Paid media strategy
holding you back?

As an ecommerce digital marketing agency, we’re often approached by brands spending around £20k–£30k per month on paid media, looking to take that to £100k+ per month.

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Naturally, they don’t just want to grow spend, they want to do it profitably, which is easier said than done.

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Over the years, we’ve noticed four common traits shared by the brands that manage to scale while keeping customer acquisition costs under control.

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Let’s dive in.

👉 They have their house in order
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If your ad account is only running at 80% efficiency, the impact of that ~20% inefficiency might feel small at £20k per month.

But at £100k+, that inefficiency balloons into a huge amount of wasted budget.

Before scaling, the basics needs to be covered: 

• Full-funnel conversion tracking - Are you tracking on-site engagement right through to purchase?
• Optimised product feeds - Is your product feed attribute rich and well optimised?
  
• Streamlined account structures - Do you have campaigns stuck in learning, or an overly granular account structure?
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• Healthy stock levels and competitive pricing - Are you struggling with conversion rate already due to low stock or high prices?
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Making sure the above criteria are in place before scaling is key. Spending more isn’t going to fix any of the above issues, only make them stand out more. 

👉 They know their numbers
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It’s surprising how many brands can’t answer fundamental questions like:

• What’s your minimum ROAS?
  
  
• What’s the maximum you can afford to pay for a new customer?
  
  
• Where’s your single source of truth, GA4 or platform data?
  
  
• What % of revenue should come from existing customers vs. new ones?
  
  

If you don’t know your KPIs, how do you know which levers to pull to find growth? 
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Figure this out and get everyone using the same source of truth - This will also help with everyone understanding what good looks like. 

👉 They focus where it matters

Scaling is much easier when you double down on the channels that work instead of diluting your budget across multiple channels or regions. 
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Do you really need to be on Google, Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, Bing, and YouTube all at once? Probably not...
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The same goes for geography. If you haven’t maxed out the UK, do you really need to chase the US, Europe, or the UAE yet?
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Winning brands know where their strongest returns come from, and they commit to scaling there first.
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Let your KPIs dictate when is the right time to launch into a new region.

👉 They have a scalable creative process
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At £20k/month, a handful of winning creatives can carry you. At £100k/month, those same ads will fatigue fast.
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Brands that scale profitably have a process for consistently producing fresh creative and new angles. The ability to test and refresh quickly makes scaling far smoother.
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Create a simple matrix that maps out how often you’re going to update creatives at each stage of the funnel with a breakdown of the types of creatives and how many you’re going to need. 
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You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work this out either. 

Start with what would be a reasonable amount of new creatives for your team to create and test from there. 
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What worked at £20k/month won’t necessarily keep working at £100k/month, so being able to scale up your creative process is key. 

💡 Final thought

Profitably scaling an ecommerce brand isn’t about quick wins, it’s more about putting the right processes and systems in place and having a clear handle on your numbers. 
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Getting to £100k+ in monthly spend while staying profitable usually takes longer than most brands expect - but when done right, it can drive significant and sustainable growth for your business.

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