Are CPMs too high in San Francisco for profitable ads?

CPMs are higher in competitive markets, but that just means structure and targeting matter more. When your campaigns are clean and creative is dialed in, you can be profitable even with high CPMs. We've proven it across Bay Area brands.

What platforms do you manage?

Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube), Meta (Facebook, Instagram), and TikTok. For SF DTC brands, we typically run Google Shopping plus Meta demand gen with TikTok for brand discovery.

What ROAS should I expect?

Our average is 4.2x. For clean beauty, wellness, and sustainable brands with strong margins, we've seen 4–7x. We set targets based on your specific unit economics.

How quickly can you improve my ad performance?

Structural fixes show impact within 30 to 60 days. Creative testing compounds over the following months. Most clients see meaningful improvement in the first 90 days.

Do you produce creative?

We own creative strategy, testing frameworks, and optimization. For asset production, we work with your team or recommended partners.

San Francisco PPC Management

A San Francisco clean beauty brand was paying $45 per acquisition. We got it to $18. Same audience. Same products.

The brand had everything right — clean ingredients, loyal community, strong values. But their ad accounts were hemorrhaging money. Meta campaigns targeting too broad. Google Shopping bidding on irrelevant terms. No exclusions. No creative testing framework. And the agency they were paying $12K a month? They called the $45 CAC "competitive for the Bay Area."

Here's what it should have looked like: clean campaign architecture. Audiences built on actual purchase data. Proper exclusions so ad sets don't cannibalize each other. A creative testing cadence that finds winning angles in weeks, not quarters. And attribution that ties every click to a purchase.

We rebuilt the entire account. New structure. Clean targeting. Server-side tracking. Systematic creative testing. Within 60 days, CAC dropped to $24. By month five, $18. The brand didn't spend more — they spent with discipline. GOSH Digital manages Google Ads, Meta, and TikTok for San Francisco brands who refuse to accept "that's just what it costs in this market."

Let's Talk About Your Ads15 min. No pitch deck.

4.2x

Avg. ROAS

-38%

Avg. CAC Reduction

150+

Clients Managed

$23M+

Revenue Driven

What we do for San Francisco brands

Campaign architecture that eliminates waste

Clean structures. Proper exclusions. No audience overlap. No budget cannibalization. Every campaign has a revenue objective — not a vanity metric target.

Creative testing with scientific rigor

SF brands demand quality creative. We test it systematically — hooks, angles, formats, offers — and let data pick the winners.

Attribution you can trust

Server-side tracking. UTM discipline. Cross-platform measurement. You'll know which ads drive revenue — not just which ones get engagement.

Cross-platform synergy

Google for intent. Meta for demand gen. TikTok for discovery. We manage all three so they amplify each other instead of competing.

Like what you see?

Let's talk about your brand.

Book Now

How we work

Step 01

Full ad account audit

Structure, targeting, creative, bidding, and attribution. A clear report showing where money's working, where it's wasted, and what to fix first.

Step 02

Rebuild from the foundation

New architecture built around your products, margins, and unit economics. Clean audiences. Proper tracking. Creative testing plan from day one.

Step 03

Launch and test

Campaigns go live with structured experiments. Winners get scaled. Losers get cut. No emotional attachment to underperforming creative.

Step 04

Optimize weekly, report in revenue

Bids, audiences, creative, budgets — adjusted weekly based on revenue data. Reports that show dollars, not impressions.

Why San Francisco brands trust us

San Francisco's ad landscape is brutal — CPMs are high, competition is fierce, and consumers are sophisticated. That's why discipline matters more than budget. We serve SF brands remotely — and ad platforms are identical everywhere. What separates profitable ads from wasted spend is strategy and execution. We bring both, with 4.2x average ROAS across 150+ clients.

Questions our best clients asked first

Curious what disciplined ad management could do for your SF brand?

No pressure. Just a conversation about your ad accounts, your numbers, and whether there's a smarter way to spend.

Pick a Time

15 minutes. No pitch deck. Just your data and our honest take.

More services in San Francisco

San Francisco Digital Marketing

San Francisco has more marketing agencies per capita than anywhere in the US. Most of them are coasting on reputation.

San Francisco digital marketing agency for DTC, tech, and sustainability brands. 150+ clients, $23M+ driven. SEO, paid media, email, and full-funnel growth.

Learn more

San Francisco eCommerce Growth

San Francisco builds the future. Your eCommerce brand's marketing should look like it belongs there.

San Francisco eCommerce marketing agency for DTC and sustainability brands. Full-service: SEO, paid media, email, CRO. Klaviyo Gold Partner. $23M+ driven.

Learn more

Columbus PPC Management