The holiday season is critical for e-commerce brands. As BFCM approached, Branch Furniture planned to increase its ad spend by 60%. Rather than simply scaling spending, they also treated this as an opportunity to gain deeper, data-driven insights into their holiday marketing strategy.
Branch had already partnered with WorkMagic to measure Meta and Google PMax separately. This time, they wanted to understand their combined impact across the full customer journey.
Key Takeaways
With WorkMagic, Brand Furniture achieved:
The combination of Meta and PMax contributed 32.8% of Shopify orders and created a 31.4% halo effect on Amazon.
Running Meta and PMax together generated 2X more total sales than Meta alone
By adopting the MMM-based recommendations, Branch achieved a 225% ROAS lift on Meta, 187% lift on PMax, and an 18% improvement in MER.
"This holiday season, we wanted to ensure every marketing dollar worked as hard as possible. With WorkMagic’s incrementality insights, we restructured our budget to maximize efficiency, and the results spoke for themselves—higher ROAS, lower CAC, and a record-breaking holiday season!"
Sib Mahapatra, Co-founder of Branch Furniture
Measuring the Combined Impact of Meta & PMax Alongside Seasonal Effects
Branch had previously worked with WorkMagic to measure Meta and PMax separately. This time, they wanted a holistic view, measuring how Meta and PMax worked together throughout the user journey and whether they influenced not just Shopify but also Amazon performance. At the same time, they wanted to separate organic holiday demand from paid performance to optimize spending decisions.
A 3-Cell Lift Test to Measure True Incrementality
WorkMagic designed a 3-cell geo-based lift test during Black Friday 2024 to isolate the independent and combined impact of Meta and PMax while minimizing sales disruption. The experiment split audiences into three geo-based groups:
Full Exposure: Continued seeing both PMax and Meta ads as usual
PMax Only: Excluded from Meta ads but continued receiving PMax ads
Control Group: Saw neither Meta nor PMax ads
This design allowed Branch to accurately measure how the channels performed individually and together, while also surfacing hidden halo effects on Amazon that platform attribution missed.
Maximizing Marketing Efficiency with Holistic Analysis and Deep Insights
The 3-cell lift test revealed insights that platform-reported metrics and traditional attribution failed to capture:
Meta & PMax Combined: 2X More Total Sales Impact
Meta ads alone drove 16% of Shopify orders and 19.2% Amazon orders (halo effect).
The combination of Meta and PMax delivered 32.8% of Shopify orders and 31.4% of Amazon orders.
Together, Meta and PMax drove 2X more total sales than Meta alone, reinforcing the value of an integrated ad strategy.
Holiday Budget Allocation: Scaling PMax While Capping Meta Spend
Brands want to fully capitalize on the holiday season, but deciding how much to invest and where to allocate budget remains one of the biggest challenges. Branch Furniture now has its answer:
Meta ads reached diminishing returns: Test results showed Meta's mROAS had reached its maximum, meaning additional ad spend contributed less incremental revenue beyond this 'marginal ROAS peak'. Further budget increases would yield diminishing returns.
PMax still has room to scale: Unlike Meta, PMax maintained a steady mROAS as ad spend increased, proving that additional investment didn't reduce efficiency and seasonality played a major role in performance gains. Therefore, there's a strong opportunity for Branch to scale PMax budgets during future holiday periods to maximize returns.
What Changed for Branch
With data insights from WorkMagic's 3-cell lift test, Branch restructured its budget strategy to spend where it truly mattered and incorporated the halo effect into its forecasting models. Their new approach of capping Meta spend at peak efficiency while scaling PMax investment set them up for a new record during the Christmas holiday:
225% higher ROAS for Meta ads
187% higher ROAS for PMax campaigns
55% lower CAC for Meta ads
57% lower CAC for PMax campaigns
18% improvement in overall MER
This data-driven approach is now a key part of Branch's marketing playbook, making sure they have smarter, more efficient ad investments for future peak seasons.