June 20, 2025

How G.O.A.T. Foods Improved Cash Flow and Scaled BFCM Ad Spend with Tie’s Credit Card

Written by
Emily Walden
Head of Marketing
Emily’s helped grow brands and platforms at OpenStore, Afterpay, and Square by building high-converting growth channels, seamless checkout flows, and better payment experiences.

If you’re running a fast-scaling DTC brand, you know how brutal the cash flow crunch gets during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM). Ad costs spike and returns take weeks, while your capital is tied up in inventory.

This was the challenge that G.O.A.T. Foods faced. Despite strong performance, their existing financing options couldn’t give them the flexibility they needed to scale paid campaigns without disrupting day-to-day cash flow.

That’s when they leveraged Tie’s credit card to give them a more flexible way to fund Google Ads without disrupting operations. Tie offers a digital marketing credit card with low APR and flexible payment terms to reduce cash flow constraints. Using Tie’s ad financing, the brand was able to:

  • Defer each Google Ads transaction by up to 90 days, not just a lump sum.
  • Freed up capital to reinvest it into faster inventory restocks.
  • Ran aggressive campaigns without constraints.

“eCommerce brands live and die by cash flow, especially during high-spend moments like Black Friday. Tie’s credit card helped us float massive ad investments and reinvest cash where it mattered most. It’s become a core part of how we operate.”

Jonathan Packer, Co-founder, G.O.A.T. Foods

About the brand

G.O.A.T. Foods is a fast-growing DTC brand that specializes in multiple premium, handcrafted, and gourmet food consumer product lines, with a focus on omnichannel expansion and performance marketing. 

About GOAT Foods

Challenge: Scaling ad spend during BFCM without breaking cash flow

The pressure during BFCM is high for most fast-growing DTC brands. You’re expected to go all-in on ads, push volume, and maximize returns, often in just a few days.

But what happens when your cash is already locked in inventory, and the return on those ads won’t come in for weeks? That’s exactly the situation that G.O.A.T. Foods found themselves in.

Despite strong revenue performance, they were facing a cash flow bottleneck. The brand needed to scale Google Ads aggressively in Q4, but without flexible financing, every dollar spent on ads delayed something else:

Blockers in scaling ad spend during BFCM

“eCommerce is a cash game. When you're holding inventory, you have to smooth out your cash flow.”

While they weren’t new to financing, their existing stack had clear limitations:

  • Fixed 30-day repayment cycles: The repayment windows on most credit solutions didn’t reflect the actual return timeline of digital ads. Repayment was due in 30 days, but the brand’s campaigns could have a longer conversion period, creating an ongoing mismatch.

  • Clunky onboarding and tracking: Approval among some vendors required uploading financials and statements manually. Post-approval, tracking limits and invoices involved managing multiple dashboards, slowing down the team’s ability to make fast spending decisions.

  • There was no clean way to split financing by channel: The brand ran Google Ads and Meta Ads separately, but most tools didn’t allow financing to be segmented or tracked by platform. This made the month-end reconciliation messier and cost the finance team more time.

“Some of these platforms just aren’t built for how DTC actually works. We needed a setup that didn’t slow us down.”

These limitations became even more apparent during BFCM, when ad spending surged and the stakes were higher than ever. Their Google Ads budgets spiked, but the tools they were using weren’t built to support that kind of volume or pace.

Without a way to align repayments with when revenue was truly realized, G.O.A.T. Foods was stuck making difficult trade-offs: either pull back on high-performing campaigns or delay critical inventory restocks.

“We were spending massive amounts during BFCM, but the return takes weeks or months to hit. You need the flexibility to bridge that gap.”

Solution: How G.O.A.T. Foods Used Tie to Fund BFCM Ad Spend Without Disrupting Cash Flow

When G.O.A.T. Foods began planning for Black Friday, one thing was clear: aggressive ad spend was non-negotiable. But committing heavy budgets to paid media, especially Google Ads, while also managing inventory and operating expenses, required smarter cash flow planning.

That’s when they opted for Tie’s advertising credit card. Here’s what the process looked like:

4 Step process of using Tie's advertising credit card

Step 1: Easy onboarding with low manual effort 

With Tie, G.O.A.T Foods simply had to connect their accounts directly through the portal. This allowed the team to get approved and start allocating credit to ad spend in days, not weeks.

“It was better than most. Just connect your accounts and you’re in. No manual file uploads, no back-and-forth.”

