The Brief
A Great D2C Brand With a Leaking Funnel
NSTEE makes high-quality casual and athletic footwear for India's urban millennial market. They had a strong physical retail presence and loyal word-of-mouth, but their online D2C channel was generating just ₹18 lakh a month — a fraction of its potential. Their Google Shopping campaigns weren't profitable, Meta Ads were burning cash, and they had no post-purchase retention system at all.
DPT Hub was brought in to audit the entire funnel and rebuild it from scratch: restructured paid media on both Google and Meta, a Shopify CRO overhaul, and a full email marketing program to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers.
📢 Google Shopping + Search Ads
📱 Meta (FB + IG) Ads
📧 Email & SMS Retention
🔧 Shopify CRO
The Challenge
Spending More, Earning Less
The fundamental problem: NSTEE's ad spend was growing but ROAS was declining. They were acquiring customers at a cost that made profitability impossible at scale — and without retention, every sale was the first and last.
📉
Declining ROAS on Google Shopping
Google Shopping campaigns were running without proper product feed optimisation, bid segmentation, or negative keyword architecture. High-intent branded searches were cannibalising generic ones.
ROAS: 1.4× (target: 3×+)
🎯
Meta Ads Burning Budget on Cold Audiences
All Meta budget was allocated to cold TOF (Top of Funnel) campaigns. Zero retargeting. No lookalike strategy. No creative testing framework. CPM was rising quarter-over-quarter with no improvement in CVR.
Meta ROAS: 0.8×
🛒
High Checkout Abandonment
Shopify store was seeing 78% cart abandonment — a product of slow load times, no trust signals on the checkout page, and a 6-step checkout process that lost buyers at every stage.
Abandonment: 78%
🔄
Zero Retention Infrastructure
No email flows. No post-purchase sequences. No win-back campaigns. Every customer acquired was treated as a one-time transaction. Repeat purchase rate was just 11%, vs. a healthy D2C benchmark of 30–40%.
Repeat rate: 11%
The Strategy
Full-Funnel Rebuild — Acquire, Convert, Retain
Rather than optimising individual channels in isolation, we reframed the entire problem as a unit economics challenge: if we could lower CAC via better targeting AND increase LTV via retention, the business model would become compounding. Everything followed from that logic.
1
Google Ads — Feed Optimisation + Smart Bidding Architecture
Rebuilt the Shopping feed from scratch: product titles restructured for search intent (style + material + use case), custom labels for margin tiers, and a 4-campaign structure separating brand vs. generic vs. competitor vs. high-margin SKUs. Layered Performance Max on top with audience signals from CRM data. Implemented tROAS bidding after 30-day data accumulation.
Google ROAS: 1.4× → 3.8×
2
Meta Ads — Full-Funnel Architecture With Creative Testing
Rebuilt Meta campaigns with a proper TOF → MOF → BOF funnel. TOF: Advantage+ audiences with lookalikes seeded from 180-day purchaser lists. MOF: video view retargeting (25%+ video viewers) with social proof creative. BOF: cart abandoners and product page visitors with urgency/offer creative. Weekly creative testing cadence with DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimisation) on 4 variables per ad set.
Meta ROAS: 0.8× → 3.2×
3
Shopify CRO — Reduce Friction, Add Trust
Full CRO audit identified 12 friction points. Implemented: one-page checkout (Shopify Plus), trust badges on cart and checkout pages, size guide modal on PDPs, product bundling upsells, and a "buy more save more" pricing display. Page speed reduced from 4.2s to 1.6s (LCP). Heatmap analysis informed 3 landing page redesigns for top-traffic entry points.
Cart abandonment: 78% → 52%
4
Email Marketing — Build the Retention Engine
Set up Klaviyo with 7 core automated flows. Welcome series (5 emails), abandoned cart (3 emails with dynamic product blocks), post-purchase (4 emails: confirmation → care guide → review request → replenishment prompt), win-back (3 emails at 60/90/120 days), and a monthly newsletter with editorial footwear content driving 22% open rates. Built segmentation by purchase frequency, AOV tier, and product category.
Email revenue: 0% → 34% of total
Execution Timeline
10 Months to 3.8× Revenue
The strategy was sequenced carefully: CRO improvements came first so that paid media spend wouldn't be wasted on a leaking funnel. Email was layered in as soon as the subscriber base hit a viable threshold.
