Digital Access Consultingdirect response · paid media

digitalaccessconsulting.com

Every ad dollar leaves with a job. We track it until it comes back.

We are a direct response agency that runs paid media like a logistics operation. Every dollar gets a destination, a tracking number, and a return date. If it doesn't come back with friends, we find out why.

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The story

The life of a dollar

Most agencies show you the ad. We'd rather show you the trip. Here is what happens to a single dollar of your budget once we put it to work, from the spreadsheet it starts in to the bank account it comes back to.

1The plan

It starts as a hypothesis.

Before your dollar goes anywhere, it gets assigned to a test cell. A cell is one audience, one offer, one creative angle. We split the first budget across several cells on purpose, because nobody knows the winner on day one.

The plan is written down before launch, including what result would make us kill a cell. That way the data makes the decision, and nobody falls in love with an ad.

Launch allocation$1,000 test
Cell A
35%
Cell B
25%
Cell C
25%
Cell D
15%
kill rule: CPA > $140 after 40 clicks
2The auction

It enters an auction it can't see.

Every time a page loads on Facebook, a news site, or a search result, an auction runs in a fraction of a second. Your dollar is bidding against every other advertiser who wants that same person.

We don't win by bidding the most. We win by telling the platform exactly which outcome we're paying for, and by feeding it clean conversion data so it learns who actually buys.

Auction ledgerper $1,000
Avg. CPM$14.20
Impressions won70,422
Optimization eventPurchase
Signal sourceServer-side API
3The click

Someone stops scrolling.

An impression is cheap. Attention is expensive. This is where creative earns its keep, and where we test headlines, hooks, and offers the same way a direct mail shop tests envelopes.

Then the funnel starts leaking. Each step loses people, and each leak has a cost. We measure every step so we fix the expensive leak first instead of the obvious one.

Funnelstep rate
Impr.
70,422
Clicks
1,056
Leads
32
Sales
9
CTR 1.5% · lead rate 3.0% · close rate 28%
4The follow-up

It takes more than one touch.

Very few people buy the first time they see an ad. They read an article, forget about you, search your name a week later, and then buy. Every platform will try to take full credit for that sale.

We reconcile the platforms against your actual orders, so you see one number you can trust. When the stakes are high, we run holdout tests that switch a channel off for part of the audience to prove what it really adds.

One buyer's path9 days
FB ad→Native article→Brand search→Purchase
Facebook says1 sale
Native network says1 sale
Google says1 sale
Your bank says1 sale
we report the bank's number
5The return

It comes home and gets reassigned.

Nine sales at a $310 average order brings $2,790 back on the original $1,000. Then the cycle starts again. Losing cells are shut off, the winning cell gets more budget, and the next round of tests begins.

This is the whole job: move money toward what works, faster than your competitors do. It isn't glamorous. It compounds.

Settlementexample campaign
Spend$1,000.00
Sales × AOV9 × $310
Revenue$2,790.00
ROAS2.79×
Cost per sale$111.11
round 2 → Cell A gets 60%

The math

Run your own numbers

Before we talk creative, we talk unit economics. Change any field and the ledger updates. If the break-even line looks out of reach, it's better to know that before spending a dollar.

sample figures, swap in yours
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$
%
$
%
Clicks–
Orders–
Cost per order–
Revenue–
Break-even ROAS–
ROAS–
–

Channels

Three channels, one ledger

Each channel plays a different role in the story. We plan them together and judge them by the same rule: what did this spend add that wouldn't have happened without it?

the closer

Facebook Advertising

Paid campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, and Meta's network. Built for testing at speed: dozens of creative and audience combinations, cut down to the few that pay.

  • We watchCPA, ROAS, hook rate
  • TrackingPixel + Conversions API
  • CadenceCreative refresh weekly

Best when you have a clear offer and need customers this quarter.

the reputation

Brand Advertising

Reach and video campaigns that make people remember your name before they need you. Done right, brand spend makes every direct response dollar cheaper later.

