Case study · Meta Ads / E-commerce

Performance Audit and Meta Ads Diagnosis for E-commerce

Algorithmic detection of creative fatigue, quantification of budget leakage and a scaling roadmap, based on real data from an e-commerce Meta Ads account.

Executive summary

30 days of real data across 5 active campaigns (prospecting, retargeting and testing). The account is profitable overall, but it hides a budget leak concentrated in a single place.

• Total spend (30 days): $15,518
• Revenue generated: $161,776
• Weighted account ROAS: 10.43x
• Attributed purchases: 2,346

Account structure analyzed: 3 TOFU campaigns (prospecting: catalog, broad interest, niche interest), 1 BOFU campaign (retargeting: abandoned cart, DPA) and 1 TEST campaign (validating new UGC/video creatives).

Critical finding: 100% of the account's inefficiency is concentrated in 1 of the 5 campaigns: Footwear Prospecting. It suffers from severe creative fatigue and in its last week it spent money without generating a single purchase.

Per-campaign diagnosis

Efficiency ranking (ROAS) of the 5 campaigns:

• Retargeting (DPA) — 35.2x: the account's best performer, with only 9.6% of the budget.
• Broad Interest — 12.3x: volume engine, healthy and stable.
• Advantage+ Catalog — 9.0x: largest spend, solid profitability.
• Creative Test — 3.9x: highest CTR (3.9%) but low volume.
• Footwear (saturated) — 1.7x: critical fatigue.

Deep dive: creative fatigue

Campaign PROSP_TOFU_Intereses_Calzado_Saturado, weekly evolution (5 weeks), first day vs. last day:

• Frequency: 1.20 → 4.68 (+290%)
• CTR: 1.72% → 0.36% (-79%)
• CPA: $12.68 → $0 (no purchases)
• ROAS: 4.18x → 0.00x

In its last 5 days the campaign spent $442.91 and generated no purchases: budget burning on autopilot.

Root cause: the saturation cycle

Why a healthy campaign ends up fatigued: the same audience overexposed to the same creatives enters a spiral that Meta's own algorithm makes worse.

1. Narrow, repeated audience: the interest segment (Footwear) is small and has already been hit many times by the same creative hook.
2. Frequency spikes: Meta keeps showing the ad to the same people, rising from 1.2x to 4.7x in 30 days.
3. CTR and engagement collapse: the audience has already dismissed the message. CTR drops 79%.
4. The algorithm compensates badly: to sustain volume, the system expands reach to lower-intent users and CPA soars.

Result: ROAS collapses from 4.18x to 0.00x in 30 days. Without manual intervention, the cycle does not stop on its own.

The opportunity

While Footwear burns budget, Retargeting (Abandoned Cart) is the most profitable campaign in the whole account, and it receives the least investment.

• 9.6% of the total budget generates the account's best ROAS.
• 35.2x Retargeting (DPA) ROAS.
• 1.3x–1.4x stable frequency, no fatigue.

Had the budget lost on the saturated campaign been invested in retargeting: $90,210 in potential revenue left on the table, versus the $4,611.95 that the same spend actually generated.

Action plan: scaling roadmap

Phase 1 · Days 0–7 — Immediate remediation (saturated Footwear campaign)

• Pause ads with frequency > 3.5 and CTR < 1.0%.
• Launch 3 new creative hooks: pain point, benefit and social proof.
• Redirect the freed-up budget to Phase 2.

Phase 2 · Days 7–30 — Profitable scaling (retargeting and abandoned cart)

• Gradually scale the DPA Retargeting budget by +20%.
• Test checkout offers: free 24-hour shipping.
• Feed TOFU Broad with the winning creatives from the test.

Phase 3 · Days 30–60 — Automation and governance

• Automatic alert if frequency rises +50% and CTR drops -30%.
• Daily sync between the Meta API and Shopify.
• Budget rebalancing rules based on ROAS.

Financial projection: estimated impact of the plan

Conservative scenario: reallocate the saturated campaign's budget to the current profitable mix, without increasing total spend.

• Revenue: $161,776 → $190,163 projected (+$28,387 incremental in 30 days)
• Weighted account ROAS: 10.43x → 12.25x (+17.5%)
• Additional spend required: $0