Performance marketing
Every platform will claim the same sale. We find out who earned it.
Running ads on more channels is not a strategy. Performance marketing is deciding where each rupee goes, measuring what it returned against one honest number, and moving the money the moment the answer changes.
For businesses already spending across two or more channels. First reply within one working hour.
- Blended CAC, not platform ROAS One cost per customer across every channel, reconciled against money actually banked.
- Budget moves monthly Spend follows the results, not last quarter's plan or whichever channel we enjoy running.
- One team, one number, one invoice No two agencies each claiming the same conversion and neither one accountable.
Performance marketing at a glance
- What it is
- Managing paid acquisition as one system rather than as separate channels — unit economics, channel mix and budget allocation, cross-channel tracking and attribution, creative production, landing page conversion work, and reporting measured in customers and revenue.
- Who it suits
- Businesses already spending across two or more channels, companies whose platform reports look good while the bank balance disagrees, and brands with enough budget that deciding where it goes matters more than how any single campaign is built.
- Channels covered
- Google Search, Shopping and Performance Max; Meta across Facebook and Instagram; YouTube; TikTok for overseas markets; LinkedIn for B2B; marketplace ads; plus remarketing and the email or WhatsApp flows that close what the ads started.
- When results show
- Month one is measurement, and it often reveals that reported performance was overstated. Real improvement in blended cost per acquisition usually lands in months two to four.
- What is not included
- Your ad spend, paid directly to each platform. SEO is a separate service. We also will not promise a cost per acquisition before seeing your actual data.
- Pricing model
- A monthly retainer, or a percentage of managed spend for larger accounts, quoted separately from the budget itself. No commission on spend, so there is no incentive to grow it beyond what pays.
- Minimum spend
- Around ₹1,50,000 a month across all channels. Below that, a single channel managed well beats a multi-channel function, and we will say so.
- Where we work
- India nationwide, plus clients in the United States, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Australia and Canada.
Four numbers decide everything. Most businesses know one.
Before we touch a campaign we establish these, because without them there is no way to know whether a ₹900 lead is a bargain or a disaster.
Cost to acquire a customer
Total spend divided by customers won — not cost per lead, and not per channel. This is the number the whole account is judged on.
What a customer is worth
Gross profit from a customer over their lifetime, not first-order revenue. Businesses with repeat purchase can afford to pay far more than they think.
How long until you break even
Months to recover acquisition cost. It decides how fast you can scale without running out of working capital, which is how profitable brands still fail.
What is left after costs
Contribution margin after product, shipping, returns and payment fees. It sets the absolute ceiling on what you can pay for a customer.
If you do not have these yet, working them out is the first thing we do, and it is included. Most of the useful decisions become obvious once they exist.
Six jobs that sit above the individual channels.
Anyone can run a campaign. The difference in outcome comes from what happens between the campaigns.
Unit economics before media
We establish what a customer is actually worth to you and what you can afford to pay for one. Everything downstream — bids, budgets, which channels survive — follows from that ceiling.
Channel mix and allocation
Which channels earn a place, how much each gets, and when to move money between them. Reviewed monthly, because the right split in March is rarely still right in September.
Tracking and attribution
Server-side tracking, disciplined UTM tagging, offline and CRM conversion imports, and a blended view that reconciles platform claims against real revenue. This is the foundation every other decision stands on.
A creative pipeline, not one-off ads
Video and static produced on a schedule and adapted per channel. Creative is the biggest lever in paid social and increasingly in paid search too, so it gets treated as a process rather than a task.
Landing pages and conversion rate
Doubling the conversion rate halves your cost per customer on every channel at once. Cheaper than buying twice the traffic, and routinely the fastest win available.
Retention, because CAC is only half of it
Email and WhatsApp flows for repeat purchase and abandoned journeys. Raising customer value lets you outbid competitors who are stuck optimising the first sale only.
Where multi-channel budgets leak — and what we will not do to yours.
These are the patterns we find in nearly every account that spends across several platforms.
