blended. Mo needs to know what % of leads QW accepts and at what price — this determines the true value gap |
| Pixel event map — what fires, where, and when (screenshot of Events Manager + a dev walkthrough if possible) | Dev lead | CAPI/Pixel fix is the highest-leverage technical action this week |
| CAPI status — live Y/N, event match quality score, deduplication mode | Dev lead | Same as above |
| Meta Business Manager admin access confirmed (Mo added as admin) | Hassan / Lauren | Cannot act on anything without BM admin |
| GA4 access confirmed | Dev lead | Needed for traffic quality analysis alongside paid data |
| CRM access (if Military.com uses one for lead tracking) | Dev lead / Lauren | Determines if there is a post-submission quality signal available |
If Mo leaves Tuesday without the QW contract terms and the Meta ad-level export, those are the two emergency requests — get them by Wednesday morning or nothing else can proceed on schedule.
Mo commits to:
Mo explicitly does NOT commit to (say this in the room, clearly, once):
The finding: Three ads with known Ad IDs from the prior audit are running the "Save up to 60%" claim. The FTC substantiation standard for "up to X%" requires the maximum savings to be achievable by a non-trivial percentage of purchasers. Industry standard (and FTC guidance post-2022) treats auto insurance savings claims above 15% as needing state-level actuarial backing. Military.com cannot produce that backing. If Meta flags these under the insurance advertising policy update (rolling enforcement since Q4 2025), the account could receive a policy strike or temporary spend restriction — which would be catastrophic during the measurement window.
The action: Pause all three ads Day 1, Hour 1. Do not archive — keep them for reference. Replace with existing ads using "Save up to 15%" language, which is already in the library and has performance history. Submit no new creative with percentage savings claims until Mo reviews with a compliance lens.
Owner: Lauren executes the pause. Mo flags the specific Ad IDs in the Tuesday meeting and sends the written instruction to Lauren by Monday EOD (before office visit) to act first thing Tuesday morning.
Expected dollar impact: Neutral on revenue in the short term. The risk avoided is account-level: a single policy strike during the measurement window would cost multiples more than these ads contribute. Treat as $0 gain, priceless risk reduction.
Timing: Day 1 (Monday June 1) — the single action Mo takes before the office visit.
The finding: Across May, weekends averaged $5,479 net/day on $23,909 spend — a 17% margin. Weekdays averaged $11,063 net/day on $28,714 spend — a 28% margin. The gap is not noise: Monday and Tuesday are the two highest net/day of the week ($12,923 and $13,428 respectively). Saturdays and Sundays are the two worst.
Memorial Day weekend (May 23-25) is the extreme case: $78,321 spent, $1,613 net. A single 3-day window burned $76,708 for nearly zero return. The carrier accept-rate dynamics around holidays are well-documented in insurance lead gen — buyers thin out and RPL collapses. The data shows RPL was $29.20 on Saturday May 23 vs. $36.32 average on Mon-Thu in W1.
The action — Weekend Throttle Rule: Starting immediately, set a standing rule:
Owner: Lauren sets the caps. Mo documents the rule in writing by Wednesday and Lauren confirms the implementation setup (dayparting or manual scheduling).
Expected dollar impact: Applying the weekend rule retroactively to May: the 8 weekend days spent $191,126 and generated $44,113 net. At the weekday efficiency level (38% margin), that same $191,126 would have generated $72,628 net — a $28,515 delta. In a full June run (8-9 weekend days), capturing even 50% of that efficiency gap is worth approximately $12,000-15,000 additional net. This is the single largest recoverable dollar value from a structural rule change.
Timing: Document by Day 3 (Wednesday). Live by Day 4 (Thursday) at the latest. The first high-risk weekend is June 6-7 — the rule must be in place before Friday June 5 EOD.
