The Situation

A DTC pet supplement brand selling joint health and calming chews at $48–$62 AOV was hemorrhaging money on Google Ads. The account was running broad match keywords with no negative lists — search terms included everything from 'free dog food' to 'veterinarian near me.' PMax was set to maximize conversions with no ROAS floor, capturing junk traffic at scale. Of the $25,000/month spend, roughly 70% was going to irrelevant clicks. Shopify showed just $9K in Google Paid revenue — a 0.40x ROAS. The Meta account was barely running — $1,200/month optimized for link clicks, generating engagement but almost zero purchases. The founder was two weeks away from shutting down all paid media.

What We Did

This was a rescue operation. We paused everything and rebuilt from scratch. On Google, we launched 4 campaign types: Brand Search (exact match) to protect branded queries at low CPA, Non-Brand Search (phrase and exact match only) targeting high-intent terms like 'dog joint supplement' and 'calming chews for dogs,' Standard Shopping with tROAS bidding against a clean product feed with proper titles and descriptions, and a PMax at $30/day with strict new customer acquisition goals. We built a 300+ term negative keyword list to block the junk traffic that had consumed 70% of spend. On Meta, we switched objectives from link clicks to purchases, built lookalike audiences from the brand's 12K buyer email list, and structured around 3 campaigns: a Prospecting CBO ($200/day) with 1% and 3% lookalikes, a Broad ASC ($100/day) for Meta's algorithm to find new buyers, and a DPA Retargeting campaign ($50/day). We introduced UGC creative featuring real dogs and owners — pet content performs exceptionally well on Meta.

The founder told me 'paid doesn't work for pet supplements' on our first call. I hear that a lot. It almost never means the channel doesn't work — it means someone set it up wrong. Broad match keywords bleeding into 'free dog food' searches, Meta optimizing for clicks instead of purchases. Once we fixed the fundamentals, the account went from existential threat to their most predictable growth channel.

— Madhukar S.V., ScaleMarketer

Google Ads — Before & After

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The Revenue Proof — Straight From Shopify

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Meta Ads — Building a Channel They'd Written Off

The founder had tried Meta twice before and called it "a money pit for pet brands." But the account told a different story — it had been optimized for link clicks, not purchases. The algorithm was doing exactly what it was told: finding people who click, not people who buy. The budget was just $1,200/month with two generic product shots as creative. We started from near-zero. We switched objectives to purchases, uploaded the brand's 12K buyer email list to build lookalike audiences, and launched with 3 campaigns: a Prospecting CBO ($150/day), a Broad ASC ($80/day), and DPA Retargeting ($40/day). Then we leaned hard into what makes pet brands different — real pets, real owners, real stories. We tested 24 UGC creatives in the first 6 weeks. Videos of actual dogs taking the supplements outperformed studio product shots by 3:1. One video of a senior golden retriever "before and after" became the top performer for 4 consecutive weeks.

Meta Ads — Before & After