Media buying
SVW plans and executes paid media across the group's brands on Amazon, Walmart, TikTok, Meta and Google.
SVW plans and executes paid media for the group's brands across Amazon, Meta, Google, Walmart and TikTok, managing a multi-million annual budget across them.
Media is the largest controllable cost in most consumer brands after cost of goods. Platform-reported return measures each platform's attributed contribution to itself. It is not a measure of profitability.
Allocation is made against contribution margin after acquisition cost, measured at business level rather than campaign level.
The left column is what platforms report. The right column is what decides whether the business earns more.
Not the number
- ROAS
- ACOS
- Impressions
- Click-through rate
- Last-click attribution
The number
- Contribution margin after acquisition
- Incrementality
- Payback period
- Repeat rate by cohort
- Spend against inventory cover
Establish contribution per order after cost of goods, fulfilment, returns and platform fees. Media decisions cannot be evaluated until that figure exists.
Accounts rebuilt so spend is legible: prospecting separated from retargeting, brand separated from generic, and each channel measured against its actual contribution rather than its attributed one.
A testing rhythm with sufficient volume to produce signal. Creative is the primary lever in paid social and the most frequently under-resourced.
Budget moved between channels and brands weekly, against contribution and against inventory cover.
Creative volume. In paid social, account structure is largely standardised. Creative output volume is the constraint on learning rate.
Measurement that survives scrutiny. Incrementality over last-click, holdouts where spend justifies them, and platform figures treated as one input rather than the conclusion.
Inventory awareness. Acquisition spend directed at a product approaching stockout produces both wasted spend and lost organic position.
Willingness to discontinue. Withdrawing from a channel that is not contributing is among the higher-return decisions available in media allocation.
Optimisation against reported return. Platforms overstate their own attributed contribution. Allocating against the sum of platform claims directs budget toward the most aggressive attribution model.
Creative starvation. Budget increased without a corresponding increase in creative output raises frequency and reduces performance.
Monthly budget cycles. Demand and inventory move within the month. Budgets fixed monthly cannot respond to either.
Efficiency treated as profitability. Reported return can improve while contribution declines.
SVW manages media for its own brands, and for a limited number of external mandates each year.