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Your ROAS dropping during Q4 is completely normal for toy ecom… some of the accounts I manage at $200k+ monthly spend saw CPMs spike 42-66% Nov. to Dec. 2025, which crushes ROAS even when conversions hold steady. You’re competing against every retail brand dumping budgets into Meta during peak season.
ChatGPT keyword suggestions are generic and don’t account for auction dynamics or toy-specific intent… waiving shipping when everyone else already did means you just matched baseline and compressed margins without creating advantage.
Those AI tools (Multiply AI, Ryze AI, LocalIQ) are white-label dashboards that auto-apply Meta’s recommendations… they don’t understand unit economics.
For toys, Q4 is 60-70% of annual revenue but margin compression from discounting + CPM inflation means December ROAS naturally drops 30-40% vs off-season even when optimized correctly.
IMO –> launch awareness campaigns in October when CPMs are 40% cheaper to build retargeting pools before the bidding war starts… segment high-AOV buyers from bargain hunters because toy category has massive price sensitivity during holidays.
Accounts at scale run separate campaigns for premium ($50+ toys) vs impulse purchases ($10-20 range) because they convert through completely different funnels and timeframes.
