OBB

OBB HOLDINGS × HUNDREDFOLD

ERC Appeals Paid-Ads Test — proposal

Prepared for Andrew
For review · 2026-05-22

$5K paid-ads test for ERC appeals

A focused test of search + landing-page architecture targeting businesses with legitimate revenue declines whose ERC claims were disallowed because the original preparation was sloppy.

The 100-word version

What: 2-week paid-ads test, Google Search + Meta retargeting, targeting recipients of IRS Letter 105-C ERC disallowances. Audience: businesses with legitimate revenue-decline eligibility whose original ERC claim was prepared badly. Cost to Hundredfold: $4,250 ad spend + $750 infra + $3,500 OBB fee + $500 archive-Year-1 = $9,000 all-in (see Budget section). Target output: 1-3 booked consults across the 2 weeks; the real deliverable is calibrated channel/audience/CPL data Hundredfold can act on. Decision point: at $2,500 ad-spend in, we reallocate, pause, or commit a Phase-2 budget. The test is structured to fail cheap, not to succeed loud.

What we're testing

One service. One audience. One $5K budget designed to learn before we scale — not to deliver hits at any price.

The audience: legitimately ERC-eligible businesses who got disallowed because of preparation errors

Specifically: businesses with verifiable revenue decline in any 2020 or 2021 quarter (the 50% test for 2020, the 20% test for 2021) that received IRS Letter 105-C disallowing their claim. The disallowance was driven by how the application was prepared — missing documentation, wrong eligibility test selected, math errors, employee-count miscounts, mill-prepared substantiation that didn't hold up — not by whether the underlying eligibility existed.

Andrew has told us this audience exists. ~100K Letter 105-C disallowances have been issued since summer 2024, and a meaningful share of them were filed by mills or rushed CPAs who failed to document the revenue-decline argument properly. The eligibility was real; the paperwork was bad.

What we're selling: reorganize the case. Pull the revenue records that should have been pulled the first time. Build the substantiation file that should have been built the first time. File Appeals reconsideration or §7422 suit with the record corrected. Win the appeal by demonstrating the eligibility that was always there.

Dominant emotion: betrayal — at the IRS for the denial, and often at the preparer who fumbled the original filing. The audience knows they qualified. They feel the denial is unjust. Ticking clock: IRC §6532(a) gives them two years from the date on the 105-C to file suit.

Why this audience and not "ERC marketing" generally: The general ERC-recovery audience is poisoned by mill-association memory. The "your application was wrong but your eligibility was right" frame is procedural, not promotional — it requires more rigor from Hundredfold, not less.

Success criterion: not lead volume. Did we learn enough about cost-per-qualified-consult, creative-channel fit, and audience size to make an informed decision about scaling, redirecting, or shutting down after the $5K is spent?

The hook — why this frame works

Names the document the reader is holding. "Received Letter 105-C?" beats every generic ERC keyword.
Cites the statutory clock. §6532(a) is real, and the audience usually doesn't know it's running. Factual, not fear-stacked.
Procedural framing replaces refund framing. "We reorganize the substantiation file and appeal" describes a concrete service. "We can get your ERC back" is what the mills said.

Channel allocation — $5K across 2 weeks

Channel	Allocation	Why / rationale
Google Search intent keywords only	$3,500 70% of budget	Highest-signal channel. Searches like "IRS Letter 105-C appeal," "ERC denial revenue decline," "ERC §6532 deadline," "ERC disallowance appeal attorney," "ERC denied bad preparer" self-qualify. Expect $45-$115 CPC on tax-controversy terms (per DM Law + LocaliQ tax-attorney benchmarks); budget yields ~30-75 clicks. See Measurement section for the modeled consult-volume range against these numbers.
Meta retargeting post-quiz visitors only	$750 15% of budget	Pure retargeting against people who took the eligibility quiz but didn't book. Avoids Meta's Special Ad Category friction by keeping the audience small and known. Lower-cost touchpoint to re-engage warm leads.
Landing-page hosting + tracking infra	$750 15% of budget	Cloudflare Pages, transactional email, analytics, pixels. (OBB's strategy + build + creative + management fee is a separate line item — see Budget section.)
Total ad-related spend	$5,000	2-week test window; daily-pacing caps on Google to prevent runaway spend.