Month 1 — Diagnose
Full-Funnel Audit + Foundations
Conducted deep-dive audit: Google Ads account structure, Meta campaign architecture, Shopify analytics, email subscriber health, and customer data analysis. Built 6-month roadmap with monthly OKRs. Set up GA4, GTM, Klaviyo, and Meta CAPI for accurate cross-channel attribution.
Funnel AuditGA4 SetupKlaviyo SetupMeta CAPI
Months 2–3 — Fix the Foundation
Shopping Feed Rebuild + Shopify CRO Sprint
Rebuilt Google Shopping feed (3,200 SKUs, 100% title/description coverage). Launched restructured campaigns. CRO sprint: one-page checkout live, trust badges added, size guide implemented, page speed optimised to 1.6s LCP. First 3 Klaviyo flows live (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase).
Feed RebuildCheckout CROPage SpeedEmail Flows 1-3
Months 4–6 — Scale What Works
Meta Funnel Live + Email Expansion
Full Meta funnel launched with TOF/MOF/BOF structure. Performance Max campaigns activated on Google after 30-day data period. Email list grew from 12K to 31K subscribers via paid acquisition flows. Win-back and browse abandonment flows added. First month achieving blended ROAS above 3×.
Meta FunnelPerformance MaxEmail Flows 4-73× ROAS achieved
Months 7–10 — Compound Growth
Budget Scale + Loyalty + Revenue Attribution
Ad budget scaled by 65% as unit economics held. NSTEE loyalty program integrated with Klaviyo for points-based email triggers. Product bundling upsells added to cart page. Revenue attribution model built showing email contributing 34% of monthly revenue with zero incremental ad spend. Monthly revenue crossed ₹68L in Month 10.
Budget ScaleLoyalty ProgramBundle Upsells₹68L Revenue
Paid Media Performance
Ads That Actually Pay for Themselves
The shift from unprofitable to 4.2× blended ROAS wasn't from spending more — it was from restructuring how every rupee was allocated across the funnel.
| Metric |
Before DPT Hub |
After 10 Months |
Change |
| Blended ROAS |
1.2× |
4.2× |
↑ 250% |
| Google Shopping ROAS |
1.4× |
3.8× |
↑ 171% |
| Meta Ads ROAS |
0.8× |
3.2× |
↑ 300% |
| Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) |
₹1,840 |
₹699 |
↓ 62% |
| Store Conversion Rate |
0.9% |
2.8% |
↑ 211% |
| Cart Abandonment Rate |
78% |
52% |
↓ 33% |
| Monthly Revenue |
₹18L |
₹68L |
↑ 278% |
Email & Retention
The Channel That Costs the Least and Returns the Most
Email became NSTEE's highest-ROAS channel by Month 6. At 34% of total revenue with near-zero marginal cost, the email engine made every paid acquisition decision more forgiving — because a portion of every customer's lifetime value was being recaptured without additional ad spend.
👋
Welcome Series (5 Emails)
Brand story, product education, size guide, first-purchase incentive, and community invite. Designed to convert subscribers who didn't buy from the first ad click.
42% open rate · 3.8% CVR
🛒
Abandoned Cart (3 Emails)
Dynamic product blocks showing exact abandoned items. Email 1 at 1hr (no discount), Email 2 at 24hr (5% off), Email 3 at 72hr (free shipping offer + urgency timer).
₹2.1L recovered/month
📦
Post-Purchase Sequence (4 Emails)
Order confirmation, care guide + styling tips (drives review conversion), review request with incentive, and a 45-day replenishment prompt based on product type.
41% repeat purchase rate
💌
Win-Back Campaign (3 Emails)
Triggered at 60, 90, and 120 days of inactivity. Personalised with last purchase product, new arrivals in their style category, and a limited loyalty points bonus to re-engage.
18% win-back rate
Revenue Growth
Month by Month: ₹18L to ₹68L
Revenue growth was steady rather than spiky — a sign of structural improvement rather than one-off campaign boosts. The step-change visible at Month 4 corresponds to the Meta funnel launch and the first email retention flows going live simultaneously.
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
+278%
Total Revenue Growth