Paid Media
Your ad spend should make you money. Not fund someone else's learning curve.
Paid media is not complicated in theory. You put a dollar in, you want more than a dollar out. That's the whole game.
But somewhere between "let's run some ads" and "why did we spend $40K last quarter with nothing to show for it," something goes sideways. Usually it's because whoever's managing your ads is optimizing for the wrong things: impressions, clicks, CTR, instead of the only metric that actually matters: did these ads make you more money than they cost?
We're a paid media agency built for eCommerce, managing campaigns across Google, Meta, and TikTok. And we treat every dollar of your ad budget like it's our own money, because the fastest way to lose a client is to waste theirs.
$23M+
Ad Spend Managed
3x
Avg Blended ROAS
$70M+
Revenue
150+
Clients
Here's what's actually going wrong with your ads
You're spending money on ads. Maybe $5K a month. Maybe $50K. And when you ask your agency or in-house person "are these working?" you get a report full of impressions and click-through rates and some vague comment about "brand awareness." But you can't point to a number and say "that ad made us this much money."
And it's not because paid media doesn't work. It works ridiculously well when it's done right. The problem is most agencies treat your ad account like a textbook exercise. They set up campaigns using the same playbook they use for every client, they check in once a week, they send you a pretty dashboard, and they collect their management fee. Whether you made money or lost money? That's kind of a secondary concern.
So you're stuck in this frustrating spot where you knowpaid ads should work. You see your competitors running them constantly, but you can't figure out why your campaigns feel like they're just... burning cash. You've thought about doing it yourself but the platforms change every three weeks and you've got an actual business to run.
Here's what nobody tells you: the difference between ads that print money and ads that lose money is usually 3-4 specific things. Wrong campaign structure. Bad audience layering. No creative testing system. And broken attribution so you literally can't tell what's working. Fix those, and suddenly the math starts working in your favor.
How we run ads differently than every agency you've worked with
1. We start with your unit economics, not your ad account
Before we touch a single campaign, we sit down with your numbers. What's your average order value? What's your margin? What's your customer lifetime value? How many orders does the average customer place? Because here's what most agencies skip: if your margins are 60% and your AOV is $85, your break-even ROAS is completely different than if your margins are 30% and your AOV is $200. We model this out beforewe build a single ad. So when we say "we can scale you profitably at 4x ROAS," that's based on math, not hope.
2. We own the full funnel, not only the click
Most agencies optimize for cost-per-click. Cool, you got cheap clicks. But did those clicks buy anything? We optimize for revenue. That means we care about what happens afterthe click: your landing page, your product page, your checkout flow, your post-purchase experience. If your landing page is killing conversions, we'll tell you. If your checkout has a 50% drop-off, we'll tell you. Because driving traffic to a broken funnel is like pouring water into a bucket with holes. We fix the bucket first.
3. Creative testing is the engine, not an afterthought
In 2024 and beyond, creative is the single biggest variable in paid media performance. The algorithm does most of the targeting work now. Your job is to give it great ads to show people. We run structured creative tests every single week. Different hooks, different formats, different angles. UGC vs. studio. Problem-aware vs. solution-aware. Short-form vs. long-form. We track which creative concepts drive the most revenue, not clicks, and we double down on winners while constantly testing new ideas. Most agencies test once a quarter. We test weekly.
4. We report in dollars, not impressions
Every week you get a Loom video walking through your performance. Not a PDF with 47 charts. A human being talking you through: here's how much we spent, here's how much revenue it generated, here's what's working, here's what's not, and here's what we're changing next week. Monthly, we do a strategy call where we plan the next 30 days together. You always know exactly where your money is going and what it's doing.
Want to see where your ad spend is leaking?
We'll audit your campaigns for free. No pitch. Just the data.
Book NowFlagship Case Study
$23M+ ad spend managed. One health and wellness client hit 3.97x ROAS.
