Apparel & accessories · Shopify
They could scale spend. They just couldn't tell where it stopped working.
Every budget increase produced more revenue and a slightly worse blended return. Mapping profit against spend in ScaleAble found the ceiling, and creative volume moved it higher instead of guessing at it.
- Ad spend
- $120k–$210k / month ad spend
- Timeframe
- 9 months
- Channels
- Meta Ads, Google Ads, Creative testing
Headline outcome
+74%
Ad spend
Contribution margin held within 1.5 points
Placeholder data — replace with verified client results before publishing.
Before and after
What actually changed.
Measured in ScaleAble against the store's own Shopify data across the engagement window.
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ad spend | $121k | $211k | +74% |
| Shopify revenue | $498k | $902k | +81% |
| Profit | $96k | $178k | +85% |
| Contribution margin | 19.3% | 19.7% | +0.4pt |
Ad spend
+74%- Before
- $121k
- After
- $211k
Shopify revenue
+81%- Before
- $498k
- After
- $902k
Profit
+85%- Before
- $96k
- After
- $178k
Contribution margin
+0.4pt- Before
- 19.3%
- After
- 19.7%
Placeholder data — replace with verified client results before publishing.
The trend
Profit and spend, plotted together.
The view we manage from. If the profit line does not respond to the spend line, the spend is not working — regardless of what the ad platform says.
Placeholder series — replace with the client's actual monthly figures. Values shown in $000s.
The breakdown
Problem, change, outcome.
Vertical · Apparel & accessories
Spend · $120k–$210k / month ad spend
Window · 9 months
The problem
- Meta was the primary growth channel and creative fatigue was capping how much spend the account could absorb.
- Platform-reported ROAS and blended MER were drifting apart, so in-account performance no longer described the business.
- Scaling decisions were being made monthly, well after margin damage had already happened.
What we changed
Established the profit ceiling
Historic spend and profit were plotted together to find the spend level where incremental profit flattened — the real constraint, rather than a ROAS target someone picked.
Built a creative testing system
A weekly cadence of new angles, formats and hooks, with clean read-outs at the ad level and a standing rule that nothing scales on platform ROAS alone.
Separated brand demand from new demand
Google brand search was isolated so it stopped flattering blended returns, making non-brand acquisition economics visible for the first time.
Scaled in measured increments
Budget moved up in controlled steps with event markers, and each step was held until profit confirmed the increase was working.
What happened
- Ad spend increased significantly while contribution margin stayed within 1.5 points of baseline.
- Creative throughput — not bidding — turned out to be the thing that raised the ceiling.
- Organic and direct revenue rose alongside paid, which the channel view made measurable rather than anecdotal.
Client quote slot
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Next step
Find out what your ad spend is actually earning you.
A 30-minute call: we look at your current Google Ads and Meta Ads structure, your Shopify economics, and tell you where profit is being lost. No deck, no pitch theatre.
$1,500 per month
Paid search, paid social, creative, CRO and profit analytics in one retainer.