Paid social for Shopify: a starter framework for Meta & TikTok.

Creative is the lever

On Meta and TikTok the algorithm is very good at finding buyers — if you give it something worth showing. The single biggest driver of performance is the creative: the hook in the first two seconds, the angle, the format. A brand that ships lots of varied creative almost always beats one endlessly tweaking audiences. Plan for a constant flow of new ads, not a set-and-forget campaign.

A simple structure

• Prospecting — broad or interest-light targeting to find new customers. This is where most budget and most creative testing lives.
• Retargeting — a smaller budget catching people who already visited or added to cart. Efficient, but it can't grow you on its own.
• Resist over-segmenting. Too many tiny audiences starve the algorithm of the data it needs to optimise.

A testing framework that doesn't waste money

Test a handful of distinct creative concepts at a time, give each enough budget and time to reach statistical honesty, then scale the winners and cut the losers without sentiment. Change one big thing at a time — a new hook or format — not ten small ones, so you actually learn what worked.

Measure blended, not last-click

Platform-reported ROAS overstates results — every channel claims the same sale. With modern tracking limits, the honest scoreboard is blended: total revenue against total ad spend, plus your overall new-customer cost. If blended CAC is healthy and revenue is growing, the account is working, whatever the in-platform numbers say.

Meta vs TikTok

Meta usually offers the broadest reach and the most mature optimisation, and suits most catalogues. TikTok rewards native, entertaining, creator-style content and can find younger audiences cheaply — but polished "ad-looking" ads tend to fall flat there. Match the creative to the platform rather than reusing the same asset everywhere.