Case Study · Performance Marketing & CRO

Rebuilding a premium DTC brand's paid-media engine: from broken tracking to a measurable growth system.

A 12-week program for Levitate, a UAE premium stationery brand on Shopify, spanning Meta Ads, Google Ads, conversion tracking and conversion-rate optimisation.

Client: Levitate (levitate.shop) Market: UAE / GCC Platform: Shopify Jan – Apr 2026

−79%

Google Ads CPC AED 5.84 → 1.24

10.9k+

AED ad spend managed 2 platforms

9.3/10

Meta event match quality restored

Critical conversion blockers fixed

The Situation

Strong traffic, zero measurable sales

Levitate was spending across Google and Meta and generating real engagement (85,000+ clicks, 623 add-to-carts, 229 checkout initiations), yet not a single purchase event was being recorded. Both ad algorithms were optimising blind, CPCs were spiralling, and the team couldn't tell what was working. My role was to find why, fix the foundation, and rebuild the account into something measurable and scalable.

The core insight: this was never an ad-quality problem. It was a signal problem: purchase events weren't reaching either platform, compounded by a hidden checkout cost and an unstructured account. Fixing measurement first made every downstream optimisation possible.

Core Strength

Performance Marketing

Restructuring spend, audiences and bidding across Meta and Google so budget chased buyers, not vanity engagement.

Cut CPC by ~79%

Brought Google Ads cost-per-click down from AED 5.84, and a runaway peak of AED 40, to AED 1.24 by repairing the conversion feedback loop, resetting bid strategy, and pruning wasted spend.

Bid strategy · Target CPA

Restructured the Meta account

Replaced an unstructured, inconsistently-named campaign set with a clean CBO architecture: a prospecting campaign and a purpose-built retargeting campaign on a disciplined AED 150/day.

Account architecture

Precise audience targeting

Built 1% UAE lookalikes from add-to-cart and purchase events, plus custom retargeting pools (ATC & checkout, last 90 days) to concentrate budget on high-intent users.

Lookalikes · Custom audiences

Fixed retargeting ad fatigue

Caught a frequency of 19.99×, the same 393 people seeing ads ~20 times each, and rebuilt the campaign with a 3–4× cap to protect budget and brand perception.

Frequency control

Aligned the algorithm to revenue

Switched ad sets from Add-to-Cart to Purchase optimisation and removed Page View as a Google conversion goal, so both platforms learned only from real sales.

Optimisation events

Found the winning angle

Historical analysis (Nov 2024–Mar 2026) showed the best-ever campaign paired Arabic targeting with a purchase objective (27 purchases, 1.48× ROAS). Re-introduced Arabic prospecting after finding 2026 was English-only.

Market segmentation

Technical Foundation

Conversion Tracking & Marketing Technology

The work that made everything else trustworthy: getting purchase signal flowing cleanly into both platforms.

Restored Meta CAPI purchases

Traced zero purchase events to Shopify Customer Events being set to "Optimised" data-sharing, which silently dropped purchases. Switched to "Always on" and rebuilt event match quality to 9.3/10.

Conversions API · Pixel

8-step Google Ads tracking fix

Built a diagnostic for the Shopify thank-you page: verifying the gtag conversion fires via Tag Assistant with the correct Conversion ID + Label and a dynamic order-value.

gtag · Tag Assistant

Cleaned up the pixel setup

Identified a dead pixel (0 events) sitting alongside the live one (230,900+ events) and flagged it for removal to stop signal fragmentation.

Pixel audit

GTM across stacks

Implementing and debugging tracking on Shopify, WordPress and React sites via Google Tag Manager: placing containers and configuring the conversion linker, enhanced conversions/signals and event tags.

GTM · Conversion linker

Strategic Strength

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Turning a leaky product page into a page built to convert cold ad traffic.

Before

Landing-page score 34/100, 10 unresolved issues
AED 30 shipping fee revealed only at final payment: surprise abandonment
Add-to-Cart button vanished on scroll
Generic titles, no trust signals, no reviews

After

Shipping cost shown upfront in a product-page trust bar
Persistent sticky Add-to-Cart with variant selector
SSL + payment icons, keyword-optimised titles & descriptions
Judge.me reviews live; mobile friction mapped in Microsoft Clarity

The single most damaging blocker, surfaced through abandoned-checkout analysis, was a hidden AED 30 shipping fee behind the 439-ATC / 0-purchase pattern. Making it visible before the buy decision removed the price shock at checkout.

The Bigger Picture

Core Marketing Strategy

Building the system, not just running the ads.

Infrastructure from zero

Stood up the full stack: Google Ads (Performance Max, Brand & Non-Brand Search with Agenda/Planner/Gift ad groups, Shopping with a 27-product feed) and Meta (Pixel + CAPI, prospecting + retargeting).

Strategy & creative frameworks

Authored an RCTCO Meta strategy, a 20-angle creative framework, a 15-day sprint guide, and a "smart-person sharing" content model designed for organic shareability.

Market & competitor analysis

Mapped the UAE planner market (Hobonichi, Moleskine, Cloth & Paper, Filofax, Noon/Amazon) and an Arabic-market opportunity to define positioning and pricing leverage.

Transparent client reporting

Delivered a 12-week progress report documenting every campaign, diagnosis, fix and outcome, sustaining stakeholder trust through a turnaround.

Capabilities Demonstrated

Skills applied on this project

Meta Ads Google Ads (Search · Shopping · PMax) Audience & Lookalike Targeting Retargeting Frequency Control Target CPA / CBO Bidding Negative-Keyword Strategy Conversion Rate Optimisation Meta Pixel + Conversions API Google Tag Manager Conversion Linker & Enhanced Conversions Shopify WordPress React Microsoft Clarity Competitor Analysis EN/AR Campaign Strategy Client Reporting

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Levitate × Dibolky Marketing & Media · Performance Marketing & Growth · Jan–Apr 2026. Figures sourced from the live Google Ads and Meta Ads accounts and client progress reports. Tracking was repaired mid-engagement, so platform-attributed ROAS reflects the period after measurement was restored.