$8k a month on ads. Most of it was wasted.
A direct-to-consumer brand was spending $8,000/month on paid ads and couldn't tell what was working. The audit found a significant portion of the budget was effectively wasted on overlapping audiences and view-through attribution inflation.
The situation
A growing DTC brand was spending across Meta and Google ads. Sales were inconsistent. The founder had a gut feeling that something was wrong but every time she asked the freelancer running ads, the answer was 'give it time' or 'we need to scale spend first.'
The problem
Ad creative was being tested with no hypothesis or learning framework. Audiences were bloated and overlapping. The pixel was firing on view-through conversions, inflating apparent performance. No profit-margin analysis meant the brand was acquiring customers at a loss on several product lines.
What the audit found
- Significant ad spend was going to overlapping audiences competing against each other
- View-through attribution was hiding that most 'conversions' were organic
- Several product lines had negative contribution margin after ad costs
- No creative testing framework — 40+ ad variations with no clear winner
- Retargeting budget was well above the 10% best-practice threshold for the audience size
The fix
Consolidated audiences and eliminated internal competition. Switched to 7-day click attribution for honest numbers. Paused unprofitable product lines in ads. Built a structured creative testing framework. Cut retargeting to match audience size.
The result
Ad spend was significantly reduced while revenue held steady. True customer acquisition cost dropped meaningfully. The brand was finally profitable on every product line it advertised.
"I was spending $8k a month on ads with no idea what was working. The audit showed me exactly where the waste was and what to cut. Fixed it in a week."
— Priya S.
This case study is based on real audit findings. Company names and identifying details have been changed to protect client confidentiality.
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