I’m a designer building a Shopify app focused on helping merchants who spend $2K+ per month on Meta and Google ads. Before I go further, I want to make sure I’m solving a real problem and not just something I think is a problem.
I’d love to hear from anyone running paid ads for their store:
What’s the most frustrating part of managing your ad spend right now?
Do you trust the ROAS numbers Meta and Google show you?
Have you ever suspected you’re paying for customers who would have found you anyway?
What would you actually pay for? what would make you say “shut up and take my money”?
Not selling anything. The app isn’t ready. I just want to learn from people who live this every day. Happy to share what I find with anyone interested.
Hey Andrii, I saw your reaction to my post about ad spend and ROAS. Since you’re active in the Shopify community, I’m curious, was the ‘laugh’ because you’ve seen a dozen people try to solve this before, or is the ROAS struggle just that ironically painful? Would love your honest take as I’m trying to keep this project grounded in reality.
In all honesty, I highly doubt any business that is spending 2k+ per month on ads is in any need of some new Shopify app that claims to “solve” some big mysterious problem with roas. They hire professionals who have decades of experience working with the advertising platforms.
I think Maximus3 makes a fair point about the $2K+ crowd, but there’s a big gap below that. Merchants spending $500-2K/month on ads are usually doing it themselves and flying pretty blind. They can’t justify an agency but they’re burning enough to really feel it when ROAS numbers don’t match reality.
From what I’ve seen working in the Shopify ecosystem, the trust issue with Meta/Google numbers is real. Most merchants I’ve talked to know the attribution is off but don’t have a practical way to verify it. If you could show someone “hey, you spent $800 last month but $200 of that went to people who were already going to buy” in plain language, that’s genuinely useful.
The validation approach you’re taking here is smart though. One thing I’d push on: are you talking to merchants who already tried an ad optimization app and churned? That’s where the real insights are, because they can tell you exactly what was missing.
I am not sure what you are in the process of building, but from my interactions with Shopify businesses over the last couple of months, your target customers are likely the ones spending $500 or less/mo. As @lumine stated, most at that level are just getting started and trying to keep their heads above water. They are only jumping into paid ads because they see everyone else doing it.
Above $500/mo, I would expect most are (starting to use) using GTM/GA/Some Analytics, and passing tracking parameters, tying it to the cart/sales. 20+ years ago I worked for a startup that optimized paid search by adjusting keyword bids throughout the day based upon ROAS. We required more than $2k/mo spend to collect enough data to make “smart” bids. We also required a tag on the site to get the conversion data. We optimized for Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL. (Yep, I just dated myself)
Very interesting space, thanks for resurfacing some old memories!
@Maximus3 Fair point and honestly that’s part of why I’m doing this research before building assumptions into the product. You’re right that the $10K+ crowd often has agencies or experienced media buyers handling this. But I’m curious from your experience: at what spend level do you typically see merchants start getting professional help with attribution? Because what I keep hearing is there’s a gap where merchants are spending enough to feel real pain from bad data but not enough to justify an agency or a $2K/month enterprise tool.
@lumine This is really helpful, thank you. The $500–$2K range is interesting — I’ve been focused on $2K+ but you’re right that self-serve merchants flying blind in that range might feel this pain even more acutely. And the plain language framing you used. “You spent $800 but $200 went to people who were already going to buy” that’s exactly the clarity I’m trying to deliver.
The churn insight is sharp. I hadn’t thought to specifically recruit merchants who tried an ad optimization app and stopped. That’s going on the list immediately. Would you be open to a DM? I’d love to hear more about what you’ve seen working in the ecosystem.
Yeah happy to chat more about it. From the partner side I see a lot of merchants in that $500-2K range who know their ads aren’t working well but don’t have the data skills to figure out why. The plain language angle you’re going for is exactly what they need.
For the churn research, try filtering Shopify App Store reviews for ad/attribution apps with 1-2 stars. You’ll find very specific complaints about what made people leave. That’s basically free user research.
Feel free to DM me, always interested to see what people are building in this space.