Client work
An established footwear e-commerce brand — the work here isn't a site build, it's tracking and paid media audits that found real, expensive gaps hiding behind a dashboard that looked normal.
The work
What
Tracking and measurement audit, Google Ads Search management, and paid media (Meta boost) analysis, for an established e-commerce brand — attributed here directly rather than anonymized, though the client relationship itself sits with Lamar Social, not Ara Node.
Why
An established brand's paid media job isn't creating demand from nothing — it already has that. The job is defending what's already earned (its own branded search) and putting money behind what's already proven to convert, instead of guessing at new paid-only creative. And none of it means anything if the analytics reporting it back can't be trusted, which is why the dashboard gets audited, not assumed.
How
On Google, Search campaigns defend branded terms from competitors bidding on the brand's own name — a different job than the acquisition-focused Search work done for a new business like Key Tours. On Meta, a boost campaign created via the Ads API was compared directly against a native Instagram boost with identical targeting — treated as not automatically equivalent until tested. A full tracking audit checked whether every browser tag, server-side connection, and consent setting was actually working, not just installed.
The Google Ads angle: unlike a new business creating demand from zero, an established brand with existing search demand needs Search spend defending its own branded terms from competitors bidding on the name — and budget behind the organic posts already proven to convert, rather than untested paid-only creative.
The tracking finding: the infrastructure itself was mostly sound — but GA4 had never once recorded a single purchase as a conversion in its entire history, and roughly 300 daily Instagram sessions were producing zero attributed orders. Both were only caught because the audit checked real outcomes, not just whether tags existed.
The paid media finding: a boost campaign created via the Ads API failed silently until a missing required field ("destination_type") was identified against Meta's own documentation. Once fixed, a follow-up analysis found native Instagram boosts converted profile visits to followers at 10–33%, while API-created campaigns with identical targeting converted at only 0–5% — a real, measured gap now feeding which method gets used going forward.