CAMARGOPaid media advisory Book a Call

Real Numbers
for High Spend Brands

You will know which of your reported conversions are real, and which channel deserves the next dollar.

Chapter 01

Opening seconds. The full cut replaces this.

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Fifteen minutes, Sydney time. For brands spending $20,000+ a month.

$600K+
Monthly ad spend managed
$5M+
Annual budget owned
+120%
Subscriber growth delivered
16
Markets run at once

The argument

Five parts, ninety seconds.

Every account I open looks the same on the surface.

Working titles taken from your take filenames. Replace with the real line from each chapter once the marks are set.

The gap

Two numbers, one account.

Set the controls to your account's shape. The left figure is what the platforms report. The right is what survives a geo holdout.

7 day

Longer windows claim conversions that were already on their way.

25%

People searching your name would mostly have found you anyway.

55%

The higher this is, the more of your reporting is modelled, not observed.

Platform reported ROAS5.30x
Survives a holdout3.40x

Platforms are claiming 36% of revenue a holdout would attribute elsewhere.

Budget steered on unverified numbers: $35,790 per month

Illustrative model driven entirely by the inputs above, on a $100,000 monthly spend. Not client data and not a forecast. The real number for your account comes from a holdout, which is what the audit sets up.

Finding that number for your account is the first week of the audit.

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What the numbers have done elsewhere.

Career outcomes, owned personally. Employers are not named, so each is described by category.

40% to 25%

Marketing cost to revenue at an online furniture retailer, which took the business to profitability. Return on investment moved from 4x to 6x.

120%

Subscriber growth at a pet subscription business, from 3,000 to 7,000 active subscribers, with cohort LTV by source governing budget.

30%+

Year on year new customer growth at a pet care marketplace, while improving both CAC and LTV.

+35%

ROAS at a travel booking marketplace through integrated search, display and CRM.

80%

New customer uplift from one TikTok and YouTube creator partnership.

$1M+

A year in revenue leakage prevented by an AI system monitoring support conversations for off platform payment signals.

Three things, in order.

Diagnose

A full account and tracking review across Meta and Google. Where spend leaks, where attribution overstates, and which reported numbers do not survive a holdout.

Prioritise

A ranked fix list with the expected size of each fix, written so your team knows what to change on Monday without another meeting.

Operate

If you want ongoing help, weekly senior oversight with async access in between. Your team keeps running the day to day.

Services

Two ways to work together.

Paid Media and Attribution Audit

$5,000 AUD2 weeksFixed scope
  • Full account review across Meta and Google, structure through to creative
  • Tracking and attribution gap analysis, server side and platform reported variance
  • Prioritised fix list ranked by expected impact against effort
  • Reporting dashboard recommendation your team can run without me
  • One working session to walk the team through every finding

Fractional Head of Paid Media

From $3,500 / month3 clients max
  • Weekly senior oversight of strategy, budget and measurement
  • Async access in between for decisions that cannot wait
  • No lock in contract
  • By invitation after an audit, so we both know the account first

What $5,000 actually buys.

Seven checks. Open any of them to see what it looks for and what it usually turns up at this spend level.

Conversion tracking integrity
Looks forDuplicate events, missing deduplication keys, browser and server events double counting the same purchase, test traffic landing in production.
Usually findsBetween 4% and 20% of recorded conversions are the same event counted twice. Every efficiency metric built on top inherits the error.
Attribution window and modelling settings
Looks forView-through windows left on platform defaults, modelled conversion share, and whether the reporting window matches the actual purchase cycle.
Usually findsA 7 or 28 day view-through window on a product people buy in two days, inflating reported performance on upper funnel campaigns.
Branded and non-branded separation
Looks forWhether branded search is reported separately from acquisition, and what share of blended ROAS it is quietly carrying.
Usually findsBranded search propping up the account average, hiding that cold acquisition is unprofitable.
Structure and budget concentration
Looks forCampaign and ad set structure, budget concentration, overlapping audiences competing in the same auction.
Usually findsA long tail of ad sets below the learning threshold, and two campaigns bidding against each other for the same person.
Creative testing velocity
Looks forRate of new concepts entering the account, fatigue curves by placement, and whether tests are powered enough to read.
Usually findsVariation being mistaken for testing. New colours on the same concept, called an experiment.
Retargeting incrementality
Looks forShare of budget on audiences that already intended to purchase, and whether any holdout has ever been run against them.
Usually findsRetargeting reported as the best performing line in the account, and no evidence it caused anything.
Reporting stack and source of truth
Looks forWhere the numbers in the board deck come from, how far they sit from the platform and from the payment processor, and who reconciles them.
Usually findsThree sources of truth and no agreed one, so every meeting reopens the same argument.

Is this built for you?

Move the slider to your monthly paid media spend. The honest answer updates as you go, including when it is no.

$60,000
Monthly paid media spend, AUD

Across Meta, Google and everything else combined.

The audit is the right entry.

At this level there is usually enough spend for a measurement error to be expensive, and enough structure for a fix list to pay for itself inside a quarter.

Client results.

Nothing published yet. This practice is new, and inventing testimonials would be a strange way to open a relationship built on measurement. Results will be published here as engagements complete, with permission and with the real numbers. Until then the figures above are career outcomes, stated conservatively, and the model above runs on your inputs rather than on a client's account.

Questions

Answered before you ask.

Do you guarantee a ROAS or CAC number?
No. A guarantee at this spend level is either a guess or a way of managing your expectations rather than your account. What I commit to is a diagnosis you can act on and numbers you can verify independently of what the platforms report.
Is this an agency?
No. One person, your account. No juniors, no account manager layer, no pool of clients sharing a strategist. That is also why the retainer is capped at three clients.
What happens after the audit?
Often nothing, by design. Plenty of brands take the fix list to their existing team or agency and implement it themselves. The audit is a fixed scope diagnostic, not a sales call with a deliverable attached.
Will you take over campaign management?
No. I work at the level of strategy, budget allocation and measurement, alongside whoever runs day to day execution. If you need someone building campaigns daily, you need a different hire.
What do you need from me to start?
Read access to Meta Ads, Google Ads, your analytics and whatever reporting stack you use. No admin transfers, no changes to account ownership, no access to billing.
How quickly do you reply?
Within two business days, Sydney time. If we are not a fit I will say so in that reply rather than book a call to tell you.

Book a call

Fifteen minutes, no pitch.

Tell me what is not working and what you are spending. If we are not a fit I will say so on the call rather than sell you an audit you do not need.

Built for brands spending $20,000+ a month on paid media.
Monday to Friday, Sydney time.

15 minutes with me

No juniors, no discovery team, no qualifying call before the real call. You get the person who would run the audit.

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Prefer to write? italo@italocamargo.com