Achieving a high return on ad spend (ROAS) is the ultimate goal for brands running paid campaigns. A strong ROAS means your advertising dollars are generating profitable, scalable growth. However, reaching that efficiency level takes more than just running ads—it requires data-driven strategies, continuous testing, and smart optimizations.
Top marketers improve ROAS using AI, audience insights, and platform-specific strategies to ensure every ad dollar works harder. In this blog, we’ll cover seven expert-backed strategies to help businesses reduce wasted ad spend, increase conversions, and drive more profitable marketing campaigns.
1. Identify Your Ideal Customer and Their Pain Points
Successful marketing starts with deeply understanding your ideal customer profile (ICP) and the problems your product solves. Before launching campaigns, top marketers define their target audience, analyze their pain points, and craft messaging that directly addresses their needs.
How to Define and Target Your ICP Effectively
Analyze Customer Data: Use past purchase behavior, demographics, and engagement metrics to identify high-value customer segments.
Understand Pain Points: Conduct surveys, read reviews, and analyze customer interactions to pinpoint key challenges your product solves.
Refine Messaging for Better Resonance: Craft ad creatives that speak directly to customer needs, emphasizing how your offering provides a solution.
A strong ICP framework ensures that every ad reaches the right audience with a compelling message, improving engagement and maximizing ROAS. Now, let’s dive into how to craft high-performing ad creatives that drive conversions, ensuring your campaigns capture attention and compel action.
2. Craft High-Performing Ad Creatives That Drive Conversions
Ad creatives are the biggest needle movers in conversions. While targeting and bidding strategies matter, even the best-placed ad will fail if the creative doesn’t capture attention and drive action. High-ROAS campaigns prioritize compelling, data-backed creatives that resonate with the audience and push them toward conversion.
Why Ad Creatives Directly Impact Performance
First Impression Matters – Your creative determines whether a user stops scrolling or ignores your ad entirely.
Emotional Connection Drives Action – Ads that evoke emotions—whether excitement, urgency, or trust—perform better than generic promotions.
Message Clarity Reduces Friction – A strong creative clearly communicates value, making it easier for users to take the next step.
Building Creatives That Convert
Align With Customer Pain Points – Creatives should instantly highlight how your product solves a problem or improves the user’s life.
Test Multiple Formats – Video, carousel, and static images perform differently across platforms and audiences. Diversifying creative formats can maximize engagement.
Data-Backed Iterations – The best-performing creatives aren’t made once—they evolve. Analyzing engagement data helps refine messaging, visuals, and CTA placement for better results.
Recommended Read: Creating Winning Ad Creative in Meta Ads
A strong ad creative makes targeting and budget optimizations even more effective. Next, we’ll discuss how refining audience targeting and retargeting strategies can improve ad efficiency.
3. Optimize Audience Targeting and Retargeting
Reaching the right audience is as important as having a strong ad creative. Poor targeting wastes ad spend on low-intent users, while refined audience segmentation ensures ads are shown to those most likely to convert. A well-structured targeting strategy can significantly improve click-through rates (CTR), lower acquisition costs, and maximize return on ad spend (ROAS).
Sharpen Targeting with High-Intent Audiences
Finding the right customers means going beyond basic demographic targeting. Successful campaigns focus on intent-based segmentation to identify users actively looking for a solution your product offers.
Lookalike audiences: Find new potential customers who share characteristics with your existing buyers, improving conversion likelihood.
Behavior-based segmentation: Target users based on browsing habits, past purchases, and engagement levels to ensure ads reach those with real buying intent.
Interest and demographic refinement: Continuously analyze data to eliminate low-quality traffic and focus ad spend on the most responsive audience segments.
Retarget Users Who Show Buying Intent
Not every potential customer converts on their first interaction with an ad. Retargeting ensures brands stay top-of-mind by re-engaging those who have already shown interest.
Dynamic retargeting: Show personalized ads featuring products users have previously viewed, increasing relevance and purchase likelihood.
Cart abandonment reminders: Re-engage shoppers who left items in their cart with compelling incentives like limited-time discounts or free shipping.
Multi-touch retargeting: Use a combination of platforms (e.g., Meta, Google, and YouTube) to reinforce brand recall and guide users toward conversion.
A strong audience strategy ensures ad spend is directed toward those most likely to convert, reducing wasted budget and driving higher ROAS. Now that we’ve covered audience refinement let’s explore how ad creative testing plays a key role in maximizing performance.
4. Scale Ad Creative Testing for Maximum Performance
Even the best audience targeting won’t deliver strong ROAS if the ad creative doesn’t capture attention. High-performing ads combine strong visuals, compelling messaging, and strategic CTAs to drive engagement and conversions. Testing different creative elements ensures ads stay fresh and continue delivering results.
Test and Iterate to Find Winning Combinations
Not all ad creatives perform equally, which is why ongoing testing is essential. By comparing different versions, marketers can identify which ads resonate most with their audience.
A/B testing headlines and CTAs: Small changes in wording can significantly impact click-through and conversion rates.
Experimenting with different visuals: Test static images, carousel ads, and videos to see which format captures the most engagement.
Rotating creatives frequently: Refreshing ad content prevents fatigue and keeps engagement levels high.
Use AI Insights to Improve Creative Performance
Testing ads manually can be time-consuming, but AI-powered tools help streamline the process. These tools analyze engagement data to determine which creative elements are driving results.
Identify patterns in high-performing ads: AI pinpoints common traits in top-performing creatives, making it easier to scale successful concepts.
