Should Irish retailers use Meta ads or Google ads?

For most Irish home, interiors and lifestyle retailers, the answer is both — but with different roles. Meta is for discovery and demand generation: reaching people who don't know you yet. Google Shopping is for capturing demand: reaching people actively searching for what you sell. The split depends on your category, but a 60/40 or 70/30 Meta/Google ratio is a common starting point.

How much should an Irish retailer spend on paid advertising?

A common benchmark is 10–20% of target revenue on paid media. For a brand targeting €500k in ecommerce revenue, that's €50–100k annually, or €4–8k per month. However, budget should be determined by what your unit economics support — specifically your target CAC and LTV — not an arbitrary percentage.

What is a good ROAS for Irish ecommerce?

A good ROAS depends on your margin. As a rule of thumb, if your gross margin is 50%, you need at minimum a 2x ROAS to break even on ad spend — and 3–4x to be profitable after other costs. Rather than optimising for ROAS alone, focus on MER (marketing efficiency ratio): total revenue divided by total marketing spend.

How do I know if my marketing agency is performing?

The key signals: are they proactively bringing you new creative ideas and testing results? Can they explain clearly what's working and why? Is your cost per purchase trending down or staying flat as you scale? Do they talk about revenue and profit, or just clicks and impressions? If you can't get clear answers to these questions, that's a problem.

Does TikTok ads work for Irish retailers?

TikTok is growing fast as a paid channel in Ireland, particularly for brands with strong visual products and a younger demographic. It works best for home décor, garden lifestyle, and interiors brands with good creative. CPMs are currently lower than Meta, but the purchase intent is lower too — it's a discovery channel, not a direct-response channel.

Paid Media Strategy for Irish Home & Lifestyle Retailers: Meta, Google & What Actually Works

Most Irish home, interiors and garden retailers are either over-relying on one paid channel, underinvesting in a second one they should be using, or paying an agency without a clear way to measure whether it's working. This post gives you a clear framework for paid media — what platforms to use, how to structure them, and the numbers that matter.

Meta vs Google: They're Not Competing — They're Complementary

Which should Irish retailers use?

Both — but with different jobs. Meta generates demand: it introduces your brand to people who weren't looking for you. Google captures demand: it reaches people actively searching for what you sell. Running only one means you're either invisible to searchers or invisible to browsers. Both gaps cost you revenue.

Meta (Facebook & Instagram)

Demand generation

Reach people who match your customer profile but don't know your brand yet. Strongest for visual product categories — home décor, garden furniture, interiors, lifestyle. Creative quality is the primary performance lever. Best used for top-of-funnel awareness and mid-funnel retargeting.

Google Shopping

Demand capture

Reach people actively searching "garden furniture Ireland", "linen bedding Dublin", "indoor plants delivery Ireland". High purchase intent. Conversion rates typically 2–4x higher than cold social traffic. Essential for any brand with products that have clear search demand.

Google Search

Brand & competitor capture

Branded search campaigns protect your brand from competitor conquest. Non-branded search targets high-intent queries. Less visual than Shopping — works best for categories with strong keyword intent and higher AOV where copy can do the heavy lifting.

TikTok Ads

Emerging discovery channel

Growing fast in Ireland for visual lifestyle categories. Lower CPMs than Meta currently, but lower purchase intent — it's a discovery channel, not a direct-response one. Worth testing for home décor and garden lifestyle brands with strong creative, particularly targeting under-45s.

How to Structure Your Paid Media Budget

How much should an Irish retailer spend on paid ads?

A common benchmark is 10–20% of target ecommerce revenue. For a brand targeting €500k online, that's €50–100k per year (€4–8k/month). But the right number is determined by your unit economics — specifically what CAC your LTV can support — not an arbitrary percentage of revenue.

For most Irish home and lifestyle retailers starting or restructuring paid media, a sensible starting split is:

60–70% to Meta — primary demand generation and retargeting engine
25–35% to Google Shopping + Search — capturing existing demand and protecting branded terms
5–10% to test — TikTok, Pinterest, or YouTube depending on your category

This shifts over time. As your brand builds awareness, Google becomes relatively more efficient because search volume increases. As creative fatigue sets in on Meta, you need stronger test budgets. Review the split quarterly, not annually.

The Metrics That Actually Matter

A lot of agencies report on vanity metrics. Here are the numbers that tell you whether your paid media is actually working:

Metric	What it tells you	Healthy benchmark
MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio)	Total revenue ÷ total marketing spend. Your real ROAS across all channels.	3x+ for most retail categories
Cost per purchase (CPP)	What you pay for each transaction from paid media	Should decrease or hold as you scale
Hook rate (Meta)	% of people who watch past 3 seconds. Proxy for creative quality.	25%+ is the target
Landing page CVR	% of paid traffic that converts on your site	Irish average ~0.9% — aim for 1.5%+
New customer %	What % of paid purchases are from new customers	60%+ ideally — paying to re-acquire existing customers is inefficient
NCAC (new customer acquisition cost)	What it costs to acquire a brand new customer specifically	Should be benchmarked against your LTV

How to Know If Your Agency Is Actually Performing

Red flags — when to ask questions

They report on impressions and clicks but not revenue or cost per purchase
They haven't proactively suggested a new creative concept in the last month
Your cost per purchase is increasing and they don't have a plan to fix it
You don't have access to your own ad accounts
They can't explain clearly what they tested last month and what they learned
Every monthly report looks the same regardless of performance

A good agency or media buyer should behave like a commercial partner — proactively bringing ideas, flagging problems before you notice them, and tying every decision back to revenue. If you feel like you're chasing them for updates or translating their reports yourself, something is wrong.

The Creative Problem Nobody Talks About Enough

Paid media performance in 2026 is, more than at any point in the last decade, a creative problem. The algorithm on Meta is extraordinarily good at finding your audience — the bottleneck is almost always the creative.

For Irish home and lifestyle retailers, creative that consistently performs:

Lifestyle over product. Show the room, the garden, the feeling — not just the item on a white background. Irish consumers buy aspiration as much as product.
Social proof hooks. "Over 2,000 Irish homes" or "As seen in [media]" outperforms brand messaging on cold audiences almost every time.
Seasonal and local context. Creative that acknowledges Irish seasons, Bank Holidays, or specific occasions consistently outperforms generic international creative.
UGC and founder-led content. Authentic video — even shot on a phone — regularly outperforms studio photography on Meta and TikTok for this category.

The Seasonal Calendar Irish Retailers Can't Ignore

Irish retail has a distinct seasonal rhythm. Your paid media should be planned around it, not retrofitted at the last minute:

January–February: New year, new home. Strong for interiors and decluttering categories.
March–April: Easter and the start of garden season. The biggest window for garden and outdoor brands.
May–June: Summer entertaining, outdoor living. Key for garden furniture and lifestyle brands.
September–October: Back-to-school settles, home refresh season begins. Strong for interiors.
November: Black Friday. The single biggest revenue opportunity of the year for most brands — requires 6–8 weeks of planning to execute properly.
December: Gift gifting window. High intent, high AOV. Strong for premium home and lifestyle.

Not sure if your paid media is structured right?

A Paid Media Audit covers your Meta and Google account structure, creative strategy, audience targeting, and performance benchmarks — with a clear action plan. From €1,500.

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Paid Media Strategy for Irish Home & Lifestyle Retailers: Meta, Google, and What Actually Works