Step 2: Segmented financing by ad channel for cleaner reconciliation

Instead of relying on a single credit solution across all platforms, the team used Tie exclusively for Google Ads. This strategic separation made it easier to isolate cost centers and streamline accounting, especially during high-volume periods like BFCM.

By assigning different financing partners to different ad channels, the team avoided overlap, accelerated month-end close, and gave the finance team greater visibility into platform-specific performance.

“We use Tie for Google and others for different channels. Keeps everything clean on the accounting side.”

With spending neatly segmented, reconciliation became faster and more transparent, avoiding issues like tangled mixed spend and fragmented reports.

Step 3: Floating repayment windows that matched revenue timing

Traditional credit cards require monthly lump-sum repayments, often before revenue from ad spend materializes. Tie flipped that model with a rolling 90-day repayment window per transaction, giving the brand flexibility to pay back each swipe when revenue came in.

“It’s not just ‘net 90.’ You pay 90 days after each swipe, not in one big lump. That’s what made it really helpful.”

Instead of compressing cash cycles, this structure allowed the team to:

  • Launch high-volume campaigns without slowing operations
  • Defer repayment until revenue comes in
  • Avoid short-term trade-offs between marketing and inventory

With APRs as low as 19.40%, the cost of flexibility remained manageable. More importantly, the floating payback model matched the realities of a DTC brand driven by paid ads and inventory cycles, enabling them to move fast without compromising financial health.

“It’s not just about the rate. It’s about being able to move more aggressively, knowing you’ve got room to operate.”

Step 4: Capital reallocation that boosted performance across the board

Since G.O.A.T. no longer had to fund ad spend and inventory simultaneously, they were able to redirect working capital into areas that moved the needle faster, like restocking fast-sellers and extending top-performing campaigns.

“It gave us the confidence to be a little more aggressive, whether that meant more ad spend or restocking inventory faster.

The additional liquidity also accelerated decision-making. The brand didn’t have to pause campaigns mid-flight or delay inventory reorders. Instead, they leaned into momentum and operated with confidence, knowing their financing would support execution.

“When your ad spend is handled, you can move quicker everywhere else—buy more product, extend campaigns, test new ideas.”

Why did it work?

Tie is designed to cater to the unique financial needs that DTC brands have. They require fast spend but see delayed returns, and internally, they need precision across platforms. With features like seamless onboarding, channel-specific allocation, and rolling 90-day payback per swipe, G.O.A.T. gained the financial flexibility that typical tools couldn’t offer..

Before and after using Tie's advertising credit card

“We spend so much on paid media that cash flow timing is everything. Tie helped us float BFCM ad spend into Q1 and reinvest faster.”

Results: Deferred Spend, Faster Turns, and More Control During BFCM

Adopting Tie’s advertising credit card gave G.O.A.T. Foods the financial flexibility to run high-volume Google Ads campaigns during BFCM, without pulling back on inventory or disrupting cash flow.

Instead of being limited by rigid bulk repayment terms, the team used Tie’s rolling 90-day payback structure to push their media spend into Q1, giving them the autonomy to realize returns before repayments kicked in.

This shift had an immediate impact across the business:

  • Cash that would’ve been locked into media spending was instead reinvested into faster inventory restocks and extended campaigns.
  • Capital constraints didn’t slow their growth.
  • They could continue running tests, scaling offers, and chasing high-performing channels deeper into the season.

“We were able to float a crazy amount of spend for Black Friday, all the way to the end of Q1. That’s huge.”

Tie has become a core part of G.O.A.T Food’s plan for high-spend moments. More than just a credit solution, it serves as financial infrastructure, giving the team control over cash flow without adding friction to operations.

“If you’re running a consumer goods brand with real inventory, smoothing out cash flow isn’t optional. It’s survival.”

Looking for smarter cashflow control during peak spend moments?

If you rely heavily on paid media to drive growth, traditional financing tools can slow you down, especially during high-volume periods like BFCM. Rigid repayment cycles, poor spend visibility, and manual onboarding make it harder to scale when you need to move fast.

G.O.A.T. Foods solved this by shifting to a financing model that aligned with their ad strategy, not against it. With Tie’s rolling 90-day repayment terms, channel-level spend tracking, and seamless onboarding, the team was able to push ad spend into Q1, free up capital for inventory, and run aggressive campaigns without cash flow strain.

Want to leverage better ad financing for your DTC brand? Book a demo to see how Tie can help you fund your high-performance media spend without disrupting operations.

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