Optimize for different audience segments: Some messaging styles work better for certain demographics—AI helps match the right creative to the right audience.
Reduce guesswork in ad design: Instead of relying on intuition, brands can use data-backed insights to refine their ad creatives.
The best ads evolve over time, adapting to audience preferences and market trends. By continuously testing and improving ad creatives, brands can increase engagement, lower acquisition costs, and drive better ROAS.
Once ads are performing well, increasing AOV (Average Order Value) can further improve ROAS without raising ad spend. Let’s explore how.
5. Increase Average Order Value (AOV) to Improve ROAS
Boosting return on ad spend (ROAS) isn’t just about lowering costs—it’s also about increasing revenue from each customer. A higher average order value (AOV) means more revenue per transaction, making your ad spend more efficient without acquiring new customers.
Encourage Bigger Purchases with Smart Strategies
Customers are more likely to spend more when presented with the right incentives. Brands focusing on increasing AOV see higher profitability from the same ad budget.
Product bundling: Offer complementary products together at a slight discount to encourage larger purchases.
Upselling and cross-selling: Suggest higher-value alternatives or add-ons based on what a customer is already buying.
Tiered free shipping: Set a minimum purchase amount for free shipping, nudging customers to add more to their cart.
Optimize Pricing and Offers to Drive Higher AOV
Beyond product recommendations, strategic pricing can also help increase order value.
Limited-time bundle deals: Create urgency by offering temporary discounts on larger purchases.
Exclusive VIP discounts: Reward customers who spend above a certain threshold with exclusive offers or perks.
Subscription-based savings: Offer discounts for multi-purchase or recurring orders to encourage long-term customer value.
Focusing on AOV growth allows businesses to scale revenue without increasing ad spend, leading to better profit margins and stronger ROAS. Similarly, budget allocation plays a huge role in maximizing ROAS. Let’s break down how to adjust spending based on real-time data.
6. Adjust Budget Allocation Based on Real-Time Performance Data
Spending more on ads doesn’t always mean better results. To achieve higher ROAS, brands must continuously monitor performance metrics and shift budgets toward the most profitable campaigns. A data-driven approach ensures that every ad dollar works as efficiently as possible.
Prioritize High-Performing Campaigns
Not all campaigns perform equally; some will naturally deliver better results than others. Adjusting budget allocation ensures more ad spend goes toward the best-performing campaigns while reducing waste.
Scale up high-ROAS campaigns: Increase budgets for campaigns that consistently drive strong returns.
Reduce spend on underperforming ads: If a campaign isn’t delivering results, reallocate its budget to a more effective strategy.
Monitor CPC and CPA trends: Rising costs may signal increased competition or a need for creative refreshes.
Use Predictive Analytics to Optimize Budget Distribution
Performance marketing isn’t just about reacting to data—it’s also about anticipating trends before they impact ROAS.
Adjust bids based on demand shifts: If a product sees seasonal spikes in interest, allocate more budget during peak buying periods.
Test different budget allocations across platforms: Some platforms may perform better than others, depending on audience behavior.
Analyze time-of-day performance: Identify when your audience is most active and prioritize ad spend during high-converting hours.
By continuously tracking and adjusting budget allocation, businesses can scale profitable campaigns, eliminate wasted spend, and maximize ROAS. Next, let’s explore why platform-specific strategies matter and how tailoring ads for each channel can improve performance.
7. Adapt Advertising Strategies Based on Platform-Specific Performance
Each advertising platform operates differently, and a one-size-fits-all strategy won’t maximize ROAS. Understanding how users engage with ads on different platforms allows businesses to tailor their approach for better performance and higher returns.
Customize Strategies for Each Platform
What works on one platform may not be effective on another. Successful marketers adjust their ad formats, messaging, and budget allocation based on platform behavior.
Meta Ads: Strong for both prospecting and retargeting, with high-performing formats like video ads, carousel ads, and dynamic product ads.
Google Ads: Ideal for high-intent search traffic, ensuring ads appear when users actively seek a product.
Amazon Ads: Best for brands selling physical products, as shoppers are already in a buying mindset.
Implement Cross-Channel Retargeting
Consumers rarely convert on their first interaction with an ad. Using multiple platforms ensures brand visibility throughout the buying journey.
Retarget TikTok or YouTube viewers with Google Display ads to reinforce brand awareness.
Show Facebook retargeting ads to past website visitors who engaged but didn’t purchase.
Sync audience lists across platforms to maintain consistency in messaging and targeting.
By tailoring ad formats, targeting, and retargeting efforts for each platform, brands can increase efficiency, reduce wasted spend, and improve ROAS across all channels. To wrap things up, let’s review the key takeaways and why these strategies matter for long-term advertising success.
Conclusion
Achieving high ROAS isn’t just about running more ads—it’s about running smarter, data-driven campaigns. The most successful marketers focus on analyzing competitor strategies, refining audience targeting, testing ad creatives, optimizing budgets, and tailoring ads for each platform. These strategies ensure that every ad dollar is spent efficiently, leading to higher returns and sustainable growth.
Brands that work with GoMarble have seen significant improvements in ROAS through AI-driven optimizations, real-time performance tracking, and expert-led campaign management. By combining automation with human expertise, GoMarble helps businesses scale profitably, reduce wasted ad spend, and consistently outperform industry benchmarks.
Looking to maximize ROAS with expert-driven, AI-powered ad strategies? Get started with GoMarble today.