Performance marketing agency for D2C brands in India

What this is

Performance marketing at The Shizz means paid media on Meta, Google, Amazon and quick commerce, planned and bought against one number: profitable orders at checkout. It runs in-house alongside creative, social, strategy and CRO, so the people deciding where the spend goes are the same people making the ads and fixing the funnel the spend lands in.

The work is limited to D2C brands in FMCG, F&B, nutrition and consumer goods selling in India. Over six years that has meant 160+ brands, ₹150 Cr+ of managed ad spend and ₹450 Cr+ of attributed revenue at a 3.8× average ROAS.

How it actually runs

1. Instrument before you spend

The first job on a new account is a foundation, not a campaign: events firing correctly, purchases attributed to the right source, and performance readable by product and by audience. That was the opening move on Pure Whites, and it is the reason a brand can tell a demand problem from a shop problem. A brand that cannot see its own drop-off keeps buying traffic to solve a problem the traffic never had.

2. Decide which products carry acquisition

Hero SKUs are the products that carry higher order value and bring people back, not simply the ones that sell most often. Those are rarely the same product, and building spend around the wrong one caps revenue permanently. On Zama Organics every SKU was treated as its own mini-brand until ketchup and ghee earned the acquisition load. On Aazol, Pro Nature and Brawny Bear the same concentration is what turned scattered budget into readable data.

3. Test at a size that produces a readable answer

A test only teaches you something if one variable moves at a time and the budget behind it is large enough to clear the noise floor. On 1970 Shop the first weeks ran as a structured testing sprint, sized to produce a result rather than spread thin to feel busy, and spend moved into winners as they emerged rather than across the whole set.

4. Keep a manual layer you can read

Broad automated campaign types are good at finding buyers and bad at explaining how. On Aazol the fix was a 60:40 split: 60% of budget on manual cohort targeting for control and readable data, 40% left on Advantage+ for reach. That keeps the efficiency of automation while restoring the ability to learn from it.

5. Segment by cohort, not by blob

First-timers, cart-abandoners and category switchers need different sentences. A first-timer needs to understand the product, an abandoner needs the one objection that stopped them removed, and a switcher needs a reason this beats what is already in the kitchen. My Pahadi Dukaan split first-time scrollers, repeat buyers and fence-sitters the same way, and traction returned almost immediately.

6. Let Meta create demand and Google catch it

On Pure Whites, Google caught the buyer already searching for ghee or cold-pressed oil by name while Meta created the demand that sent them searching. On Aazol, Google had been sitting almost untouched until fresh keyword maps and conversion-built landing pages brought it into the mix. On Bon Fiction, Google went from unused to a top sales driver, which is the clearest evidence that the earlier failure was structural rather than a verdict on the channel.

7. Add marketplace and quick commerce where the category earns it

Lal Sweets is the clearest example: Meta to Blinkit collab ads brought cost per purchase to ₹19 with ROAS touching 10×, while Amazon was worked through better storefront visuals and PPC. The mechanism is that the ad creates the craving and the platform behind it can satisfy it in the same session, which closes the gap where most food advertising loses the sale.

8. Put retention underneath acquisition

When retention holds, every new customer stacks on top of existing revenue instead of replacing someone who has quietly churned. Pure Whites now takes about a third of revenue from repeat orders, which pulls down the blended cost of every sale. On My Pahadi Dukaan the retention flows ran underneath acquisition the whole way, so the loyal base kept compounding while new buyers arrived.

The channels we run, and what each is for

Meta ads

The demand-creation engine for almost every D2C brand in India, and usually the largest line on the plan. Creative decides delivery now that targeting is largely automated, which is why our media and creative sit on one team. See the Meta ads service →

Google ads

The demand-capture layer: Search, Shopping, YouTube and Performance Max catching the buyer Meta sent looking. On Bon Fiction, Google went from unused to a top sales driver, which is what a structural fix looks like rather than a channel verdict. See the Google ads service →

Amazon ads

Where the category genuinely sells on marketplace, run as listings plus PPC rather than bidding alone, because Amazon rewards the listing before it rewards the bid. See the Amazon ads service →

Quick commerce

Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart where the purchase is impulsive and local. On Lal Sweets, Meta-to-Blinkit collab ads brought cost per purchase to ₹19 with ROAS touching 10×.

What a performance marketing agency costs in India

Most agencies will not publish this, so here is the honest market map. Retainers for competent D2C performance work in India typically run ₹50,000 to ₹5,00,000 a month depending on scope, channel count and spend under management. Percentage-of-spend models usually land between 8% and 15% of media budget. Below roughly ₹40,000 a month you are generally buying a freelancer in agency clothing, which can be the right call early — just know what you are buying.

What actually moves the number: how many channels are live, whether creative production is included or billed separately, how much of the funnel is in scope, and how much senior attention the account gets. We cap the roster at 32 active brands specifically so accounts are run by senior people rather than by juniors with a template, and creative is inside the retainer rather than an upsell — because performance media consumes creative faster than any external brief cycle can supply it.

The exact number for your brand comes out of the audit, not a rate card, because scoping before seeing the account is how brands end up paying for channels they do not need. Growth marketing vs performance marketing covers which model your stage actually calls for.

What we run