Meta Ads for a Hot Tub and Sauna Store: 13x ROAS
Advertising hot tubs and saunas can drive sales when you combine demand generation, capturing purchase intent and clean measurement. In this adsfox project, Meta Ads reached a 13x ROAS and the cost per add-to-cart fell from about $5.00 to $3.10. In parallel, Google Ads and Lead Ads brought in 112 contacts at roughly $1.05 each.
Hot tub and sauna e-commerce case study: how do you advertise nationwide?
Advertising hot tubs and saunas is a system of campaigns that reaches people considering a premium purchase, guides them to the store or a lead form, and measures the actions that come before the sale. In this case the challenge was not only online checkout. Customers often discovered the offer through an ad and closed the deal after seeing the products in person at the client’s showroom yard.
That is why judging the campaigns purely by store transactions would miss most of the path. We focused on several signals: add-to-carts, purchases attributed in the ad platforms, Lead Ads forms and high-intent traffic from Google. Each played a different role and was never counted as the same conversion.
Marlena’s situation
Marlena runs an online store selling hot tubs, saunas, pergolas and modular cabins for a client in Poland, shipping nationwide. The offer targets homeowners furnishing a house or backyard as well as business buyers: hotels, guesthouses and short-term rental properties.
Before working with us, the company had no regular marketing in place. A new e-commerce site was supposed to grow sales, but there was no data to tell where visitors came from or what they did before buying. Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, the Meta Pixel and conversion tracking were not set up correctly.
In practice that meant no foundation for optimization. Without measurable events, the ad platforms get no signal about which actions lead to a cart, a form or a purchase.
Why Marlena chose adsfox
The main goal was more sales from the company’s own website. Running ads alone was not enough. She needed a system that connects Meta Ads and Google Ads with the store’s analytics and separates each stage of the buying journey.
At adsfox we look at campaigns through the whole process: from the first ad impression, through product interest and add-to-cart, to purchase or a submitted contact form. As a Meta Business Partner and Google Partner we combine media buying with measurement, so we cleaned up the data before scaling budget.
Free consultation and action plan
The starting point was separating two needs. The first was selling products in the store. The second was reaching people who need more time and information before buying a premium product.
So we planned sales campaigns and a separate lead path. Ads pointed to specific products, brought back visitors who returned to the offer, and captured contacts with a PDF buyer’s guide. This way the business did not depend only on transactions completed during a single store visit.
Ad budget for a hot tub and sauna store
The engagement has been running for 1 year and 2 months. The ad budget started at about $500 a month and was later raised to roughly $1,125 a month.
The split looked like this:
- 40% Google Ads, including 10% Search and 30% Performance Max,
- 60% Meta Ads, including 40% for purchase and add-to-cart campaigns and 20% for lead forms.
Raising the budget was not the first step. We first set up tracking and campaigns that could collect behavioral data. Only then could we build out the structure and move spend toward the actions that served specific goals.
What we set up before launching the campaigns
Before the ads went live we put the measurement basics in place:
- Google Analytics 4,
- Google Tag Manager,
- Meta Pixel,
- conversion tracking,
- the adsfox CRM,
- Google Merchant Center connected to Google Ads.
The adsfox CRM organized the contacts coming from the lead campaigns. We did not deploy the Conversions API or server side tracking in this project, so we do not credit the campaigns with anything the available tracking cannot confirm.
For the business, the key change was moving from “the ads work or they don’t” to knowing what each user action costs and how each channel behaves.
What we ran in the Meta Ads campaigns
Meta Ads campaigns
Meta Ads handled building interest in the products and bringing back people who already knew the brand. We launched cold campaigns optimized for add-to-cart, followed by retargeting optimized for purchase.
The messaging leaned on the premium character of the offer, finished installations, build quality and the benefits of having your own wellness space at home. We avoided reducing the pitch to a low price. With a product like this the decision takes longer, and the shopper compares models, installation options and the seller’s credibility.
We also launched Lead Ads with a free PDF buyer’s guide. After submitting the form, the person received the guide and the company gained a contact it could keep nurturing, for example through an email newsletter.
Google Ads campaigns
Google Search captured existing demand. The campaigns covered brand queries and product queries around backyard hot tubs, hot tub prices, outdoor saunas and backyard spas.