The five usual leaks
- Double counting. Google and Meta both claim the same sale, so reported revenue exceeds what you actually banked — sometimes by a wide margin
- Budget frozen by channel since last year, never reallocated as results change
- No lifetime value figure, so nobody knows what a customer may cost
- Spend doubled while the landing page, which halves the return, is never touched
- Separate agencies per channel, each optimising their slice, nobody owning the total
Things we will not do
- Present platform-reported ROAS as though it were revenue
- Keep a channel running because it is listed in the retainer
- Take a hidden cut of your ad budget
- Spread money across six platforms so the deck looks comprehensive
- Quote a cost per acquisition before seeing a single day of your data
What the first six months look like.
The first month usually makes the numbers look worse. That is honest measurement replacing optimistic reporting, and everything useful depends on it.
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Month 1
Measure honestly
Tracking rebuilt, unit economics established, a true baseline set. Expect reported performance to drop — the spending did not change, the counting did.
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Months 2–3
Cut and concentrate
Channels and campaigns that never paid are stopped, budget consolidates into what works, and landing pages get fixed. Blended cost per customer starts falling.
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Months 4–6
Scale what pays
With a reliable cost per customer and a known payback period, increasing spend becomes an arithmetic decision instead of a leap of faith.
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Month 7+
Widen the base
New channels and audiences tested against a proven benchmark, with retention work raising customer value so you can afford to bid higher than competitors.
We need revenue and margin data from you to do any of this properly. Agencies that never ask for it are not measuring performance, they are reporting activity.
Three levels, matched to how much you are putting at risk.
The more you spend, the more the allocation decisions are worth — and the more time they deserve.
| What you get | Focus | Multi-channel | Full stack |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Businesses proving one or two channels before committing further. | Brands with a working offer spending across several platforms. | Established companies where paid acquisition is the growth engine. |
| Suited total spend | ₹1,50,000 – ₹4,00,000 per month. | ₹4,00,000 – ₹15,00,000 per month. | ₹15,00,000 and above. |
| Channels | Two channels managed properly. | Three to four, with quarterly tests of new ones. | Full mix including marketplace and international. |
| Attribution | Blended reporting with server-side tracking. | All of Focus, plus CRM and offline conversion import. | Incrementality and holdout testing to prove real lift. |
| Creative | 8–12 assets a month. | 20–30 assets with per-channel adaptation. | Dedicated pipeline with a weekly production schedule. |
| Conversion work | Landing pages reviewed and improved. | Dedicated pages with monthly A/B testing. | Continuous testing across the full purchase journey. |
| Reporting | Monthly report on blended CAC and revenue. | Live dashboard, monthly report and a call. | Cohort and payback reporting, plus quarterly planning. |
Ad spend is paid by you, directly to each platform. Our fee is quoted separately after a look at your current accounts and numbers — which costs you nothing.
How we work.
Four stages. The first one is not optional, and it is where most of the value sits.
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01
7–10 days
Audit the spend and the maths
Every account you run, plus your revenue, margins and repeat purchase behaviour. We come back with what each channel actually contributed, what a customer really costs you today, and where the obvious waste is. You keep this whether or not you hire us.
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02
Weeks 2–4
Fix the measurement
Server-side tracking, consistent UTM structure, CRM and offline conversions flowing back to the platforms, and one dashboard that reconciles against your real revenue. Until this exists, every optimisation is a guess wearing a suit.
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03
Months 2–3
Reallocate and rebuild
Budget moves toward whatever survived honest measurement. Campaigns are restructured, creative production starts on a schedule, and the landing pages behind the traffic get the attention they have been missing.
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04
Every month
Scale, report, repeat
A monthly report in customers, blended cost per acquisition and payback — not impressions. We recommend where next month's budget should go, and we tell you when spending more would stop paying rather than waiting for you to notice.
Straight answers to what people ask first.
What is performance marketing, and how is it different from digital marketing?
Digital marketing covers everything done online, including brand, content and social presence. Performance marketing is the subset where every rupee is tied to a measurable outcome — a lead, a sale, an install — and budget is allocated according to what those outcomes cost. The defining feature is not the channel; it is that spending decisions are made from data about customers acquired rather than from reach or impressions.
Why do my platform reports add up to more revenue than I actually made?
