Client name withheld under NDA.
The brand made soaps, body scrubs and bath products in small batches and sold them through its own online store and three retail stockists. Like many owners who ask us about social media marketing services in Singapore, the founder had a clear question: what happens if we put real money behind paid social, and how long before it pays back? Until then, Meta spend had meant boosting the odd post at a few hundred dollars a month.
We agreed a fixed budget of S$8,000 a month, with media and our management fee both inside it, for the first 120 days. That gave the owner one number to plan around and gave us a clear limit to work within. Before changing anything we recorded the starting point: what Meta was bringing in, how many new customers it produced and how many of them came back. We also agreed on what we would not do. Ads and captions would describe scent, ingredients, packaging and how the products are made. They would make no skin, health or medical claims.
We rebuilt the pixel, added the Conversions API so purchases were still counted when browsers blocked cookies, and set up a product catalogue with clean titles and photos. Then we launched a broad set of creative tests: product shots, short videos of the making process, gift sets, and a plain offer for first-time buyers. Reports went out every week, starting in week one.
Without sound tracking, any result in the following months would have been guesswork. We also wanted the brand to see early that month 1 is for learning, not for profit.
After the first three weeks we had enough orders to compare angles properly. We cut the ads that cost the most per sale and grouped the rest by message: gifting, scent, ingredients, and the story of the small workshop. We also checked which audiences added to cart but did not buy, since that told us where the page or the offer was weak.
Most first-month spend goes to finding out what does not work. Reading the tests by message rather than by single ad showed us which idea people responded to, and that is what we could build on.
Gift sets framed around scent won clearly. People who saw a short video of a gift set being packed bought at a lower cost than people who saw single products. We made six new versions of that idea with different scents, occasions and lengths, and moved most of the budget behind them. The first-order bundle offer was tidied up so the cart showed the saving clearly.
One winning angle is worth more than twenty average ads. Putting new creative behind the idea that worked kept cost per sale falling instead of rising as spend grew.
We raised the share of budget going to prospecting and let the catalogue ads run on a wider audience. Budget moved up in steps of about 20% every few days, never in a jump, and we paused any ad set that slipped past the cost we had set. We also kept testing, because the first winning ads began to tire after about three weeks.
Scaling too fast makes costs jump and resets learning. Small steps let us grow the number of new customers while the cost per customer stayed under control.
We built retargeting for site visitors, cart abandoners and past buyers, with reminder ads and a refill message for customers whose first order was due to run out. A sign-up offer on the site and in the ads brought people onto the email list, so the brand could reach them without paying for every message. Weekly reports now showed repeat purchases next to new customers.
The money in this business is in the second and third order. Retargeting and email gave the brand a way to bring buyers back at a lower cost than finding a new one.
After 120 days, Meta brought in S$34,400 a month on a total spend of S$8,000, a return of 4.3x against 2.4x before. The brand added 258 new customers a month at S$31 each, down from S$42, and the repeat purchase rate within 60 days rose from 14% to 29%. Email sign-ups reached 410 a month. Month 1 did not look like this. On a first-purchase basis it lost money, because the cost of a new customer was higher than the value of a first order. Payback came later, through repeat purchases and the email list.
Tracking rebuilt, catalogue live, first creative tests running. A net loss on first orders, as planned.
Gift set video angle found, budget moved behind it in steps, cost per new customer fell.
Retargeting, refill reminders and email sign-ups live, repeat purchases tracked in weekly reports.
The first-order value was only S$46, and in month 1 a new customer cost more than that. Brands that judge paid social on month 1 alone often stop just before it works. Agree up front that the first month is for tracking and testing.
A repeat purchase rate of 29% within 60 days is what turned S$31 per new customer into a profitable channel. If your product is bought again, count the second order. If it is not, the maths will need a higher first-order value.
A fixed S$8,000 a month, with management inside it, kept decisions simple and stopped spend from creeping. Within that limit, we scaled in small steps and kept new creative coming, because even a winning ad wears out.
How we plan, run and report on paid social campaigns for Singapore brands.
Short video and catalogue ads where shoppers already browse.
Bringing back visitors and past buyers at a lower cost.
The longer story: an 8-month paid social engagement for a skincare brand.
Tell us your products, margins and monthly budget. We will map out the stages and what to measure in each one.