CASE STUDIES
Client names anonymized to protect confidentiality. Happy to share more details under NDA during an engagement conversation.
Strategic Advisory — Growth Strategy Audit
$40M ARR DTC health and wellness brand
The company had plateaued at $3M/month in ad spend across Google and Meta. CAC had risen 60% in 18 months. Internal team was convinced the answer was "more creative testing." Leadership was not sure.
Four-week Growth Strategy Audit. Cretova reviewed the full paid acquisition function, attribution setup, channel mix, team structure, and landing page infrastructure.
Delivered a 42-page strategic report identifying that creative was not the bottleneck — attribution was. The client's in-house team had been optimizing to last-click Meta conversions that were 70% driven by brand search. Recommended a five-point restructuring: MMM implementation, 40% budget reallocation to native and CTV, landing page overhaul for three top products, and a new attribution framework. Client implemented over the following six months.
Channel Execution — Native Advertising
$15M ARR B2C SaaS, previously 100% on Google and Meta
Wanted to diversify channels but had tried Taboola and Outbrain twice with no success. Believed native did not work for them.
Six-month native advertising management engagement. Cretova rebuilt the native strategy from scratch — new creative angles, new landing pages built specifically for native traffic, new optimization cadence.
Scaled native spend from $0 to $150,000/month over five months at a 3.2x blended ROAS, capturing volume that was not available in Google and Meta auctions. Native became the client's second-largest acquisition channel by month six.
Strategic Advisory — M&A Due Diligence
Mid-market private equity firm evaluating a performance marketing acquisition
The PE firm was considering a $40M+ acquisition of a DTC brand whose growth was almost entirely driven by paid acquisition. They needed an independent assessment of whether the growth was real and repeatable, or fragile and platform-dependent.
Two-week due diligence review. Cretova analyzed the target's ad account data, creative strategy, attribution methodology, customer acquisition economics, and team capability.
Delivered a 25-page diagnostic flagging three critical risks: 70% of growth was attributable to a single creative concept nearing fatigue, attribution was overstating Meta's contribution by approximately 30%, and the in-house team lacked senior paid media leadership. PE firm used the findings to renegotiate the deal terms and secure $8M in earn-out protection.
Want to hear more? Happy to walk through any of these in detail, or talk about whether something similar makes sense for your situation.
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