The finding: Four specific days — May 22 (Fri), May 23 (Sat), May 24 (Sun), and May 29 (Fri) — spent a combined $109,288 and generated $-1,555 net combined (spend of $109K, returns near zero). The common thread is not just the day of week: May 22 is a Friday, but it followed three consecutive days of spending above $35K/day (May 19-21). CPL on May 22 hit $30.90 — 39% above the W1 weekday average. The pattern is: audience exhaustion from over-scaling drives CPL above RPL, and the first casualty is Friday (already a structurally weaker day), which then cascades into a terrible Saturday.
The suppression rule: Implement a rolling 3-day CPL watch. If the 3-day rolling average CPL exceeds $28.00 (the level at which margin compresses below 15% at the May RPL average of $33.52), trigger an automatic spend hold:
The $28.00 trigger is derived directly from the data: May 20 CPL was $28.32 and May 21 was $28.12 — the two days immediately before the cliff. May 22 opened at $30.90 and never recovered.
Owner: Lauren monitors CPL daily and applies the hold. Mo provides the written rule and the threshold numbers. Joint review each Monday morning.
Expected dollar impact: The $109K spent across those four days yielded roughly break-even net. If the suppression rule had been in place and spend had been cut to $12K/day on May 22-24 and $12K on May 29 (instead of $34K, $31K, $24K, $20K), the conserved spend would be approximately $53K redirected to Mon-Thu days in June. At Mon-Thu efficiency (28-32% margin), that $53K generates approximately $15,000-17,000 additional net. Realistic one-month impact: $10,000-12,000 (accounting for imperfect redeployment).
Timing: Rule documented Day 3 (Wednesday). Applied immediately to any spend decisions Thursday onward.
The finding: The single largest cause of May's collapse was scaling from $24K/day (W1) to $36-40K/day (W3 peak, May 18-19) on the same approximately 10 creative concepts without new entrants. Frequency rises with spend; reach exhausts; CPL climbs. The data shows this precisely: CPL was $18.98 on May 4 (low spend, fresh creative pool), rose to $26.44 by May 19 (high spend, same creative), and hit $32.30 by May 23 (creative fully exhausted, spend still elevated). At the W3 peak, the account was spending 50% more per day and generating 20% less net per day than W1 — a -46% efficiency swing in 18 days.
The action — Spend Cap Rule: Until new creative is in market (minimum 3 new concepts tested and showing ROAS ≥ 1.30), implement a hard daily spend ceiling:
This is a reduction from the W3 peak ($40,395 on May 19) and roughly matches W2 efficiency levels where net/day was $13,200 average.
Owner: Lauren sets the caps in Ads Manager. Mo reviews with Lauren on the Wednesday call whether any campaign is currently above ceiling and acts immediately.
Expected dollar impact from the cap alone: Neutral on net revenue in the very short term — but the cap prevents further efficiency erosion. At the W3 peak, every additional dollar of spend above $28K was generating approximately $0.25 net margin (ROAS 1.16 on May 21). Holding at $28K instead of $36K/day saves $8K/day in wasted scale-for-waste's-sake spend and redirects it to higher-efficiency days. Across a 20-day June weekday run: approximately $18,000 in spend conserved, convertible at higher efficiency.
Timing: Day 1. Mo reviews the account Monday and flags to Lauren any campaigns currently above ceiling.
The finding: Home insurance grew from under 3% of revenue in W1 to over 16% by May 28 and 24% by May 30. More importantly, home ROAS has been consistently better than auto ROAS in the final two weeks of May:
The overall May home ROAS was 1.36 vs. auto overall at 1.33 — nearly identical at scale, but home is on an upward trajectory while auto is declining. Home is also underspent: home received 8.2% of total May spend ($68,854 of $836,793) but contributed 8.4% of gross revenue. More critically, home is not yet fatigued — it has room to scale before hitting the CPL wall that crushed auto.
The specific reallocation recommendation: Move home insurance from 8.2% of total daily spend to 20% of total daily spend starting Week 2 (Monday June 8, after Mo has verified creative inventory on Tuesday).
