Most ad budgets are judged by how much money goes into them. We prefer to judge them by what they bring back.
Between 15 August and 14 September 2026, we ran a Meta Ads campaign for a Singapore e-commerce brand focused on generating pre-orders and orders. This was not our first campaign together, but it became one of our most efficient.
During a focused campaign performance window, the campaign generated:
- $1,314.90 in total ad spend
- 222 orders
- $11,107 in revenue
- $5.92 average cost per order
- 8.45x return on ad spend
In simple terms, every dollar invested in the campaign generated $8.45 in revenue.
The result did not come from one unusually successful ad or a sudden increase in budget. It came from building one campaign where prospecting found new customers and remarketing brought interested visitors back.
Meta Ads Case Study Results At A Glance:
| Campaign Metric | Result |
| Total ad spend | $1,314.90 |
| Average daily spend | About $69 |
| Total orders | 222 |
| Average cost per order | $5.92 |
| Total revenue | $11,107 |
| Overall ROAS | 8.45x |
| Remarketing ROAS | 11.46x |
The Challenge: A Short Sales Window With No Room For Guesswork
Pre-order and order campaigns move quickly. Interest rises, purchase intent peaks and the window can close before a brand has finished testing its campaign.
That meant we could not afford to put the entire budget behind one broad audience and wait to see what happened.
Instead, we built the campaign around two complementary ad sets:
- Prospecting: Reaching new people who had never visited the website
- Remarketing: Re-engaging people who had already visited the website in 2026
The logic was straightforward: new audiences fill the funnel, while warm audiences help convert existing interest into sales.
This is the foundation of an effective paid media strategy. Prospecting and remarketing should not operate as isolated tactics. Each one makes the other more valuable.
Why Audience Structure Mattered:
Facebook and Instagram give advertisers in Singapore a considerable audience to work with. DataReportal’s Digital 2026 Singapore report estimates that the country has 3.80 million Facebook users and 3.35 million Instagram users.
But access to a large audience does not automatically create efficient advertising.
The real task is identifying which people need an introduction to the brand and which are already close enough to purchasing that they only need the right reminder.
By separating prospecting from remarketing, we could measure the role each audience played instead of blending every user into one campaign group.
Where The Campaign’s Strongest Returns Came From:
The headline result was an 8.45x ROAS, but the more revealing story appeared when we compared the two ad sets.
1.Remarketing Performance:
The remarketing campaign spent $439.38 and generated:
- 98 orders
- $4.48 cost per order
- 11.46x ROAS
Remarketing used only about one-third of the total budget but produced approximately 45% of the campaign’s revenue.
Its cost per order was also around 37% lower than prospecting.
This efficiency makes sense when we consider how people buy online. Someone who has already visited a website knows something about the brand and has demonstrated a degree of interest. That person may not need another introduction. They may simply need a timely reason to return.
Meta’s Website Custom Audiences are designed for this purpose. Using Meta Pixel data, advertisers can reconnect with people who have previously visited particular pages or taken relevant actions on their website.
2.Prospecting Performance
The prospecting campaign spent $875.52 and generated:
- 124 orders
- $7.06 cost per order
- 6.93x ROAS
Remarketing achieved higher efficiency, but prospecting produced more than half of the campaign’s total orders.
A 6.93x ROAS from an audience unfamiliar with the brand was a strong result in its own right. More importantly, prospecting continually introduced new potential customers into the funnel, creating the audience that future remarketing campaigns could reach.
Should Advertisers Put The Entire Budget Into Remarketing?
No. Remarketing can only convert demand that already exists. Prospecting is what keeps creating that demand.
This is where many advertisers misread their campaign reports.
A high remarketing ROAS may make it tempting to move most of the budget towards warm audiences. But that audience has a natural limit. Without prospecting, fewer new people visit the website, the remarketing pool stops growing and performance eventually stalls.
The two ad sets were not competing against each other:
- Prospecting found potential customers.
- Remarketing brought interested visitors back.
- Together, they generated 222 orders and an overall 8.45x ROAS.
The right lesson is not that remarketing is better than prospecting. It is that each needs a clear purpose, an appropriate budget and its own performance expectations.
What We Are Watching Next:
Even a strong Meta Ads campaign leaves useful lessons behind.
1. Creative Fatigue
Across the campaign days, each person saw the advertisements almost five times on average.
That frequency worked within a short campaign window. However, a longer campaign would require fresh creative variations to prevent people from repeatedly seeing the same message.
New visuals, hooks, formats and product angles can help maintain attention without changing the campaign’s underlying structure.
2. Tracking Quality
Meta can only optimise around the conversion events it can accurately detect.
Combining Meta Pixel with the server-side Conversions API can create larger, more stable website audiences and provide the platform with better conversion signals.
We reached a similar conclusion in our case study on how we reduced cost per lead by 55% in just 30 days: better campaign decisions begin with dependable data.
3. Audience Growth
The 11.46x remarketing ROAS shows the value of building warm audiences deliberately. But the 6.93x prospecting ROAS proves that reaching new customers can remain profitable while supporting future campaign performance.
The next opportunity is therefore not to choose one audience over the other. It is to keep improving the relationship between them.
Four Lessons Worth Keeping:
1. A modest budget can still generate meaningful revenue
The campaign averaged about $69 a day, yet generated $11,107 in revenue. Budget size matters, but structure, targeting and measurement can matter more.
2. Warm audiences often convert more efficiently
People who already recognise a brand require less persuasion. Remarketing helped turn that familiarity into an 11.46x ROAS and a $4.48 cost per order.
3. Prospecting keeps the entire funnel moving
Remarketing cannot grow indefinitely without new visitors. Prospecting brought in 124 orders while replenishing the pool of potential customers for future campaigns.
4. Revenue and ROAS matter more than surface-level activity
Impressions and clicks can indicate interest, but they do not reveal whether advertising is producing commercially useful results. Orders, revenue, acquisition cost and return on ad spend tell the more important story.
The Final Result: $1,314.90 In, $11,107 Out
There was no hidden trick behind the campaign.
The result came from a sensible division of responsibilities: one campaign reached new customers, while another brought interested visitors back. Accurate tracking allowed both to optimise around actions that mattered to the business.
Together, they turned $1,314.90 in ad spend into $11,107 in revenue, generating 222 orders at an average cost of $5.92 and delivering an overall 8.45x ROAS.
If your campaigns are generating clicks but not enough orders, the answer may not be a bigger advertising budget. It may be a smarter campaign structure.
Explore more of our work in the RHAD portfolio, learn about our Meta Ads agency services in Singapore and SEO services, or book a free consultation to find out what your ad account could be doing better.
