For a direct-to-consumer brand, Meta is usually the biggest lever you have, and the fastest way to burn money. The difference between the two is rarely a secret targeting setting. It's whether Meta gets clean purchase data, whether it gets enough new creative to find new buyers, and whether anyone has worked out what a sale is allowed to cost.
I run Facebook and Instagram ads for D2C brands, mostly on Shopify, with those three things at the center.
What makes ecommerce different
Your margins set the rules. Before any campaign, work out your break-even ROAS: 1 ÷ your gross margin after product cost, shipping, fees and discounts. At a 40% margin, every $100 in ads has to bring in $250 just to break even. If your product reorders, you can afford to lose a little on the first order, but only if you actually know your repeat rate. I walk through the math in Facebook ads for Shopify.
Tracking breaks quietly. Ad blockers and phone privacy settings mean browser tracking misses sales. The Conversions API (on Shopify, through the Facebook & Instagram app's data sharing settings) sends purchases from the server, and a test order tells you whether each sale shows up once, with the right value.
Creative is the targeting. Meta decides who sees an ad mostly from the ad itself. Different hooks find different buyers: a founder on camera, an unboxing, a problem-and-fix demo, a plain product shot with a strong offer. When ads wear out, cost per purchase creeps up and everyone blames the algorithm.
The catalog is part of the ad account. Dynamic ads show people the products they looked at, so titles, images, prices and stock all need to be right in the feed.
How I run it
- Do the math first. Break-even ROAS, target cost per purchase and, if you have repeat buyers, what a customer is worth over a year.
- Fix the plumbing. Pixel, Conversions API, catalog, and a test purchase to prove it all works.
- Keep the structure simple. One main sales campaign, Meta's Advantage+ sales campaigns where they fit, and a separate place to test new creative so a new ad doesn't fight your winners for budget on day one.
- Feed it creative every month. I like to see about 30 new ads a month: 25 to 27 quick ones that try different formats and angles, and the best 10% getting real production time to become evergreen winners.
- Give each ad a week. Meta needs time to find buyers and smooth out normal swings. Then kill it, keep it or scale it.
Starting out, depending on what your product costs, I'd run roughly $100 a day across 5 ads in different formats aimed at your ideal customer. That's enough to see whether engagement is healthy and which formats your buyers respond to.
What I track
Cost per purchase and ROAS against your break-even number, first-order vs. repeat revenue, and new-customer revenue, so we don't take credit for people who would have bought anyway. Clicks are nice. Orders pay for inventory.
What it costs
A flat $1,000 a month for Meta ads management, plus ad spend paid to Meta directly. I work with brands spending roughly $1,000 to $15,000 a month on ads. You own the ad account, pixel, catalog and creative. The marketing budget calculator can help you work out a budget from your revenue goal.
Is this a fit?
A good fit if you have a product people already buy, margins that leave room for ads, and the stock to handle more orders.
Not a fit yet if the break-even ROAS is higher than anything you've seen, or the product isn't selling at all without ads. Fix the offer or the margins first; ads make a working product sell faster, they don't make a product work.
Want customers who find you on Google too? See SEO for ecommerce brands.