Paid Advertising
Meta Ads agency
and Google Ads management
that answers to revenue.
We run paid media for South African brands that measure success in rand, not reach. Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn — wired to proper tracking and scored against blended ROAS, not platform fantasy.
The problem
You are not short on ad ideas. You are short on answers.
Every agency pitches you a new creative concept. Nobody can tell you what is actually working. Meta reports a 6x ROAS, GA4 reports a 1.8x, your finance team says they can see a 3x at best, and the founder is trying to reconcile all three at 11pm before a board meeting.
The reality is that most South African paid media accounts are broken at the foundation. Pixel missing events. CAPI not set up. Google Ads still running broad-match on the agency’s default keyword list. Shopping feeds that pass GTINs for half the catalogue. Landing pages that load in four seconds on Telkom mobile. A new campaign launched every Tuesday whether it is needed or not.
Fix the foundation and suddenly the creative matters again. Skip it and you are buying expensive guessing.
What we do
What we actually build.
EcomSolve is a paid advertising agency in South Africa specialising in Meta Ads, Google Ads, and the tracking plumbing that makes them honest. We manage accounts from R50,000 to R1.2m in monthly media spend across ecommerce, SaaS, property, and professional services. We are a small senior team — you work with the person running the ads, not an account manager relaying messages.
Our services cover the full stack: account audits and rebuilds, creative strategy, landing page and funnel design, server-side tracking via CAPI and Google Tag Manager server containers, shopping feed optimisation, Performance Max restructuring, retention-funnel builds, and monthly reporting that ties ad spend to actual P&L, not dashboard vanity.
We refuse a few things. We will not run ads on a site with no tracking — we will fix the tracking first. We will not take on accounts for gambling, get-rich-quick schemes, or anything we would not put our own money behind. And we will not guarantee a ROAS, because anyone who does is either lying or has not run enough accounts to know better.
- — Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram) strategy, creative, and management
- — Google Ads: Search, Performance Max, Shopping, YouTube, Demand Gen
- — TikTok Ads and LinkedIn Ads for appropriate verticals
- — Server-side tracking: Meta CAPI, GA4, GTM server container on Cloudflare
- — Shopping feed optimisation for Google Merchant Center and Meta Commerce
- — Landing page design and split-testing (Shopify, Webflow, Unbounce)
- — Monthly strategy calls with blended-ROAS and contribution-margin reporting
Our process
How the work happens.
Fast onboarding, slow optimisation. We aim to stabilise in month one, find the lever in month two, and scale hard from month three onward.
Audit the account and the store
Before we spend a cent of your money, we audit Meta, Google, GA4, Shopify or your CRM, tracking setup, creative library, and offer structure. You get a written audit pointing at the three highest-impact changes and a 90-day plan before you commit to a retainer.
Fix the tracking
Server-side Meta CAPI, Google Ads enhanced conversions, GA4 event mapping, product feed health check. Nothing else matters if the data is lying. This usually takes 7 to 14 days and is included in the first month’s fee.
Rebuild campaigns
We consolidate what is working, kill what is not, and restructure to best-practice account architecture. Meta goes to CBO with a broad-ish audience and strong creative testing lanes. Google gets a clean Search-Brand, Search-NonBrand, Performance Max, Shopping, and Remarketing split with proper negative keyword hygiene.
Scale and compound
Weekly creative refresh (we brief your team or produce in-house through a partner), monthly landing-page iteration, quarterly offer testing. You get a Loom walkthrough every Friday and a call on the first Monday of each month. No 40-page PDF reports nobody reads.
Deliverables
What you get.
- Written 90-day media plan with forecasted spend and targets
- Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads accounts under your ownership
- Server-side CAPI and GTM server container on Cloudflare Workers
- Creative brief documents and a shared asset library
- Weekly Loom performance updates, monthly live review call
- Blended-ROAS dashboard in Looker Studio or a similar tool
- Full tracking documentation handed over if we part ways
Platforms & tools
The stack.
- Meta Ads Manager
- Google Ads
- TikTok Ads Manager
- LinkedIn Campaign Manager
- GA4
- GTM Server
- Stape
- Meta CAPI
- Google Merchant Center
- Looker Studio
- Triple Whale
- Northbeam
- Hyros
Proof
Honest numbers from real accounts.
A Johannesburg supplements brand came to us spending R180,000 a month on Meta with a reported 4.2x ROAS that did not match their Shopify revenue. After we fixed CAPI and rebuilt the account around three creative testing lanes, blended ROAS settled at 3.6x — lower on paper, but their actual monthly revenue rose 58% over four months because the decisions were finally being made on accurate data.
A Cape Town home-services business in the lead-gen space came in on R40,000 a month of Google Ads generating 55 leads at a R720 CPL. We restructured the account, launched Performance Max against their best-performing customer segments, and scaled spend to R95,000 a month at a R410 CPL. That is roughly 4x the leads at 1.75x the spend — with better-qualified prospects because of the landing page rewrite.
FAQ
Questions founders ask us on the first call.
What is a realistic ROAS for Meta Ads in South Africa?
For established DTC brands with healthy margins (40%+), a blended 3 to 5x ROAS across Meta and Google is our target after 60 days. New brands or lower-margin categories (supplements, fashion) sit at 2 to 3x blended during scale phases. Pure prospecting campaigns often run 1.5 to 2.5x while retargeting and branded search carry the blended number. We report blended ROAS, not platform-reported ROAS — the latter double-counts and lies.
How do you handle the iOS 14.5 attribution mess?
Every account we take on gets Meta Conversions API (CAPI) implemented server-side, usually through Stape or a custom Cloudflare Workers endpoint. We also set up GA4 with enhanced measurement, hook Shopify’s server-side Pixel where it applies, and cross-reference with post-purchase surveys. It is not perfect, but it gets attribution accuracy from the Meta-default 45% up to around 85%.
What is the minimum ad budget you work with?
Our minimum managed media spend is R50,000 per month across Meta and Google combined. Below that, the management fee eats too much of your budget and the data volume is too thin to optimise meaningfully. Our sweet spot is brands spending R80,000 to R600,000 per month on paid media.
Do you only run ecommerce, or do you do lead-gen too?
Both. About 70% of our paid media work is ecommerce (Shopify, WooCommerce, headless). The rest is lead-gen — SaaS, B2B services, property, finance, and education. Lead-gen runs on Google Ads and LinkedIn more than Meta. We do not take on gambling, crypto, or MLM accounts.
How do you price paid ads management?
Retainers start at R15,000 per month for accounts spending up to R75,000 in media. Above that we charge a tiered percentage (10% to 15%) of managed spend with a minimum of R20,000. All retainers include Meta Ads, Google Ads, landing page iteration, CAPI and tracking maintenance, weekly Loom reports, and a monthly strategy call. No setup fee if you commit to three months.
Stop paying for traffic you cannot measure.
Share your monthly media spend and a screenshot of last month’s Meta and Google dashboards. We will reply with three things that are almost certainly broken, and what it would cost to fix them.