Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, I was working with a B2C Shopify client who was burning through Facebook ads budget faster than they could count. Sound familiar? Their setup looked good on paper - detailed audience segments, lookalike audiences, interest targeting that made perfect sense. But their ROAS was stuck at 2.0, and that's being generous.
The marketing team was obsessing over finding the "perfect audience" while their creative assets sat unchanged for months. Every week brought new audience experiments but the same tired video ads and static product shots. It was the classic trap I see everywhere in e-commerce advertising.
Then I suggested something that made them uncomfortable: forget about targeting and focus entirely on creative testing. Three weeks later, their ROAS jumped to over 6.0. Here's exactly how we did it.
You'll learn:
Why audience targeting is dead (and what replaced it)
The creative testing framework that tripled our ROAS
How to produce 3 new creatives weekly without breaking the bank
The campaign structure that actually works in 2025
Real metrics from our 3-month transformation
This approach works for any Shopify store, whether you're selling handmade jewelry or tech gadgets. The principles remain the same: modern e-commerce success is about creative quality, not audience cleverness.
Industry Insight
What every Shopify store owner believes about ads
Walk into any e-commerce marketing meeting, and you'll hear the same conversation: "We need to find our ideal customer avatar." "Let's test this new interest group." "What about lookalike audiences based on our best customers?"
The industry has built an entire mythology around audience targeting. Facebook's Business Manager encourages it with endless demographic options, interest categories, and behavioral filters. Marketing courses sell the dream of finding that perfect slice of users who will convert at astronomical rates.
Here's what most Shopify advertisers are doing wrong:
Over-segmenting audiences - Creating 15 different ad sets for slight variations in demographics
Trusting outdated targeting data - iOS 14.5 killed most of the signals these platforms relied on
Neglecting creative refresh - Running the same ad creative for months while obsessing over audience tweaks
Ignoring algorithm evolution - Fighting against machine learning instead of working with it
Measuring vanity metrics - Focusing on click-through rates instead of actual revenue
This approach worked five years ago when Facebook's data collection was comprehensive and privacy regulations were looser. Today, it's like trying to use a 2018 iPhone charger on a 2025 device - the technology has fundamentally changed.
The reality? Platforms like Facebook and Google have become so sophisticated at finding buyers that manual audience targeting often hurts more than it helps. Their algorithms can identify potential customers better than any demographic filter you can dream up.
Yet most e-commerce stores are still playing the old game, wondering why their ad costs keep rising while conversions stay flat.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When this Shopify client reached out, they were already spending $8,000 monthly on Facebook ads with mediocre results. They sold lifestyle products to a broad demographic - think home decor and wellness items - but were convinced their targeting was the problem.
Their setup was textbook "best practices": separate campaigns for cold audiences, warm audiences, and retargeting. Within cold campaigns, they had ad sets for different age groups, interests, and behaviors. Each ad set had maybe 2-3 creatives that hadn't been updated in months.
The CMO showed me their "sophisticated" targeting strategy: 28 different ad sets across 4 campaigns. Women 25-34 interested in yoga and wellness. Women 35-44 interested in home decor and interior design. Men 30-45 interested in mindfulness and meditation. You get the picture.
What caught my attention wasn't their targeting complexity - it was their creative stagnation. They were using the same product photography from their Shopify store launch six months earlier. The same lifestyle shots, the same product demos, the same static imagery.
Meanwhile, their competitors were flooding feeds with fresh content: behind-the-scenes videos, customer testimonials, seasonal campaigns, trending audio clips, user-generated content. The market was moving toward video-first, authentic content while my client was stuck in 2019.
When I analyzed their account data, the pattern was clear: their best-performing ads weren't tied to any specific demographic. The audience that converted best varied wildly from week to week. But the creative elements that worked - emotional hooks, clear value propositions, authentic social proof - those were consistent.
That's when I proposed the experiment that changed everything: kill the complex targeting and bet everything on creative testing.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's exactly what we implemented, step by step:
Step 1: Campaign Structure Simplification
I convinced them to consolidate everything into one primary campaign with three simple ad sets:
Broad targeting (country + age range only)
Lookalike audience (1% of purchasers)
Retargeting (website visitors, not purchasers)
No interest targeting. No behavioral targeting. No demographic splitting beyond basic age ranges. This felt terrifying to them, but I explained that Facebook's algorithm needed volume and data to optimize effectively.
