Advertising for Online Clothing and Fashion Stores
The advertising sells the discounts. The full price stays unsold.
The goal is for the budget to go to the items that stay profitable after the discount and after returns, and for the customer to come back for a second order. The mechanism is called “margin before revenue”.
Request a quoteWhat breaks in a clothing shop
Three things distort the numbers in the account before creative even comes into question.
01
The discount pulls the optimisation
The algorithm looks for the easiest purchase, and the easiest purchase is the discounted one. The return in the account grows while the average margin per order falls. The shop gets used to selling a sale all year round.
02
Returns do not reach the advertising
The order is counted at payment. The return is counted later and stays in the accounts. The advertising keeps optimising on gross orders and puts more budget on exactly the items that are returned most often.
03
A catalogue with thousands of items is one heap
A full feed without segmentation pushes the cheapest and most-clicked items. The new collection gets no impressions, because it competes in the same auction with its own leftovers from last season.
the mechanism
Margin before revenue
First I establish what in the catalogue is profitable, then the advertising is built around it. The order is this way because the reverse order produces revenue without profit.
- The catalogue is split by margin, not by categoryProduct groups are formed by profit after discount and after the expected return rate per item. High-margin groups get separate campaigns and a separate budget. The budget stops being distributed by what gets clicked most.
- The sale is separated from the full priceSeparate campaigns, separate goals, separate audiences. The full price stops competing with its own discount, and the sale stops feeding the data that the whole account learns from.
- The net figure is reported, together with the second orderOrder value is read after returns, multiplied by margin. It also includes customer value on a repeat order, because with clothing the second purchase decides whether the acquisition was worthwhile.
- The creative follows the collection calendarWith a short-lived collection, fatigue is read from daily rows, not from cumulative frequency. The swap is planned before the result drops, with a set of visuals ready and enough variations so the story does not run out by mid-season.
proof
Results from managed accounts
A published case in this category.
€1 invested, €18 in sales
A clothing shop on Shopify, advertising on Meta. €27,600 revenue on a €1,511 ad budget. The case study
the first step
A second opinion on your ad account
A review of the account, the product feed, the product pages and the tracking. Where data is lost and where money is lost.
- Reply within one working dayThe request does not wait in a queue. You get a reply within one working day and an arrangement for when the review starts.
- A written analysis and a personal meetingThe analysis is delivered within three to seven working days as a written document and is reviewed together in a meeting, conclusion by conclusion. Every conclusion rests on a specific screen from your account.
- The value is deducted in fullIf you sign a contract with a minimum term of three months, the cost of the analysis is deducted in full from the quote. The condition applies to a contract signed within 30 days.
- Read access is enoughThe accounts, the catalogue and the website remain yours. Nothing changes without your decision.
Which channel for what
The split for a clothing and accessories shop.
| Meta | It puts the new collection in front of people who are not yet looking for you. This is where desire is created, where the visual is tested and where the audience that will buy a second time is built. Most of the weight of the creative sits in this channel. |
|---|---|
| Google and Shopping | It catches stated intent — brand, model, size, material. The Shopping feed is split by the same margin groups, so the bidding is not the same for a high-margin and a low-margin item. |
| Remarketing | The dynamic catalogue brings back the item that was viewed and the abandoned cart. Existing buyers get a separate story — size, style, wardrobe refills. A discount is not the standard argument for this audience. |
When I am not the right choice
- If the margins by product group are left out of the conversation. Then I work on revenue, and with clothing revenue can grow at the same time as the loss.
- If returns are not tracked by item and by size. Without that data, optimisation follows income, part of which does not stay with you.
- If the discount is the shop’s only argument. The advertising distributes budget and attention; the price position is decided before it.