Excluded by design: LinkedIn (CPL too high for $5K test); direct mail to 105-C recipients (list acquisition is a privacy/legal question that takes longer than the test window to clear, but worth pursuing for a Phase 2); cold email (CAN-SPAM + Circular 230 §10.30 record-keeping exposure); display + programmatic (wrong audience match); YouTube + OTT (creative production cost too high for the budget).

Creative concepts — four variants, all anti-mill

Every variant leads with statutory authority, names the 105-C document, or cites the preparation-error frame. None promise a refund. None say "you may qualify." All explicitly distance Hundredfold from mill positioning.

D1 — the clock

"Received IRS Letter 105-C disallowing your ERC? IRC §6532 gives you two years to file suit — and Appeals reconsideration doesn't extend it."

A 105-C is the start of a 2-year statutory clock under §6532(a). Miss it and the refund right is gone. We review 105-C letters to assess whether the disallowance basis is appealable (Appeals reconsideration) or better routed directly to the Court of Federal Claims under §7422. We do not guarantee outcomes; we do tell you whether the timeline and the facts support continuing.

→ Consult about your Letter 105-C

Compliance: §6532 stated as fact. "We do not guarantee outcomes" closes §10.30 exposure. Headline names the document — highest-signal trust move.

D2 — the misconception

"Already responded to your ERC Letter 105-C? Your §6532 right to sue is independent of IRS Appeals."

Many recipients respond to 105-C by requesting Appeals reconsideration and assume that tolls the suit deadline. It does not. The two-year §6532(a) window runs from the date of the disallowance notice unless extended by a written Form 907 agreement. If you are mid-Appeals and unsure where you stand on the clock, we will pull the disallowance letter and any executed Form 907 and tell you the actual deadline.

→ Get a deadline check

Compliance: Solves a specific, painful misconception. "We will pull" is a concrete service description, not a result promise.

D3 — eligibility frame

"Real revenue decline in 2020 or 2021 — and ERC still denied? A 105-C disallowance is often a preparation problem, not an eligibility problem."

If your business had a verifiable revenue decline in 2020 (50%+ for the gross-receipts test) or 2021 (20%+) and your ERC claim was still disallowed, the denial may be a substantiation-file problem the original preparer didn't solve. The IRS denies on what's in the file. We reorganize the file: revenue records, governmental-order proof if relied on, employee-count reconciliation, eligibility memo — and then we appeal. We do not promise reversal; we do tell you whether the facts support continuing before you commit.

→ Have us review your disallowance

Compliance: Headline is now framed as a question ("ERC still denied?"), not a premise — addressing the FTC §5 substantiation risk around implying a particular reader's denial is reversible. Eligibility-test thresholds are stated factually. "We do not promise reversal" closes §10.30.

D4 — for the stranded

"Your ERC preparer is gone. Your 105-C is on your desk. Your §6532 clock is running."

If your original ERC claim was filed by a promoter who has since shut down or stopped responding, you are not stranded — but you are running out of time. We do not file ghost claims. We pull the original 941-X, the 105-C, and your underlying revenue records, and we tell you whether there's a defensible appeal before you commit to retainer. The two-year §6532 deadline runs from the date of the disallowance notice, not from when you find a new preparer.

→ Schedule a 105-C review

Compliance: "We do not file ghost claims" directly inoculates against the mill association. No timeline promise — initial review delivered "before you commit to retainer," which is a procedural commitment Hundredfold's conflict-check + intake workflow naturally honors. If Hundredfold wants to upgrade to a specific SLA (e.g. "within ten business days") after confirming operational capacity, copy can be revised at that point.

Landing-page architecture — quiz qualifier as legal pre-screen

One page. The quiz does triple duty: it converts ~4-10× better than a static lead-magnet on B2B professional services, it qualifies the lead for engagement, and it captures the specific facts Hundredfold needs for conflict check + intake.