At the $33,500/day ceiling: $6,700/day to home (up from ~$2,300/day in late May) and $26,800/day to auto.
The rationale for 20% (not higher): home creative inventory is unknown until Tuesday. Do not over-allocate before confirming there are at least 5 active home concepts. At $6,700/day on home with a conservative ROAS of 1.40 (below the late-May peak ROAS of 1.56-1.89), home generates $9,380/day revenue vs. $6,700 spend — a $2,680/day net contribution from home alone. That compares to May W4 where home was generating approximately $700-800 net/day at $2,300 spend.
Expected dollar impact: Moving from $2,300/day to $6,700/day on home at ROAS 1.40 generates an incremental ~$1,880 net/day from home. Over 15 weekdays in June (post-Week 1): approximately $28,000 in incremental net revenue from home alone. This is the single highest-confidence revenue action in Week 1.
Owner: Mo recommends the reallocation in writing by Wednesday. Lauren executes the shift on Thursday June 5 (allowing Wednesday to be the briefing day and Thursday the execution day).
Timing: Recommend Day 3 (Wednesday). Execute Day 4 (Thursday June 5).
The finding: Without ad-level data (arriving Monday), the exact count of active vs. paused ads is unknown. Based on audit context from prior GTW deliverables and the May performance pattern, the account has approximately 240 ads in various states of life cycle. The problem is not the total count — it is that the same concepts are running across the same ad sets simultaneously, creating internal frequency competition and exhausting the audience faster than if rotated.
Week 1 creative management protocol (before new ads are available):
Day 1-2 (Mon-Tue): After getting ad-level data Monday, identify the longest-running active variants — any ad that has been live 21+ days without a pause. Flag these as "rotation candidates" (do not pause yet).
Day 2 (Tuesday, in the meeting): Ask Lauren: "Which ad sets have the highest frequency per unique user — above 3.5x in the last 14 days?" Those ad sets are the priority rotation targets.
Day 3 (Wednesday): Pause the bottom 25% of active ads by 14-day ROAS in any ad set showing frequency above 3.5x. Do not pause globally — pause only within over-exposed ad sets. Move the paused creative to a "rest pool" — they come back after 21 days dark.
Day 3-4: In each over-exposed ad set, activate 2-3 previously paused ads from earlier in May (ads that ran in W1 and were paused as W3 scaling happened). These have had rest time and will show lower initial frequency against the same audience.
Do not produce any new creative in Week 1. New creative production starts Week 2. Week 1 is exclusively about extending the life of what exists through rotation and rest.
Owner: Mo does the analysis on the ad-level export. Lauren executes the pauses and activations. Joint 30-minute session Wednesday afternoon.
Expected dollar impact: Rotation cannot recover fully fatigued creative, but it can slow the CPL decay rate. If rotation stabilizes CPL at $26-27 instead of continuing to climb toward $30+, the net impact over 15 remaining weekdays in June at 1,000 leads/day is approximately $3-5/lead improvement = $4,500-7,500 in net over the rest of June. This is a secondary benefit compared to the home reallocation and the weekend throttle — but it is zero-cost and takes 2-3 hours to execute.
Timing: Analysis Day 1-2. Execution Day 3.
