Case Study: How a Children’s Toys Brand Grew From Zero to 170,000 Monthly Visitors With PPC & Full-Funnel Digital Marketing

When a new children’s toys retailer partnered with Brand Activator, they were entering the digital market with a brand-new Shopify website, zero online visitors, and significant financial pressure after a failed SEO investment. The task was clear: generate traffic, sales, and market share in a highly competitive European market. One of the first challenges was dealing with extraordinarily high CPM levels between €35 and €50, which made it nearly impossible to achieve profitability. Within months, we implemented a full-funnel PPC strategy across Google Ads, Shopping, and Meta (Facebook/Instagram), reducing CPM to sustainable levels between €7 and €15, while steadily building qualified traffic.

Six months later, the client’s site was receiving an average of 70,000 monthly visitors from paid campaigns alone. As SEO efforts started to complement PPC, the number climbed to 170,000 monthly visitors per month, with conversion rates ranging between 0.7% and 4.5% depending on channel and campaign type. Most importantly, the business, which had been at risk of collapsing before it even launched, was now profitable, competitive, and growing consistently.

Brand Activator designed and executed a comprehensive full-funnel strategy to address these challenges and position the client for growth.

Since we had developed the website ourselves on Shopify, we knew the technical foundation was reliable. Still, we optimized the platform for scalability, preparing it to handle tens of thousands of monthly visitors. Product feeds were structured for Google Shopping, and Google Tag Manager was implemented to ensure accurate tracking of conversions, micro-events, and user journeys. At the same time, we set up the Meta Business Manager, including pixel installation, catalog integration, and event configuration, so every action in the funnel could be measured and optimized.

The first strategic priority was tackling the high CPM problem. Through detailed audience segmentation, we identified niches and sub-niches that delivered better efficiency, moving away from broad, expensive targeting. Simultaneously, we invested heavily in creative development, testing multiple ad formats, visuals, and copy to improve CTR and reduce cost per outbound click. The results were decisive: within months, CPM was reduced from €35–50 down to €7–15, a shift that made the business financially viable.

Parallel to this, we launched and scaled Google Search and Shopping campaigns, segmented by categories, price ranges, and product margins. This ensured budget was allocated to the highest-performing product lines. On Meta, we built a full-funnel structure: awareness campaigns using engaging creatives, monthly gamified promotions and contests to drive interaction, and conversion-driven dynamic product ads. Remarketing was layered in to capture users who engaged but did not convert.

We also made a strategic decision to delay influencer collaborations until a later stage. Instead, we prioritized building strong paid campaigns with predictable returns, ensuring the foundation of traffic and sales was solid before expanding into influencer-driven awareness.

The result was not just a working funnel but a scalable growth engine.

The impact of the strategy was profound.

• Traffic grew from 0 monthly visitors to 70,000+ within the first six months, fueled primarily by PPC.
• With SEO beginning to complement paid campaigns, traffic stabilized at around 170,000 monthly visitors per month, creating a powerful synergy between organic and paid channels.
• CPM dropped from €35–50 to €7–15, opening the door for profitability and sustainable scaling.
• Conversion rates ranged from 0.7% to 4.5%, depending on campaign and channel, averaging around 2.8%.
• Cost per outbound click decreased by 63%, from €0.65 to €0.24.
• The client fully recovered their €15,000 deficit in just 6 months, and the business began generating consistent profit and capturing market share.

By structuring campaigns around funnel performance and focusing on efficiency, we turned what was once an impossible advertising environment into a profitable, scalable business.

This case study highlights the power of strategic segmentation, creative excellence, and technical precision in digital marketing. By addressing the critical CPM challenge head-on, preparing the technical foundations with Shopify, Google Tag Manager, and Business Manager setup, and structuring campaigns across Google and Meta, Brand Activator transformed a new, vulnerable business into a strong competitor.

The key takeaways are clear:

• High CPM can be managed and reduced with the right combination of audience segmentation, creative optimization, and campaign structuring.
• Building the right technical foundation—Shopify readiness, product feeds, and tracking—is essential for scale.
• A strong full-funnel PPC strategy delivers predictable results, while influencer and brand collaborations can be layered in later once profitability is secured.
• Even in the most competitive markets, a data-driven approach can recover lost ground and unlock sustainable growth.