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You’re not crazy for seeing worse ROAS in December. Toy auctions on Meta/Google get brutal around Black Friday–Christmas; CPMs spike and you’re basically paying “holiday tax” while shoppers also bounce around more comparing deals.
Main thing I’d do is separate “gift buyers” from regular shoppers. Build campaigns just for gift keywords (age + type of toy + “gift”) and others for evergreen stuff, then cap bids / budgets differently so the high-CPC gift stuff doesn’t drain everything.
Also, don’t assume free shipping helped; if you didn’t raise prices or push bundles, your margin may have quietly died even if ROAS looked similar. Do a simple sheet: AOV, product margin, shipping, ad cost per order.
Instead of random AI ad tools, I’d start with something like Triple Whale or even basic GA4 + Microsoft Clarity to see where people drop off; then tools like Ryze AI or Pulse for Reddit plus manual sub testing can help you pull real language and objections from parents before you tweak creatives again.
Core point: pause what isn’t converting by day 3–5, protect margin first.