Above the fold

Headline: Received IRS Letter 105-C? You have a two-year §6532 window. We'll tell you what's left of it — and whether the underlying eligibility supports an appeal.
Subhead: A disallowance is not a denial of your right to sue. We review the disallowance basis, the §6532 clock, and the underlying revenue-decline facts. We do not file ghost claims, and we do not pursue cases where the facts don't support continuing.
Trust signals (ranked): named senior attorney with bar admissions; specific 105-C handling experience count (real number or omit); sample (redacted) Letter 105-C visible as image so visitor recognizes their own document; "Not a government website" disclosure (Google policy, Oct 2025).
Primary CTA: "Check my §6532 deadline" → opens 7-question qualifier.

Quiz — 7 questions, ~75 seconds

Date on your Letter 105-C? (Date picker — this is the §6532 clock anchor.)
Which quarters were disallowed? (Multi-select 2020 Q2-Q4 / 2021 Q1-Q4)
For the disallowed quarter(s), did your business have a revenue decline of 50% or more (2020) or 20% or more (2021) compared to the same quarter of 2019? (Yes — substantial decline / Some decline but unsure if it meets threshold / No revenue decline / Unsure)
IRS's stated disallowance basis? (Eligibility — gross receipts test / Eligibility — governmental order / Documentation insufficient / Identity or preparer concern / Other / Unsure — letter doesn't say clearly)
Approximate total disallowed amount across all quarters? (<$50K / $50K-$250K / $250K-$1M / $1M-$5M / $5M+) — for engagement scoping only.
Have you already responded to the 105-C? (No / Filed protest to Appeals / Signed Form 907 / Filed suit / Other)
Who prepared your original ERC filing? (ERC mill or promoter / CPA or accounting firm / Self-prepared / Other)

Post-quiz routing

Candidate path (revenue decline meets threshold + 105-C clock running + no response filed): highest-priority routing — calendar embed + 24-hour callback commitment.
In-Appeals path (with or without Form 907): deadline-check + consult booking. Bring your protest documents.
No revenue decline / not a fit: honest decline + reading material. Trust accelerator. The honest decline keeps the page out of mill-positioning territory.
Already filed suit: graceful decline + second-opinion offer (optional).
Mill-prepared original: flagged for senior-attorney intake (conflict + facts review before commitment).

Form fields (post-quiz only): Name, business name, work email, phone, best callback time. 105-C date pre-filled from the quiz. Nothing else captured pre-consult.

Compliance stack — operational discipline that keeps this defensible

Circular 230 §10.30 (31 CFR §10.30)

No false, fraudulent, coercive, misleading, or deceptive statements. Fee disclosures must be accurate (decision below). 36-month record retention on all ad creatives, landing pages, and email blasts — OBB owns the archive infrastructure.

FTC Act §5 — substantiation

Any objective claim requires "reasonable basis" support. "Up to $X" is excluded from all four creative variants. "Five business days" promise in D4 must be operationally honored. Hundredfold's internal compliance review approves final copy before launch.

Google Ads Government Documents and Services policy (Oct 2025)

Hundredfold certifies as authorized provider and accepts the auto-disclosure "Not a government website" rendered on creative. Avoids account-suspension exposure from the misrepresentation policy.

Meta financial-services Special Ad Category

Used only in retargeting mode against post-quiz visitors. Avoids SAC's prospecting friction (no age/gender/ZIP targeting) by keeping audience small and pre-qualified.

State-specific attorney-advertising rules (MRPC 7.1-7.3)

If a named attorney appears on the landing page and ads run nationally, MRPC 7.1-7.3 (or each state's equivalent) applies wherever the click originates — not just where the attorney is barred. Required pre-launch: identify the bar states of the named attorney; if running nationally, add a "Practice limited to [state(s)]" disclosure or restrict targeting accordingly.

UPL (unauthorized practice of law)

The ads promise "case review" and substantiation-file reorganization. If non-attorney staff perform that review and it crosses into legal advice (e.g., advising on §7422 forum selection), UPL exposure attaches. Required pre-launch: Hundredfold confirms who performs each role; if CPAs not attorneys, the page language adjusts to "substantiation review" and explicit "legal counsel referred to bar-admitted partner" framing.

