Paid Ads Strategy: Focus on One Country or Multiple?

Ask Me Anything Q&A Codethatconvertsama

Topic summary

A Shopify store owner selling designer woven blankets is deciding between targeting a single European country versus multiple countries for their initial paid advertising campaign. They’re also considering whether to start with Instagram or Pinterest ads.

Key recommendation provided:

  • Start with one country and one platform to reduce complexity
  • Focus on mastering the fundamentals first before scaling

Critical factors to consider when running ads:

  • Audience targeting and ideal customer definition
  • Ad creative (images, video, copy)
  • Landing page optimization
  • Performance tracking and analytics
  • Customer journey analysis

Platform suggestion:
Meta ads (Instagram) recommended as the starting point, as most successful merchants use this platform. However, testing is emphasized as the only way to determine what actually works.

The discussion remains open with limited input so far.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi everyone,

I recently launched my Shopify store. I’m selling designer woven blankets and planning to use paid ads to grow.

I’m wondering: is it better to start by focusing on just one country (like Germany or France), or can I target multiple countries in Europe right from the beginning? I’m wondering if I should start with Instagram or Pinterest ads?

I would love to hear your experiences or tips on what worked best for you.

Thank you!

2

Hey @VesnaBerlin ,
I’ve only done organic content so take my advice with a grain of salt but it’s probably a good move to just focus on one country and one single platform.
That way you can focus on learning how to run ads and set up a campaign properly.

When it comes to running ads there’s a lot of things to think about like:

  • The specific audience you are showing the ad to (idea customer)
  • The images/video and text used in the ad
  • The landing page for the ad (or product page you want to use for it)
  • Tracking ad performance
  • Analyzing the customer journey of the people who actually click on the ad
  • Lots of other stuff

Since there is so much that goes into running the ad, I think it’s best to limit the complexity and just focus on one country and figure that out before you target all of Europe.

But again I’m no ads expert so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Out of all the successful merchants I’ve seen, most use Meta ads so Instagram sounds like a great place to start but you’ll never know what works until you try stuff.

If I were in your position, I would start out with Instagram and focus on learning how to process works and tracking all your changes as you make tweaks to your campaign.