3.97x
Peak BFCM ROAS, one health client
3x
Return on Ad Spend
2.6x
Avg Blended ROAS
75K+
Total Orders
~$750
Average AOV
A health and wellness eCommerce brand came to us spending $1.1M/month on paid media, but with ROAS bouncing between 1.9x and 3.0x, climbing CPAs, and no clear attribution model. Between 25-42% of their revenue came through financing (Affirm/Klarna), and none of that data was being factored into ad performance. They were making million-dollar decisions based on incomplete numbers.
Over 31 months, we rebuilt their entire paid media operation. Full-funnel architecture across Google and Meta. CPA-focused optimization that brought acquisition costs from $382 down to $199 at peak. Custom attribution that integrated financing revenue back into the ad platforms. And a seasonal scaling playbook that delivered their biggest month ever: $3.26M in revenue on $822K in spend during BFCM 2022, at a 3.97x ROAS for that one health and wellness client.
When market conditions shifted in 2023-2024, we didn't burn budget and blame the algorithm. We strategically reduced spend from $1.1M to $600K/month while maintaining 2.5x+ ROAS, protecting margins and profitability. That is what managing a large DTC ad account in health and wellness actually looks like.
Case Study
How we rebuilt paid media for a women's fashion brand
Where they were
A DTC women's fashion brand we work with had been running Meta ads with a previous agency and was barely breaking even after product costs, shipping, and the agency fee. They came to us frustrated. "We're spending money but we're not growing."
What we did
First thing we found: their campaign structure was a mess. One broad prospecting campaign, one retargeting campaign, and creatives that had not been touched in months. Classic set-it-and-forget-it.
We rebuilt everything. Separate campaigns for prospecting and retargeting. Lookalike audiences from repeat buyers with high AOV, not every purchaser. A UGC-style creative testing program using photos their customers were already posting. Retargeting windows with different messaging at each stage of the path to purchase.
Then we did something their old agency never considered: we added Google Shopping. People were searching for their product categories. Shopping gave us a high-intent channel that Meta could not match for bottom-funnel conversions.
What changed
We started reaching the right people with the right creative. UGC outperformed the old studio shots. Google Shopping, which their old agency said was not worth it for fashion, became a real bottom-funnel channel instead of an afterthought.
Case Study
How we rebuilt paid media for a sports nutrition brand
Where they were
A sports nutrition brand we work with sells protein powders, pre-workouts, and recovery supplements through their Shopify store. Paid ads were losing money on every new customer. Their founder told us: "I know people want this product. I just can't figure out how to make the ads work."
What we did
The audit showed the targeting was far too broad, so the algorithm had no signal. There was no retargeting: visitors who did not buy just disappeared. And every creative looked the same: product on a white background with a first-order discount.
We tightened the audiences. Custom audiences from their email list, lookalikes from repeat buyers, and a retargeting funnel: site visitors got social proof, cart abandoners got urgency and free shipping, past customers got subscription pitches.
For creative, we used compliant before/after results from real customers, workout videos with the product in use, and founder-story ads. We also launched TikTok, where native-feeling content was cheaper to test than Meta at the time.
What changed
Spend stayed disciplined. Revenue got healthier because the retargeting funnel pushed subscriptions to past buyers, which raised lifetime value and made profitable acquisition possible. That is what a compounding paid media strategy looks like.
What's included when you work with us
We don't sell packages. We sell outcomes. But here's what the engagement actually looks like, broken down by phase.
Phase 1: Deep Audit & Strategy (Weeks 1-2)
- •Full audit of every existing campaign, ad set, and creative
- •Attribution model review: are you actually tracking what matters?