TCPA — phone consent

The calendar embed promises a 24-hour callback and the form collects a phone number. Required pre-launch: the form includes an explicit TCPA consent checkbox ("By submitting, you consent to a phone callback from Hundredfold regarding your inquiry; this is not a marketing call"), and the consent is logged with timestamp. Without this, every callback is TCPA-exposed.

State-specific rules — California, New York, Florida

CA Rule 7.1-7.3 prohibits in-person/phone/electronic solicitation except to lawyers or prior clients. NY + FL have parallel rules with different specifics. Required pre-launch if geo-targeting any of the three: state-specific legal review.

Measurement framework

Funnel definitions: Impression → Click → Page (not bounced) → Quiz started → Lead (quiz completed + form submitted) → Qualified Lead (candidate or in-Appeals path) → Consult (Hundredfold attorney call completed) → Retainer (signed engagement letter).

The full-funnel model (calibrated against tax-controversy industry benchmarks; treat as directional, not predictive):

CPC: $45-$115 avg on Google search (per DM Law tax-attorney guide + LocaliQ 2024 legal search benchmarks). Higher than general legal-services CPCs because tax-controversy keywords are competitive.
$3,500 Google spend → ~30-75 clicks across the test window.
Click → Page: 75-85% (no bounce — the keyword/page match is high).
Page → Lead (quiz completed + form submitted): 3-5% on paid traffic.
Lead → Qualified Lead: 40-60% — the quiz routes "no revenue decline" and "already filed suit" out.
Qualified Lead → Consult: 60-75% (tax-controversy industry benchmark).
Consult → Retainer: 30-45% (industry benchmark; Hundredfold's actual close rate is the unknown).

Modeled booked-consult range from this funnel: 1-3 consults at the most likely cells, up to 4-5 if conversions land at the top of every band. Anything above 5 would beat published tax-controversy benchmarks on every step simultaneously, which is possible but should not be the planning case.

The honest read: $5K against this audience is a learning instrument, not a revenue instrument. The deliverable is calibrated CPL + channel-fit data for Hundredfold to use in deciding the Phase 2 spend level. If 1-3 consults convert into retainers, the test pays for itself; if they don't, we've still bought meaningful audience-sizing data.

Decision thresholds at 50% spend ($2,500 in):

If qualified-lead CPL exceeds Hundredfold's gross-margin-per-retained-engagement ÷ expected close rate (this number is an open question for Andrew — see below), → pause and rework. The placeholder math below is illustrative only.
Illustrative breakeven CPL math: if Hundredfold's average ERC-appeals retainer is $25K with a 30% gross-margin contribution ($7,500), and consult-to-retainer is 35%, then breakeven cost-per-qualified-lead is roughly $2,600 — meaningfully higher than projected CPLs. Andrew supplies the real numbers before launch and the threshold gets re-anchored.
If one creative concept dominates (e.g., D3 produces all the leads), reallocate remaining budget toward it.
If Google CPC averages > $150 (vs. projected $45-$115), broaden the keyword set or kill the highest-cost terms.

Budget rollup

Line item	Cost	Notes
Ad spend — Google Search	$3,500	Daily-pacing caps; channel reallocation triggers at 50% spent.
Ad spend — Meta retargeting	$750	Post-quiz visitors only. Held as a learning channel, not a primary lever.
Landing-page hosting + tracking infra	$750	Cloudflare Pages, transactional email, GA4 + Meta Pixel + LinkedIn Insight Tag (only on the relevant pages), 2-week test + post-test analysis window.
OBB test-phase fee: strategy, landing-page build (with quiz logic + branching routing), 4 compliance-reviewed creative variants, tracking setup, 2 weeks of active campaign management, mid-test reallocation pass, final debrief	$3,500	One-time fee. Reflects ~50 hrs of work at consulting-rate floor. Revised up from the $2K placeholder after honest scope-vs-fee review.
OBB Circular 230 archive — Year 1	$500	Setup + first 12 months of the 36-month creative archive obligation. Renews annually at $400/yr for Years 2 + 3 if Hundredfold wants OBB to continue holding the archive, or transfers to Hundredfold's compliance team after Year 1.
Hundredfold's total out-of-pocket (test phase, Year 1)	$9,000	$5,000 ad spend + $750 infra + $3,500 OBB fee + $500 archive Year 1.

