Built from zero.
MER 0.53 → 5.51
in one year.

The MER year

Online sales per ad dollar, quarter by quarter

MER = Shopify online sales ÷ total paid spend on Google and Meta. It counts each sale once, whichever channel claims it.

Spend grew more than 6× between Q3 2025 and Q3 2026, and MER still grew nearly 6×. Online sales for the quarter grew more than 35×. August and September 2026 were the best months since launch, both with MER above 5.5.

01 — Client overview

Village Mart

Village Mart is a streetwear retailer with a loyal in-store community. Before working with ADFIX, almost all of its sales happened in physical stores. The online store existed, but sold very little.

The brief when they came to ADFIX in mid-2025: build an online sales channel with paid media from scratch, find what works, and scale quickly without paying for avoidable mistakes during the learning phase.

02 — Challenge

Zero paid history.
Almost zero online sales.

An account with no paid history has no campaign structure to learn from, no audience signal in the ad platforms and no baseline ROAS to calibrate against. Early spend is part investment, part measurement.

Village Mart also wanted both Google and Meta live within the same half-year. That meant tracking purchases cleanly on both platforms, keeping a neutral store-level view, and moving budget between channels as results came in.

03 — Strategy

Structure first,
then scale.

The first four months were a structured learning phase on small budgets. The goal was to find the campaigns, audiences and placements worth scaling, not to hit revenue records. Scale started in November 2025, going into the peak season.

Google Shopping and Search

Google Shopping came first to capture existing purchase intent. Village Mart’s catalogue suits it: people searching for specific products find them without heavy creative investment. Search campaigns covered high-intent branded and category terms alongside Shopping.

Meta Ads, from awareness to conversion

Meta was added in September as the upper-funnel channel, reaching new audiences and retargeting visitors who had not yet bought. Ad sets started on broad targeting, with catalogue retargeting added as pixel data built up.

Measurement framework

Shopify was the source of truth for online orders and sales, and GA4 for traffic. Platform-reported results (Google Ads conversion tracking, Meta pixel) were used for in-platform optimisation and reported separately from the store view.

04 — Execution

Three phases:
test, scale, sharpen.

July – October 2025: test

Google went live in July 2025 with Shopping and Search built around Village Mart’s core categories, plus feed work to raise impression share. Meta followed in September with ad sets for cold audiences, warm engagement audiences and a retargeting pool built from early site traffic. Online sales stayed low while we gathered signal.

November 2025 – June 2026: scale

In November we scaled both channels into the holiday season. Online orders grew more than 10× from October to November, and MER moved from below 1 to above 2.

In H1 2026 we kept scaling. Against H2 2025, total paid spend grew 111%, online orders 105% and online sales 138%, so MER rose from 1.99 to 2.24 while the budget doubled. Google spend rose 60% and ROAS went from 2.88x to 3.28x. Meta spend grew 2.7× and its ROAS held at 1.70x to 1.73x.

July – September 2026: sharpen

In Q3 we held total paid spend flat (−3% vs. Q2) and focused on efficiency. Online orders rose 141% quarter on quarter and online sales 98%, while sessions grew only 18%. MER rose from 2.14 to 4.38.

Both channels improved. Google ROAS went from 3.12x to 4.93x on 4% less spend. Meta ROAS more than doubled, from 1.45x to 3.20x, with purchases up 204% on flat spend. September 2026 was the best month since launch for online orders, at a 5.51 MER.

05 — Results

H2 2025 → H1 2026

Data note. Online orders and sales come from Shopify and exclude in-store orders. Sessions come from GA4. Google and Meta figures are platform-reported (Google Ads conversion tracking; Meta pixel, account default attribution). Platform-reported revenue and Shopify sales overlap and should not be added together. MER uses Shopify online sales and is the conservative efficiency measure.

Q2 2026 → Q3 2026

The last three full months against the quarter before, at the same budget.

06 — Insights

What the numbers are telling us

Google got more efficient while scaling

ROAS usually erodes when spend rises sharply. Village Mart’s Google account did the opposite: spend grew 60% in H1 and ROAS rose from 2.88x to 3.28x, then to 4.93x in Q3. Incremental budget went to proven campaigns instead of being spread into untested territory.

Meta took 2.7× the budget, then doubled its return

Rapid Meta scaling usually runs into audience saturation. Village Mart’s Meta ROAS held at 1.70x to 1.73x on 2.7× the spend in H1, while Meta clicks more than tripled. In Q3, on the same budget, Meta ROAS went to 3.20x and purchases tripled. The reach built during scaling started converting.

Conversion caught up with traffic

In Q3, sessions grew 18% while online orders grew 141%. The traffic paid media brought in during scaling started buying, which is where most of the MER gain came from.

More orders, at a lower basket

Average order value fell 18% against Q2. More orders per ad dollar is the win; the lower basket is the trade-off to watch, and bundles or free-shipping thresholds are the obvious next tests.

07 — Key takeaways

What Village Mart proves

• An online channel can be built from almost nothing in a year. Village Mart’s online orders grew more than 50× in a year, and online sales per ad dollar went from 0.53 to 5.51.

• Measurement comes before scale. Running two channels at once only works with a neutral store-level view. Judging the program on Shopify sales against total spend stopped double-counted platform revenue from driving budget decisions.

• The test phase is for signal, not performance. July to October ran on small budgets. What we learned there let us scale hard from November without wasting spend.

• Google and Meta do different jobs. Google captured existing intent and ended Q3 at 4.93x ROAS. Meta built reach first, then converted it at 3.20x.

• Efficiency compounds after scale. Once the account had volume and signal, holding budget flat in Q3 doubled MER. The scale phase paid for the efficiency that followed.

08 — Conclusion

A growth engine,
built to last.

Village Mart started paid media in mid-2025 with no history and an online store that barely sold. One year in, September 2026 closed with more than 50 times the online orders of a year earlier and a 5.51 MER, up from 0.53.

The infrastructure for further growth is in place. Both channels now scale from proven campaign structures, accumulated audience signal and a measurement setup that gives reliable numbers.

Next: protect average order value, keep expanding the Google Shopping feed and test new Meta formats while efficiency is high.