- •Unit economics modeling (AOV, margins, LTV, break-even ROAS)
- •Competitor ad analysis: what are they running, what's working
- •Audience research and segmentation plan
- •Campaign architecture blueprint
- •Creative strategy brief with 30-day testing roadmap
Phase 2: Build & Launch (Weeks 3-4)
- •Campaign buildout across all relevant platforms
- •Ad copywriting (every variation, every angle)
- •Creative direction and asset briefs
- •Pixel/CAPI setup and conversion tracking verification
- •Audience builds: custom, lookalike, interest-based
- •Retargeting funnel architecture
- •Initial A/B test structure
Phase 3: Ongoing Optimization (Monthly)
- •Daily campaign monitoring and bid management
- •Weekly creative testing (new hooks, angles, formats)
- •Audience expansion and refinement
- •Negative keyword management (Google)
- •Budget reallocation based on performance data
- •Weekly Loom performance recap
- •Monthly strategy call with full revenue report
- •Quarterly deep-dive review with roadmap for next 90 days
Platform-by-platform: how we approach each one
Every platform has a different psychology, different creative requirements, and different audience behavior. Here's how we think about each one.
Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram)
Meta is still the king of eCommerce paid media, and it's not even close. The algorithm is insanely good at finding buyers ifyou give it the right inputs. We use Advantage+ Shopping campaigns as the foundation, feed them high-quality creative on a weekly rotation, and build structured retargeting funnels that move people from awareness to purchase. We also use Meta's Conversions API, not only the pixel, for more accurate tracking, which matters a lot in a post-iOS14 world.
What we typically run: Advantage+ Shopping, dynamic retargeting, UGC prospecting campaigns, catalog ads for product discovery, and founder/brand story campaigns for building trust at top-of-funnel.
Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Performance Max)
Google captures demand that already exists. Someone searches "best protein powder for muscle recovery." They're ready to buy. That's a very different intent than scrolling Instagram and seeing an ad. We run Google Shopping for product visibility, branded Search to protect your brand from competitors bidding on your name, and non-branded Search for high-intent category terms. Performance Max is good when you've got enough data. We use it strategically, not as a lazy default.
What we typically run: Google Shopping (standard and Performance Max), branded Search, non-branded Search for high-intent keywords, Display retargeting, and YouTube pre-roll for brands with video content.
TikTok Ads
TikTok is where the CPMs are still cheap, the audience is highly engaged, and the creative format rewards authenticity over polish. It's not right for every brand, but for fashion, beauty, supplements, food & beverage, and anything visually interesting, TikTok can outperform Meta on prospecting. The key is native-feeling content. Your TikTok ads should look like TikTok content, not like ads. We brief creators, test hooks relentlessly, and use Spark Ads to boost organic content that's already performing.
What we typically run:In-feed ads with UGC creators, Spark Ads boosting organic content, product demo videos, "TikTok made me buy it" style content, and catalog ads through TikTok Shop integration.
Quick Wins
3 changes we make in the first week that usually recover 20-30% of wasted ad spend
Every time we audit a new client's ad account, we find the same three problems. And fixing them is fast, usually done within the first 5 business days.
1. Kill the zombie campaigns
Almost every ad account we audit has campaigns running that haven't been profitable in months. They're just... there. Spending $20-50/day on audiences that have been exhausted, creatives that have fatigued, or targeting that made sense 6 months ago but doesn't anymore. We pause everything that isn't pulling its weight. This alone usually recovers 15-20% of wasted spend immediately.
2. Fix the attribution gap
Most accounts we see have broken tracking. The Meta pixel fires on the wrong events, Google's conversion tracking double-counts, UTM parameters are inconsistent, and nobody's using server-side tracking. This means you literally can't tell which ads are making money. We fix the plumbing: set up Conversions API, verify pixel events, clean up UTM structures, and build a source-of-truth dashboard so you can finally see what's working.
3. Restructure the audience layering
The most common mistake: running one broad prospecting campaign and one retargeting campaign. That's like fishing with one net in the whole ocean. We segment audiences into cold (lookalikes, interest-based), warm (site visitors, engagers), and hot (cart abandoners, repeat visitors), each with different messaging, different creative, and different budget allocation. This alone can improve ROAS by 30-50% without spending an extra dollar.
Questions our best clients asked first
Real questions from real brands. We don't do vague answers.
Ready to make your ad spend actually work?
Book a free 30-minute ad audit. We'll show you exactly where you're losing money and how to fix it.
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