Step 2: Creative Testing Framework
The magic happened in our creative strategy. Instead of 2-3 static ads running for months, we committed to producing and testing 3 new creatives every single week. Here's how:
User-Generated Content - Reached out to customers for product videos and photos
Behind-the-Scenes Content - Filmed product creation, packaging, team moments
Educational Content - "How to" videos using their products
Seasonal Hooks - Tied products to holidays, weather, trending topics
Social Proof - Customer testimonials, reviews, unboxing videos
Step 3: Production System
The key was making creative production sustainable. We set up:
A content calendar with hooks for each week
Templates for different content types
A simple phone-based shooting setup
Batch filming sessions twice monthly
Step 4: Testing and Optimization
Every Monday, we launched 3 new creatives across all ad sets. By Wednesday, we could see clear performance indicators. By Friday, we'd pause underperformers and increase budget on winners. The winning creatives stayed active while we prepared the next batch.
The algorithm did the audience work for us. We just fed it fresh, engaging content and let it find the right people. Within two weeks, we started seeing dramatic improvements in both engagement and conversions.
Creative Velocity
Producing 3 new ads weekly without burning out your team or budget
Algorithm Trust
Letting Facebook find buyers instead of manually guessing demographics
Performance Tracking
Measuring what matters: revenue per creative, not vanity metrics
Sustainable Production
Building systems that maintain creative freshness long-term
The results spoke for themselves. Within 30 days of implementing this creative-first approach:
ROAS increased from 2.0 to 6.2 - More than tripling return on ad spend
Cost per acquisition dropped 58% - From $42 to $18 per customer
Click-through rates improved 340% - Fresh content naturally engaged audiences better
Campaign maintenance time reduced 70% - No more complex audience management
But the numbers only tell part of the story. The client's entire relationship with advertising changed. Instead of dreading the weekly "why aren't ads working" meetings, they became excited about creative brainstorming sessions.
Their customer feedback improved too. People started commenting on ads, sharing them organically, and even reaching out to ask about products featured in behind-the-scenes content. The ads felt less like interruptions and more like entertainment.
By month three, they had a library of winning creative concepts they could remix and refresh. Seasonal campaigns became easier because they understood which emotional hooks and visual styles resonated with their actual buyers.
The approach proved so effective that they've maintained this creative-first strategy for over a year, consistently achieving ROAS above 5.0 even during competitive periods like Black Friday and holiday seasons.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the most important lessons from this complete advertising transformation:
Creative is the new targeting - In a privacy-first advertising world, your message matters more than your audience selection
Volume beats precision - Algorithm optimization needs data volume, not micro-segmented audiences
Freshness is everything - Ad fatigue happens faster than you think, especially with video content
Authenticity outperforms polish - Phone-shot customer videos consistently outperformed professional product photography
Production systems matter - Without sustainable creative workflows, you'll burn out your team
Trust the algorithm - Modern ad platforms are incredibly sophisticated when given the right inputs
Speed wins - Weekly creative refresh beats monthly audience optimization every time
The biggest mindset shift? Stop trying to outsmart Facebook's algorithm and start feeding it better content. The platform wants to show engaging ads that generate revenue - align your strategy with that goal.
This approach works best for stores with visual products, engaged communities, or interesting brand stories. It's harder for commodity products or purely transactional businesses, but even then, creative differentiation beats audience targeting.
If I were starting this process over, I'd invest in creative production tools and training earlier. The bottleneck is rarely the advertising platform - it's consistently producing fresh, engaging content that connects with real customers.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies adapting this approach:
Focus on customer success stories and product demos
Create "day in the life" content showing your tool in action
Use founder-led content to build trust and authority
Test educational content addressing specific pain points
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores implementing this framework:
Leverage user-generated content and customer testimonials
Create seasonal and trending content tied to your products
Show products in real-life situations and use cases
Build sustainable content production workflows