Performance Max was connected to Google Merchant Center. That let the campaigns use the store’s product data instead of relying only on text ads. For an e-commerce store with a broad catalog this matters, because the shopper sees the specific product before landing on the site.
Terms like “pergola” and very broad sauna-related queries brought weaker traffic and had to be reined in. In Google Ads management, the presence of a product word in a query is not enough. What counts is intent and what the user does after the click.
Analytics and separating conversions
Add-to-cart, purchase and a Lead Ads form describe three different moments in the journey. We did not roll them into one combined number. Each campaign was judged by the goal it was designed for.
This matters most with premium products. Some customers browse online but want to see the product in person before buying. An ad can start that visit, but without additional measurement you cannot credit it with all of the offline sales. That is why this case study only shows results available in the ad platforms and project data.
Results of the hot tub and sauna Meta Ads campaign
The first screenshot from Meta Ads Manager documents the starting point: the cost per add-to-cart was 20.11 PLN, about $5.00.
After restructuring the campaigns, the cost per add-to-cart was 12.51 PLN, about $3.10.
That is a drop in cost per add-to-cart from about $5.00 to $3.10 compared with the starting result. The meaningful improvement came after two months of optimization. It was not the effect of a single change but of correct tracking, campaign structure, retargeting and audience work combined.
A separate Lead Ads campaign generated about 112 contacts at roughly $1.05 each.
An additional screenshot from Meta Ads Manager shows the cost per add-to-cart holding close to the level reached after the campaign changes.
Project data for Meta Ads also included:
- about 140 add-to-carts a month,
- 2 purchases a month attributed in Meta,
- cost per purchase of about $48.50,
- 13x ROAS.
In Google Ads we recorded about 20 add-to-carts and 1 purchase a month. The two channels are reported separately because they play different roles and should not be blended into one averaged conversion.
What changed for the client’s business
The biggest change was launching measurable sales campaigns from zero. The company gained Meta Ads and Google Ads campaigns, analytics and data on how shoppers behave in the store.
Lead Ads built an additional list of contacts interested in the offer. Instead of waiting for a purchase on the first visit, the brand can send a buyer’s guide and keep the conversation going. That matters with premium products, where choosing means comparing options and often talking to a salesperson.
The 13x ROAS shows the Meta campaigns are profitable in the project data, but we do not use it to estimate unmeasured showroom sales. Keeping those apart gives the business more control: it knows which results come from the ad platforms and which parts of the journey still need better measurement.
Next steps
The next steps include:
- further optimization of the Meta Ads and Google Ads campaigns,
- launching a catalog (product) campaign in Meta Ads,
- scaling the sales campaigns,
- adding ad groups for new products,
- considering TikTok Ads as the next channel.
TikTok Ads remains a plan, not a source of the results described here. The headline numbers in this case study come from Meta Ads, while Google Ads supports capturing existing demand.
Want to check whether your store’s campaigns measure the right stages of the sale? Book a free consultation and we will review your campaign structure, analytics and the places where budget may be leaking.
How to advertise hot tubs and saunas effectively
In this category the best results come from combining several elements:
- cold campaigns optimized for actions with sales value,
- retargeting aimed at people who already know the offer,
- product ads built on the store’s feed,
- Search campaigns on specific purchase queries,
- Lead Ads with content that helps the buyer decide,
- premium messaging built on quality, installations and benefits.
Do not build the whole strategy on broad reach, and do not judge results only by online checkout. With hot tubs and saunas the decision takes longer, and some customers need a call or an in-person look at the product. At the same time, every extra path has to be measured on its own. A cheap lead form does not replace a purchase, and an add-to-cart is not revenue.
That layer of interpretation is what separates a campaign report from a business decision. At adsfox we analyze what a given result means for the store and which stage needs work, instead of reducing the whole project to one flashy number.
Related adsfox services
We can run a campaign like this for your store as your Facebook ads agency and Google Ads agency. Organic traffic from search is built separately, through our SEO agency services for online stores. If you want to find out where your budget is leaking first, start with a digital marketing audit, and you can find results from other projects in our case studies.
Who is Marlena?
Marlena is a fictional name used to protect the client’s identity. We only publish information our clients have approved in writing. Some businesses do not want to share their name or results with competitors, so we also anonymize screenshots from the ad platforms.
You can learn more about how we work and what clients say on our about adsfox and client reviews page.
