The Situation

A DTC activewear brand selling leggings, sports bras, and workout sets at $68 AOV had been scaling Google Ads aggressively. At $80K/month, performance was stable at 1.9x ROAS. But every attempt to push past $100K caused CPAs to spike 40–60% within days. The account had 18 campaigns with overlapping audiences. PMax was set to maximize conversions with no ROAS targets, capturing branded traffic at inflated efficiency. Meta had a single CBO at $2,500/day with 15 ad sets — the algorithm couldn't optimize across that many variables. Monthly Google Paid revenue in Shopify sat at $152K.

What We Did

We restructured for scalability. On Google, 18 campaigns became 7: Brand Search (exact match, tROAS 300%), Brand Shopping (medium priority, converters only), Non-Brand Search (tCPA with portfolio bid strategy), Non-Brand Shopping (high priority for prospecting), a PMax with new customer acquisition mode and +50% bid adjustment for new customers, and two international Search campaigns on 30-day probation. We paused the UK campaign after 3 weeks — search volume was too low to justify the spend. The Australian campaign survived and now runs at $800/month profitably. Portfolio bid strategies with max CPC caps prevented the runaway CPCs that triggered CPA spikes during scaling. Standard Shopping was introduced for the first time — the previous setup relied entirely on PMax for shopping traffic, giving up all control over product prioritization. On Meta, we collapsed 15 ad sets into 4 campaigns: a Scale CBO with proven winners at $1,500/day, an ASC at $500/day for algorithmic optimization, a Testing CBO at $150/day for new concepts, and a DPA Retargeting campaign at $200/day. Budget increases followed a 20% every 5 days rule.

Everyone told them to 'just increase budget.' But throwing more money at a broken structure just amplifies the waste. The real unlock was portfolio bid strategies with max CPC caps — that prevented the runaway CPCs that caused every previous scale attempt to fail. Structure first, budget second.

— Madhukar S.V., ScaleMarketer

We tried scaling three times before and performance collapsed every time. ScaleMarketer restructured everything in weeks — now we're spending 60% more and actually making more profit per order.

— Head of Growth, D2C Activewear Brand (name withheld)

Google Ads — Before & After

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The Revenue Proof — Straight From Shopify

Meta Ads — The Real Growth Engine

Meta was the primary growth channel but structurally broken. One CBO with 15 ad sets meant the algorithm was spreading budget too thin — most ad sets got under $50/day, not enough for Meta's learning phase. We consolidated into 4 campaigns: a Scale CBO ($1,500/day) with 5 proven winner ad sets, an ASC ($500/day) for broad algorithmic prospecting, a Testing CBO ($150/day) where new concepts run for 5 days before graduating to Scale, and DPA Retargeting ($200/day) for site visitors and cart abandoners only. Creative testing shifted from random launches to a structured pipeline with clear graduation criteria. For this brand, polished lifestyle shots of models in workout settings outperformed UGC by 2:1 on CPA — a reminder that UGC isn't always the answer for every category. We also found that Instagram Reels delivered 40% lower CPMs than feed placements, so we shifted 60% of creative to vertical video formats.

Meta Ads — Before & After

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