If you've ever wondered whether a niche audience limits your ecommerce success, think again. With the right targeting, strategy, and optimization, even the most specialized offerings—like a craft beer subscription box—can drive impressive returns on ad spend (ROAS), regardless of advertising challenges or audience size.

Understanding the Niche Audience Challenge

One of the core realities for any subscription business, especially those targeting enthusiasts in a specific niche, is market saturation. When your product—whether it’s rare beer or luxury candles—caters to a rather specific group, it may seem like you’ve reached everyone who would be interested. That was precisely the challenge faced by our subscription box client in Switzerland, who runs campaigns in multiple languages to tap into the country’s diverse regions.

But even as their ads continually reached much of the same tight-knit community, it became clear that this doesn't mean growth needs to stagnate. By understanding how to continually refresh creative and refine targeting, the client continued to engage not only new leads but also previous visitors, especially as gifting occasions approached.

Navigating Platform Changes and Rising Costs

Ad challenges don’t stop with audience targeting. Recent privacy shifts, such as Apple’s iOS 14 update, impacted tracking and increased the complexity of optimizing for conversions. Despite these shifts and a relatively high cost per acquisition, our campaigns not only weathered the storm—they thrived. Before these platform changes, the campaign returned over 10x on ad spend: a modest CHF 4,500 invested generated nearly CHF 49,000 in revenue.

After these updates, you would expect the numbers to dip dramatically, but that wasn’t the case. Through ongoing testing and adapting strategies, we consistently delivered 6-7x ROAS—even through tough economic periods and increased competition.