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Ecommerce and D2C brands · Pay per click advertising

Buy the click a full-price order can actually pay for.

Paid search and paid social for a D2C brand is bought against margin, not against the number the platform reports. GullySales rebuilds the product feed that shopping campaigns actually run on, separates brand spend from prospecting, and sends order value back net of returns.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

Realistic editorial illustration of ecommerce and d2c brands at work in the United States

What pay per click advertising means

Pay per click advertising (PPC) is paying a fee each time someone clicks your advert on Google or another platform. It puts you at the top of a search page immediately, instead of waiting for ranking to build. GullySales sets the targeting, writes the ad text and checks spend against enquiries received.

Also for ecommerce and D2C brands

Sales and marketing for ecommerce and D2C brands, the overview.

Last updated 5 Oct 2026.

For ecommerce and D2C brands

Where it usually goes wrong, and what we would do.

  • “The feed is the campaign, not the keyword list”

    Shopping and Performance Max match on your product titles and attributes. A feed exported straight out of the store is why a hand cream shows against searches for hand tools.

  • “Somebody is selling you your own name”

    Coupon affiliates and resellers bid on it and take credit for orders you had already won. Whether to buy it back is arithmetic, not principle.

  • “One winning video does not last a quarter”

    Frequency climbs, cost per order drifts up every Friday, and the account has nothing new to put in. The limit is production, not budget.

  • “November prices the whole year's testing”

    Costs per thousand impressions rise steeply through the peak weeks. A concept not already proven in September is being tested at the worst price of the year.

What we do

What we deliver for ecommerce and D2C brands.

Every deliverable, what it covers for you, and the result it is there to produce. Nothing here is an extra.

  1. A rebuilt product feed

    Titles written the way people search, product types, identifiers, sizes, colours and availability corrected, with the rules kept where the store can regenerate them.

    Result: Shopping campaigns stop showing the wrong product.

  2. Brand and prospecting split apart

    Separate campaigns and separate budgets, so an automated campaign cannot report a good month by spending on people who already typed your name.

    Result: You can see what a new customer costs.

  3. Order value sent back net of returns

    Server-side conversion tracking with the value of an order adjusted for the returns that follow, rather than the gross figure at checkout.

    Result: The platform optimises towards orders that stay sold.

  4. A creative testing calendar

    A fixed number of new concepts, briefed from reviews and support questions, with a written rule for retiring a tired winner.

    Result: The account always has a challenger ready.

  5. A peak plan built from margin

    Budget and discount depth set per product from what each one can afford to give away, with the calendar working backwards from the shipping cut-off.

    Result: The busy weeks leave something behind.

  6. Spend read against contribution

    Cost per new customer by channel, blended efficiency and what is left after goods, shipping and fees, compared with the figures taken before work started.

    Result: A profitable month is told apart from a loud one.

How the result is measured

  • Cost per click
  • Cost per enquiry
  • Enquiries from paid search

Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.

Read the full performance marketing and PPC page

Searches to bid on and block

The searches worth paying for in D2C, and the ones to keep out.

Product type plus use, such as vitamin C serum for oily skin
Bid through shopping and search. The shopper is comparing products. Keep a separate campaign for each hero product so its spend and returns can be read on their own.
Your own brand name and its misspellings
Bid, in a small separate campaign. Marketplaces, resellers and rivals buy these words. Do not let the brand's cheap clicks flatter the prospecting numbers.
Competitor and category-leader names
Test, with a small cap. These shoppers know the category but may not need the product. Judge them on orders net of returns, not clicks, and drop them if they do not repay.
Coupon, free sample and wholesale searches, such as discount code or free trial
Block unless you run such an offer. Add coupon code, free sample, cheap and wholesale as negatives, or give wholesale buyers their own page and form.
Where the click lands
Send each click to the product page for that search, not the homepage. Show price, delivery, return terms and Cash on Delivery options above the fold. Test it on a phone first.
Counting a real order
Count a paid order net of returns and cancellations, and send that value back to the ad account. A platform that counts orders returned later is reporting a profit you did not make.

Who it is for

This is written for these ecommerce and D2C brands.

  • Single-product and founder-led D2C brands
  • Apparel, footwear and accessories brands
  • Beauty, skincare and personal care brands
  • Supplements, food and beverage brands
  • Home goods, furniture and higher-value considered purchases
  • Subscription and replenishment brands
  • Brands selling on Amazon and their own Shopify store
  • Wholesale-first brands building a direct channel
  • Brands past their first million with no in-house marketing team

Not for

It is not the right fit if.

  • You do not know your margin after returns and shipping, so any bid you set would be a guess about what a click may cost
  • Your checkout fails on common phones, so paid clicks would pay for visits that cannot become orders

How it works

How the pay per click advertising work runs

The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.

  1. 1

    Agree the whole budget

    We fix the total paid budget across platforms, who owns each ad account, and how much is open to moving.

  2. 2

    Audit tracking and accounts

    We check that conversions fire once, that calls and WhatsApp chats are counted, and that your enquiry sheet matches what the platforms say.

  3. 3

    Set one definition of success

    You and we agree what a qualified enquiry is and what an order is, so every platform is judged the same way.

  4. 4

    Build and launch the plan

    Campaigns are structured across platforms with shared naming and tags from day one.

  5. 5

    Read search terms and lead quality

    We review the queries that triggered ads and the enquiries that arrived, and remove waste before moving money.

  6. 6

    Reallocate and report

    Budget moves toward what is earning, within agreed limits. Results are reported against the baseline, at the frequency agreed in writing.

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 1, prospecting and lead generation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2 · you are here

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
Should we bid on our own brand name?
Probably, and you should check rather than assume. Switch the brand campaign off for a week and watch total orders, not the paid ones. If the total holds, you were paying for traffic that was already yours.
Performance Max is spending everything on our best seller. Why?
Because it was told to find the cheapest orders, and your best seller is the cheapest order in the catalogue. It will not launch a new line for you. Give the new products their own campaign and their own budget, or they never get shown.
Should we run Google Ads or Meta ads first?
Start with Google search and shopping if people already search for the product. They show intent. Choose Meta first when the product is new and nobody knows its name. Judge either one on margin after returns.
How do we stop ads spending on shoppers who never buy?
Read the search terms report and add negatives for coupon, free, review, how to make and cheap. Cap competitor and broad-match spend, and review products with high returns. Pause what does not repay after returns.
How much does it cost?
There is no price list, because the work differs by business. The fee is scoped after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and put in writing before anything starts, split into our time, your media spend and production.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
It depends on the trade, the channel and what is already in place. After we have read your brief and spoken to you, we say what we would expect to move first and how it will be measured against the baseline. Nothing here is guaranteed.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
Your brief, and a conversation. After that, access to whatever this work touches, such as your website, your accounts or your enquiry record, and time with the people who handle your enquiries.

From the blog

Further reading for ecommerce and D2C brands.

All articles

More for ecommerce and D2C brands

Everything else we would do for you.

Or start from the overview: sales and marketing for ecommerce and D2C brands.

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