  • We watchBrand lift, branded search
  • TrackingGeo holdouts, lift studies
  • CadenceRead monthly, judge quarterly

Best when your direct response costs are creeping up and the audience is tired.

the storyteller

Native Advertising

Sponsored articles and in-feed placements on news and content sites. Native gives you room to explain a product that doesn't sell in five seconds.

  • We watchRead depth, pre-sell CTR, CPA
  • TrackingPlacement-level IDs
  • CadenceSite blocklists weekly

Best when the product needs a story, a demo, or a reason to believe.

How we operate

Tracking before traffic

No campaign launches until conversions are firing correctly and matched against your order data.

Kill rules in writing

Every test has a budget cap and a failure threshold agreed in advance.

A weekly ledger

One page every week: spend, return, what we cut, what we scaled, and what we're testing next.

FAQ

Questions we get asked

Facebook Advertising

Is Facebook advertising still worth it?

For most direct response offers, yes. Facebook and Instagram still hold one of the largest pools of targetable attention anywhere. Whether it's worth it for you comes down to one comparison: what it costs to get a customer versus what that customer is worth to you. We work that out with you before launch.

How much budget do I need to start?

Enough to give the algorithm data. Meta's system learns best when an ad set gets around 50 conversions in a week. If your budget can't support that on purchases, we optimize for an earlier step, like leads or add-to-carts, and move down the funnel as volume grows.

How do you track results after the iOS privacy changes?

We set up the Conversions API so purchase data goes from your server to Meta directly, alongside the browser pixel. Then we reconcile Meta's reported numbers against your actual orders every week. Where the gap matters, we run holdout tests.

How long before we see results?

Expect two to four weeks of structured testing before the numbers settle. You'll see data from day one, but early results are noisy. We tell you what the data says and how confident we are in it.

Brand Advertising

Why would a direct response agency do brand advertising?

Because brand makes direct response cheaper. People who already know your name click more, convert more, and cost less to reach. We run brand campaigns with the same discipline as everything else, and we measure what they do to your acquisition costs.

How do you measure something that doesn't get clicked?

With tests designed for it. Brand lift studies survey exposed and unexposed groups. Geo holdouts run ads in some regions and not others, then compare sales. We also track branded search volume and direct traffic, which tend to move when awareness does.

How should budget be split between brand and performance?

A common reference point from marketing effectiveness research is roughly 60% brand and 40% activation over the long run. For most direct response businesses we start far more performance-heavy and add brand once the core acquisition engine is profitable.

Native Advertising

What is native advertising?

Paid placements that match the format of the site they appear on. Think sponsored articles, "recommended for you" content widgets on news sites, and in-feed promoted posts. The ad looks at home on the page, and it's clearly labeled as sponsored.

Is native advertising disclosed?

It must be. The FTC requires native ads to be clearly identified as advertising, and the networks enforce labels like "Sponsored." We follow those rules on every placement and every landing page.

What kind of offer works well on native?

Products that need some explaining. Native traffic arrives in reading mode, so a well-built article page that tells the story before the pitch often outperforms a straight sales page. We test the article, the headline, and the thumbnail as separate variables.

Native networks have low-quality placements. How do you handle that?

We track performance down to the individual site, cut the ones that don't convert, and maintain blocklists every week. Most of the improvement in a native campaign comes from what you stop buying.

Working with us

What does reporting look like?

A one-page weekly ledger: spend, revenue, cost per customer by channel, what we cut, what we scaled, and what we're testing next. Plus a live dashboard if you want to check in between.

Who owns the ad accounts and the data?

You do. We work inside your ad accounts and your analytics. If we part ways, everything stays with you, including every test result.

How do we get started?

Email us your current numbers: monthly spend, average order value, margin, and what you're running now. We'll come back with a short read on where the money is leaking and whether paid media makes sense for you at all.

Contact

Send us the numbers.

Spend, order value, margin, and what's running now. We'll reply with where we think the next dollar should go.

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