Outdoor equipment · Shopify
Cutting spend to protect margin was making the whole business smaller.
Paid pullbacks improved in-platform efficiency and reduced total profit. Charting ad spend against organic and direct revenue showed how much non-paid demand the advertising was creating.
- Ad spend
- $90k–$95k / month ad spend
- Timeframe
- 5 months
- Channels
- Google Ads, Meta Ads, Measurement
Headline outcome
+29%
Organic + direct revenue
Measured alongside a paid budget increase
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic + direct revenue | $186k | $240k | +29% |
| Blended MER | 3.1x | 3.6x | +16% |
| Profit | $118k | $167k | +42% |
| Platform ROASDeliberately accepted | 4.2x | 3.7x | −12% |
Organic + direct revenue
+29%- Before
- $186k
- After
- $240k
Blended MER
+16%- Before
- 3.1x
- After
- 3.6x
Profit
+42%- Before
- $118k
- After
- $167k
Platform ROAS
−12%- Before
- 4.2x
- After
- 3.7x
Deliberately accepted
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 · Outdoor equipment
Spend · $90k–$95k / month ad spend
Window · 5 months
The problem
- Every time budget was cut to defend platform ROAS, total revenue fell further than the paid channel alone explained.
- Organic and direct performance was reported separately, so the relationship with paid spend was invisible.
- The business was optimising a single channel while the P&L was moving in the other direction.
What we changed
Charted channels against spend
Paid, organic, direct and unknown revenue were plotted alongside ad spend to make the interaction between channels measurable.
Ran a controlled spend test
Budget was increased in a defined window with event markers, and the effect on every channel — not just paid — was reviewed against profit.
Rewrote the reporting standard
Platform ROAS was demoted to a diagnostic. Profit and blended MER became the numbers the team managed against.
Reallocated brand budget
Brand search spend was reduced where it was capturing demand the business already owned, freeing budget for genuine acquisition.
What happened
- Platform ROAS fell and profit rose — a trade the business could only justify because it was measurable.
- Organic and direct revenue moved with paid spend in a way the team could finally quantify.
- Reporting arguments stopped, because everyone was looking at the same profit number.
Client quote slot
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Brand or product imagery for the outdoor equipment case study
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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.
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