Management on retainer
Strategy, continuous optimisation, and reporting, focused on MER and real margin, not just on platform ROAS.
I read the business before I touch the campaigns.
Freelance performance marketing manager, 6+ years running Google Ads and Meta Ads for e-commerce brands in Europe and the US.
About
Strategy and execution, in one person.
Francesca Maffei, freelance performance marketing manager for 6+ years. I led the paid media team of a multi-market e-commerce brand across 8 markets, on a six-figure monthly budget, reporting directly to the CEO. Before that, a portfolio of DTC brands across food, pet, home, and children’s products, among others.
I don't switch between strategy and execution: I hold both levels together, down to query and bid level.
Retainer · Setup · White-label
Three ways to work together.
Setup and restructuring
Campaign structure, audiences, bidding, and creative testing built from scratch or rebuilt from the ground up, aligned with business goals.
White-label collaborations
A senior external resource for agencies, on high-budget accounts and multi-market structures across Europe and the US.
One person owns the account from start to finish. Scope agreed before we start, no extras appearing later.
Most paid media relationships work like this: you ask, they execute. What is harder to find is someone who cares enough about your results to tell you when the ask is not the right move.
Real results
The numbers aren't promises, they're patterns.
-30%
Share of revenue taken by spend (ERS), year on year
Multi-market gifting retailer, after rebuilding the search structure
What was behind it
- Context
- Gifting retailer, 8 European markets, six-figure monthly budget.
- Situation
- A fragmented account that was hard to manage: broad keywords capturing branded and unqualified traffic, heavy overlap between campaigns, and relevant demand left uncovered across several markets and search intents.
- What I did
- Rebuilt the search structure by intent and by market, separating branded, generic, local, and international demand into a setup that could be replicated country by country. Expanded coverage with keywords and ad copy aligned to intent. Introduced new Shopping campaigns, allocating budget by profitability and by the role of each campaign.
- Result
- ERS came down 30% year on year, with market-level visibility and control and broader, more structured search coverage. ERS stands for efficient revenue share: how much ad spend weighs on the revenue it generates, which is the exact inverse of MER. It is a ratio where lower is better, so a 30% drop is an efficiency gain.
-17%
CPA, after shifting to UGC
DTC pet food brand, Meta Ads acquisition
What was behind it
- Context
- DTC pet food brand, acquisition on Meta.
- Situation
- Acquisition on cold audiences, where the sale is decided at the first touchpoint and the creative carries the result. The static ads weren't holding up on the metrics that actually matter.
- What I did
- Shifted the approach to authentic video UGC, working with creators to produce new assets and testing different hooks, captions, and formats. Used hook rate and hold rate as leading indicators, then reallocated budget to the strongest creatives and folded the winners into evergreen campaigns.
- Result
- -17% CPA and +22% conversion volume, with +35% hook rate and +20% hold rate.
+151%
Site CVR
After diagnosing a bug in the cart, US e-commerce brand
What was behind it
- Context
- US e-commerce brand selling personalised products.
- Situation
- Campaigns were bringing traffic, but site conversion stayed low and no platform report explained why.
- What I did
- I walked the purchase funnel myself, all the way through, the way a customer would. People clicked on exactly what the ad promised, then saw a shipping charge that contradicted it, at the one moment that decides whether they buy. Free shipping was real, promised in the ads and again on the site.
- Result
- +151% site CVR and +96% cart-to-checkout after the fix, with the campaign structure left untouched.
What holds results back is often not inside the account.
Fit first
Fit matters as much as skill.
DTC e-commerce, Europe or US
Budget already active or planned
Food, gifting, children’s products, and more
Direct access to the decision maker
Questions
What people ask before we start.
What's the first thing you look at when you take over an account?
The structure, always. It's not the most exciting part to talk about, but it's the one that decides whether scaling will mean anything. Without that step, scaling just means doing more of what's already there, problems included.
Recommending a budget increase is one of the last steps in my process, not the first.
Would you tell me if paid isn't the right move right now?
I'll tell you.
It has happened before: a client came in ready, budget set and goal clear. But the product page converted at under 1%, and the offer had no margin that could support the CAC the channel needed. The answer wasn't a campaign structure. It was: not yet. Not the conversation they were expecting. Still the most useful one.
Once we start, how often do we check in and what do I get?
A weekly update with the operational input, and a monthly strategic report. I reply within 24 hours on working days. The scope is agreed in writing before we start, so you know upfront what's in and what isn't.
Let's see if it makes sense to work together.
If spend goes up and results don't, and nobody can tell you why, that's where I start. Tell me about your store in a 30-minute call, and let's see if there's a fit.
Let's see if it makes sense