Case #058: The split that flattered my dashboard

Case #058: The split that flattered my dashboard

E-commerce campaign, $5,000 a month. The agency before me ran 60% of budget into retargeting because the ROAS was gorgeous: 8.1x. I cut it to 25% and watched what happened.

The trap: retargeting ROAS is a vanity number. Those buyers had already seen the brand from prospecting. The pixel was taking credit for sales that cold traffic teed up. When retargeting ate 60% of budget, total revenue was $31,000.

When I flipped it — 75% prospecting, 25% retargeting — prospecting ROAS looked worse on the dashboard, 2.4x, and retargeting ROAS even climbed to 9.3x because it now had a fuller funnel to harvest. But total revenue rose to $44,000 on the same $5,000.

The reason: retargeting can only re-sell people prospecting already found. Starve the top of the funnel to chase the pretty bottom-of-funnel number, and you're just harvesting a field nobody planted. There's a saturation point — past ~30% of budget, every retargeting dollar competes for the same shrinking pool and the incremental return craters.

Final arc: same $5,000, two months. Retargeting-heavy returned $31k with a beautiful blended ROAS. Prospecting-heavy returned $44k with an uglier one.

The lesson: retargeting is the easiest number to fall in love with and the easiest to overfeed — it harvests, it doesn't plant, and a campaign that only harvests starves.