Because each platform counts any conversion it touched. A customer who saw an Instagram ad, searched your brand on Google and then bought will appear in both accounts, so the totals double count. It is not fraud, it is how attribution windows work. The fix is to compare total ad spend against total revenue from your own system — blended CAC — and treat platform numbers as directional signals for optimisation rather than as accounts.
How much should I spend across channels?
Start from what a customer is worth rather than from a budget. If gross profit per customer is ₹3,000 and you are willing to spend a third of it to acquire one, your ceiling is ₹1,000 per customer — and your budget is simply that multiplied by how many customers you want and can actually service. Then check payback: if it takes four months to recover that ₹1,000, scaling fast will strain your cash before it strains your margins.
Which channel should I start with?
If people already search for what you sell, start with Google — capturing existing demand is cheaper than creating it. If they do not, or the product is visual and impulse-friendly, start with Meta. Adding more channels only makes sense once one is profitable, because a second channel spreads the budget thinner and makes it harder to learn anything from either.
Frequently asked questions.
What do you charge for performance marketing?
A monthly retainer for smaller accounts, or a percentage of managed spend for larger ones where the work scales with the budget. Creative production is quoted within the package rather than added later. The fee is always separate from your ad spend, so you can see exactly what goes to us and what goes to the platforms.
Is there a minimum spend?
Around ₹1,50,000 a month across all channels. This is not us being selective — below that level, the cost of running a multi-channel function eats too much of the budget, and one channel managed well will genuinely serve you better. If that is where you are, we will point you at the single-channel service instead.
What data do you need from us?
Ad account access, analytics, and the part most agencies never ask for: revenue, gross margins and repeat purchase behaviour. Without margins we cannot tell whether a sale was profitable, and without repeat data we will systematically underestimate what you can afford to pay. If you do not have these organised, helping you build them is part of the first month.
How do you measure results when attribution is unreliable?
Three ways together. Blended CAC compares all spend against all revenue from your own systems, which cannot be inflated by platform claims. Server-side tracking recovers signal that browser tracking loses. And for larger accounts, holdout tests — switching a channel off in some regions and comparing — measure real incremental lift rather than claimed credit. No single method is perfect, which is exactly why we do not rely on one.
Do I have to use every channel you offer?
No, and you probably should not. Most businesses do best with two or three channels run properly. We add a channel when the existing ones are near their profitable ceiling, not to make the engagement look bigger. Recommending fewer channels is frequently the right answer and costs us money, which is a reasonable test of whether advice is honest.
Who owns the ad accounts and data?
You do, all of them. Every platform account sits under your business with you as owner and us added as a partner you can remove at any time. Pixels, conversion history, audiences, dashboards and all creative we produced stay with you. Leaving should never mean starting over.
Do you handle SEO as well?
SEO is a separate service, deliberately. It runs on a different timescale and is judged on different numbers, and bundling it into a paid retainer tends to mean the slower one quietly gets neglected. Plenty of clients run both with us; we just keep the scopes and the reporting distinct so you can see what each is doing.
Is there a minimum contract?
Three months, then month to month with thirty days' notice. Month one is measurement and will often make performance look worse on paper, month two is cutting, and month three is where the improvement becomes visible. Judging before that means judging the diagnosis rather than the treatment.
How do payments work?
Our fee is billed monthly in advance. Indian clients pay by UPI or bank transfer with a GST invoice; overseas clients pay by international transfer or card in USD, GBP or AED. Ad spend is charged separately by each platform to your own cards or accounts.
Want a single channel instead?
If you are not spending across several platforms yet, one channel run properly is the better starting point.
Demand that already exists
People searching for what you sell, at the moment they have decided to buy something.
Google AdsDemand you create
Facebook and Instagram, for products people do not search for but will buy once they see them.
Meta AdsTraffic you stop renting
Paid stops when the budget does. SEO builds enquiries that keep arriving and gets cheaper per customer over time.
SEO servicesGive us your accounts and your real numbers.
We will tell you what each channel actually contributed once the double counting is removed, what a customer really costs you today, and where the budget should move first. Free, yours to keep, and useful even if you never work with us. Usually back within a week.
Mon–Sat, 8 AM – 10 PM IST. Overseas calls booked in your hours.