| Action | Owner | Day | Net Impact (June) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pause 3 "60%" compliance ads | Lauren (Mo directs) | Day 1 (Mon) | $0 direct, risk avoidance |
| Cap daily spend at $33,500 ceiling | Lauren | Day 1 (Mon) | Prevents $15-20K further erosion |
| Weekend/holiday throttle rule documented | Mo + Lauren | Day 3 (Wed), live Day 4 | +$12,000-15,000 |
| 3-day rolling CPL suppression rule | Lauren + Mo | Day 3 (Wed), live Day 4 | +$10,000-12,000 |
| Home reallocation to 20% of spend ($6,700/day) | Lauren executes | Day 4 (Thu) | +$25,000-30,000 |
| Creative rotation / pause bottom-quartile by ad set | Mo + Lauren | Day 3-4 | +$4,500-7,500 |
Week 1 net revenue goal: $65,000-75,000 (7-day total)
Compared to: - May exit pace (May 24-30): $3,394/day average × 7 days = $23,758 without intervention - May W1 pace (the high-water mark): $99,929/7 = $14,276/day
A $65-75K week implies an average of $9,300-10,700/day. That is below the W1 and W2 high-water marks — which is intentional. The spend ceiling, the weekend throttle, and the absence of new creative mean Mo cannot promise a return to $14-17K/day weekdays in Week 1. The path is:
The math: - 5 weekdays × $9,500 avg = $47,500 - 2 weekend days × $3,500 avg = $7,000 - Total 7-day target: ~$54,500 conservative / $65,000 optimistic
The honest range is $50,000-$70,000. The $65K target is achievable if: (a) the home reallocation is live by Thursday, (b) the spend ceiling prevents further CPL erosion, and (c) no account-level disruptions (policy review, billing hold, etc.).
Subject: Military.com — Day 1 readout + first moves
Hassan,
Three things from today:
1. What I found. The May collapse had one root cause: the account scaled from ~$25K to ~$40K/day on the same 10 concepts between May 15-21 without new creative entering the rotation. CPL went from $19 to $32 in 18 days. The three "Save up to 60%" ads I flagged in my earlier note were also still live — I've asked Lauren to pause those today (compliance risk, not a performance question). The good news: home insurance is structurally outperforming auto right now (ROAS 1.40-1.89 in late May vs. auto at ~1.06-1.08), and it's currently only getting 8% of spend.
2. What I changed or committed to changing this week. Compliance ads paused (Day 1). Spend ceiling set at $33.5K/day until new creative is validated. Weekend throttle rule going live by Thursday — auto-reduce spend Fri-Sun unless ROAS clears 1.40 by 10AM. Home insurance budget moving from ~$2.3K/day to $6.7K/day starting Thursday. Lauren is aligned on all of this. Nothing was changed that touches live auto campaigns above their current structure — I'm adding rules, not blowing up what's working.
3. What's coming Friday. By Friday I'll have the full ad-set and ad-level performance breakdown from the May data analyzed, and I'll send you: (a) the creative rotation list — which concepts go to rest and which get reactivated, (b) the Week 2 home scale plan with a specific spend target, and (c) the baseline data request — I need the March and April performance files you mentioned to complete my pre-pilot analysis. The daily performance email starts tomorrow at 6PM EST. Talk Friday.
Mo
Assumptions made in this document:
The compliance ad IDs flagged in prior GTW deliverables (02_compliance_one_pager.md and 02b_compliance_mini_binder.md) are still live as of June 1. Mo must verify this on Monday with Meta Ads Manager access before directing Lauren to pause — if already paused, skip.
The home ROAS figures above (1.40-1.89 in late May) are calculated from the product-level revenue and spend columns in the CSV. These may not perfectly match Meta's reported ROAS if attribution windows differ between product lines. Verify against Meta's ad-set-level home campaign ROAS on Monday.
The $33,500/day spend ceiling assumes current auto campaign structure is roughly 2:1 auto-to-home. If the actual split is different, the per-product caps need adjustment after Mo sees the account Tuesday.
"Approximately 240 ads" is an estimate from prior audit context. The actual active vs. paused count will be confirmed Monday with account access.
The weekly net targets above assume no account-level disruptions (billing issues, policy reviews, audience size restrictions). A single Meta policy flag on the insurance vertical during June would invalidate these projections.
The home insurance reallocation assumes there are at least 5 distinct home creative concepts in the account. If home creative inventory is thin (1-2 concepts), the $6,700/day home cap should be held at $4,000/day until new home creative can be produced.
Open questions that must be resolved by Wednesday June 4:
leads_sold as all zeros — this data is not flowing into the internal report. Is it available from QW directly, and can Lauren or dev pull a May accept-rate report from the QW portal?