Fee structure revision note: an earlier draft of this proposal scoped the OBB engagement at $2,000 flat. After honest scope review, that number was too low for the work involved — the 36-month archive obligation in particular is a Year 2-3 liability that doesn't fit inside a 2-week project fee. The structure above is the right shape.

Open questions for Andrew — answers needed before launch

Named attorney + bar states. Whose name and bar credentials appear above-fold? Which states barred? (MRPC 7.1-7.3 compliance — national-targeting requires a "practice limited to" disclosure or state-restricted targeting.)
Decline policy. Will Hundredfold actually decline the "no revenue decline" and "not-a-fit" leads, or does sales want every lead? Determines whether the page can carry the honest-decline trust signal.
Average matter value + close rate. Typical retainer + gross-margin contribution per retained ERC-appeals engagement, and Hundredfold's current consult-to-retainer close rate. This anchors every decision threshold in the Measurement section. Without it, the "CPL > $X → pause" rule has no real number.
Engagement count. How many ERC-controversy matters has Hundredfold handled in 2024-2025? How many 105-C letters specifically? Real numbers go in the trust signal. If thin, that's a different conversation than this proposal — anti-mill positioning requires more credibility, not less.
Who performs the case review. Attorneys, CPAs, or paralegals? UPL exposure attaches if non-attorneys advise on §7422 forum selection or legal merit. Determines landing-page language ("legal review" vs "substantiation review").
Fee posture. Willing to publish a fee range on the landing page (e.g., "engagements typically $X-$Y")? Tax-controversy conversion data favors transparency.
Conflict-check workflow + 24-hour callback. How fast is the check, and can the calendar embed honestly promise 24-hour callback?
TCPA consent posture. Confirm the form will include an explicit TCPA consent checkbox + timestamped consent log.
Geo targeting. Nationwide, or focus on high-disallowance states? If CA, NY, or FL: pre-launch state legal review.
36-month archive ownership. OBB owns the archive infrastructure for Year 1. Confirm Hundredfold compliance officer named for Years 2-3 (or extend OBB engagement).

Risks the test will surface

Audience size. ~100K 105-C letters issued total — the share inside the "revenue decline + bad prep" subset is unpublished. The test gives us the first real read.
Google policy posture. Government Documents and Services policy is new (Oct 2025) and enforcement uneven. D1 (no refund claim, procedural framing) launches first as the litmus test; D2/D3/D4 rotate in only after D1 runs cleanly through review.
Mill-association brand drag. The audience associates "ERC marketing" with mills. Anti-mill positioning is the defense; a single tone-deaf creative would undo it. Hundredfold internal compliance approves final copy before any launch.

Recommended sequence

Day 1-2: Andrew works the open questions above. Hundredfold counsel reviews D1-D4 creative.
Day 3-5: OBB builds the landing page, configures tracking, sets up Google + Meta accounts, certifies Google Government-Documents disclosure.
Day 6: Soft launch — D1 only, $300/day cap on Google. Watch disapproval rates.
Day 8: If D1 runs clean, add D2/D3/D4 + Meta retargeting.
Day 10-12: Mid-test review at 50% spend. Reallocate per decision thresholds.
Day 14: Test concludes. Full debrief with Andrew: what worked, what didn't, what we'd do next.

Sources: 31 CFR §10.30 (Circular 230 advertising rules); 16 CFR Part 233 (FTC deceptive earnings claims); Google Ads Government Documents and Services policy (Oct 2025); Meta Transparency Center (Special Ad Categories); IRS Letter 105-C and §6532(a) — Taxpayer Advocate Service NTA Blog (May 2025) and Journal of Accountancy (April 2026); IRS FS-2025-07 (OBBBA ERC compliance); LocaliQ 2024 legal search benchmarks; Practice Proof 2025 law firm benchmarks; DM Law tax-attorney Google Ads guide; First Page Sage 2026 B2B CPL by industry; Surface Labs 2025 B2B conversion benchmarks; WordStream 2025 Google Ads benchmarks. CPC and CPL benchmarks are tax-controversy industry data; ERC-specific CPL benchmark does not exist in published sources. Hundredfold counsel reviews all creative pre-launch.