A new Shopify store in India should budget ₹30,000–50,000 per month in ad spend for its first quarter — enough data to find winning audiences and creatives without gambling the business. Below ₹30,000 monthly, campaigns learn too slowly to optimise; the budget burns without teaching you anything.
Why the First Quarter Is a Testing Budget
Paid marketing is a machine you calibrate, not a tap you turn on. The first 4–8 weeks buy answers: which audiences respond, which creative hooks stop thumbs, which products carry the account. Expect modest returns during testing and improving ROAS after — our own accounts average target ROAS in month two. The honest economics for small stores are covered in is performance marketing worth it for small stores.
How to Split the Budget
- 60% cold prospecting — finding new buyers (Meta ads for discovery-led products; Google Shopping if people already search for what you sell).
- 25% retargeting — cart abandoners and product viewers convert at multiples of cold traffic. Never skip this layer.
- 15% creative testing — new hooks and formats weekly. In 2026, creative is the targeting.
Before You Spend a Rupee
Ads multiply what your store already does — including its failures. Check the signs your store needs CRO first; if product pages are weak or checkout leaks on mobile, fix that before funding traffic to it. A store converting at 1% pays double per acquisition vs the same store at 2% — the maths is laid out in how much CRO increases sales.
What Management Costs on Top
Agency management fees in India run ₹15,000–50,000/month or 10–20% of spend. Our performance marketing service reports on three numbers only — revenue, ROAS, cost per acquisition — and because we also handle CRO, ad learnings and store fixes feed each other instead of living in separate agencies’ slide decks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I start with ₹10,000/month in ads?+
You can test creatives and audiences, but expect learning, not profit — the data trickles in too slowly to optimise properly. Save until you can commit ₹30,000+/month for a real testing quarter, or spend the smaller budget on fixing conversion first.
Should a brand-new store run ads from day one?+
Only if the store converts. Send paid traffic to an untested store and you pay to discover its problems. A soft-launch month with organic and WhatsApp traffic first surfaces the issues for free.
What ROAS should a new Indian D2C store expect?+
Break-even ROAS for most D2C margins sits around 2–2.5x. A healthy account typically reaches 3–4x after the testing phase. Anyone promising 8x in month one is selling a story.