For years, Arbortec Forestwear used Meta ads mainly for brand awareness, relying on standard post boosting to reach audiences and brand awareness. While this kept the brand visible, it did not generate strong commercial results, with return on ad spend (ROAS) staying around 2x.
In Q3 2025, I led a shift in strategy to focus on driving direct sales through Shopify. The goal was to turn Meta into a performance sales channel rather than just a visibility tool. This was challenging because Arbortec’s products are highly specialised, targeting a niche audience of arborists and outdoor professionals who make careful purchasing decisions. That made this more of a challenge than a typical e-commerce product.
The project involved improving strategy, setting up proper tracking, refining audience targeting, enhancing creative content, and managing budgets more effectively. As a result, performance improved significantly, exceeding expectations.
Product & Audience Evaluation
The first step was to properly understand Arbortec’s product positioning and the behavioural patterns of its target audience on social platforms. Arbortec operates in a niche professional market, and it was important to assess whether that audience was reachable and convertible through paid social. After reviewing historical sales data, organic social performance, and competitor activity, I identified that there was real conversion potential on Meta, provided the approach was structured around the right audience, creative, and targeting rather than simply boosting reach.
I also conducted a brief audit of all previously run paid campaigns, reviewing their creative assets, audience setups, budget allocation, and performance data to identify gaps and missed opportunities.
Campaign Strategy
With a clear picture of the audience and product landscape, I developed a campaign strategy tailored to Arbortec’s brand positioning and commercial goals. A key structural decision was to segment campaigns by country, ensuring that each market received targeted creative, relevant messaging, and a localised content focus. This avoided the common mistake of running generic multi-territory campaigns that reduce performance by failing to speak directly to any single audience.
Sales campaigns and brand awareness campaigns were kept separate, making it easier to track performance across the funnel and optimise accordingly.
Technical Infrastructure & Conversion Tracking
Before launching anything, the technical setup needed to be solid. I carried out a full audit of Arbortec’s Meta ad account, covering the Meta Pixel, Conversions API, product catalogue, audience settings, and ad policy compliance.
The audit found serious problems with conversion tracking and product catalogue syncing between Meta and Shopify. These issues were causing problems with audience targeting and conflicts within the ad setup, which hurt overall campaign performance. I worked directly with Meta’s marketing pro team to fix this, and we set up server-side conversion tracking using the Conversions API (CAPI). This meant purchases and other key actions were being recorded accurately, regardless of browser tracking limitations. The catalogue sync issues were also fully resolved, allowing dynamic product ads to work properly.
Audience Architecture & Remarketing
Audience targeting is one of the most important factors in paid social. Given Arbortec’s niche market, I moved away from broad interest-based targeting and focused on building high-quality custom audiences with stronger buying intent.
Arbortec runs a solid email marketing programme through third party email marketing tool. I used the API to connect Facebook custom audience and build country-specific custom audiences using existing email lists, allowing us to retarget engaged subscribers and past customers directly on Meta ads. This remarketing approach became one of the biggest drivers of campaign performance, as these people already knew the brand and had shown real interest in the products. Paired with Meta’s Advantage+ AI targeting, this gave us a layered approach that balanced precision with broader reach.
Ad Format Selection
Arbortec has a great creative advantage: a library of real-world content showing their products in action across genuine forestry and arborist environments. This kind of content performs well on social media because it builds trust and shows what the products can actually do, far better than studio photography.
After consulting with the Meta pro team, the campaigns were built around three ad formats: Catalogue Ads for product-level targeting, Reels ads for reach and awareness, and Carousel Ads for showcasing ranges and trigger actions. This mix gave the algorithm plenty of variety to work with and ensured strong coverage across all placement types.
Budget Allocation & Campaign Timing
Rather than splitting the budget evenly, I used a 4:1 ratio in favour of sales campaigns over brand awareness. This kept the focus firmly on driving conversions, where it mattered most.
Timing also played a big part. By matching the campaign calendar to Arbortec’s product launches, seasonal promotions, and key retail dates, I made sure the budget was being spent at the right moments. Black Friday was flagged early as the most important window of the year and planned for well in advance.
The new sales campaigns went live at the end of September 2025. Performance improved significantly and consistently across every key metric, finishing with a record-breaking Q4.
Monthly average ROAS achieved in November, driven by the Black Friday campaign.
Peak PerformanceROAS achieved during the Black Friday promotional campaign specifically.
Black Friday RecordConversion value generated through Meta ads in November alone, the highest monthly figure in Arbortec's history.
Historic HighSustained average ROAS maintained consistently across all other months.
300% YoY GrowthAverage monthly contribution of Meta paid ads to Arbortec's total store revenue.
Revenue SharePurchases completed through paid ads on the website, a 950%+ increase compared to 2024.
950%+ GrowthTotal conversion value generated through paid ads in Q4 alone, representing 900%+ growth versus all of 2024.
Q4 TotalTotal reach achieved across campaigns, up 58% year on year, with 6.4M total impressions (85% growth).
Reach & AwarenessMeta paid ads became Arbortec's highest-performing paid channel by conversion value in Q4 2025, contributing directly to the brand exceeding its annual sales target for the year.
A lot of companies go straight to Google Ads when they want to drive sales. It makes sense, but this project shows that Meta Ads can be just as effective for the right product and audience. The key is knowing how to use the platform properly rather than treating it as a boosting tool.
Understanding your customer is the most important starting point. Arbortec’s audience are working professionals who research before they buy. To reach them effectively, we needed accurate targeting, genuine content, and a remarketing setup that kept the brand in front of them throughout their decision process. Generic broad targeting would not have worked here.
Getting the technical setup right made a real difference. The tracking and catalogue issues we found were quietly limiting performance without anyone realising. Once we fixed those through the Conversions API, the campaign had the clean data it needed to optimise properly. That groundwork was essential before anything else could perform well.
It is also worth remembering that good ads alone are not enough. The website experience, the quality of the content, customer service, and brand trust all touchpoints play a part in whether someone actually buys. Arbortec had those things in place, and the paid strategy was built to work alongside them.
If you are running Meta Ads at a meaningful spend level, it is also worth reaching out to Meta’s marketing pro support team. They provided useful guidance at several points during this project and helped us resolve issues faster than we would have on our own.
This project was a good reminder that a niche audience is not a barrier to paid social ads success. With the right approach, it can actually be a real advantage.