Which Performance Marketing Agency to Hire When Your D2C Brand Does 10 Lakh a Month
At this stage the right agency can triple revenue without breaking your margin or your cash flow. Here is how to test for that before you sign.
Why 10 lakh a month is a different hiring problem
Most agency lists rank agencies by size or awards. That misses the point. A D2C brand selling 10 lakh a month from its own website has already found a product that sells. The question now is whether it can sell three to five times as much and still make money on each order.
Brands usually reach 10 lakh on the back of one or two winning products, a handful of ads that worked and the founder's own instinct. Getting past it means more spend, more audiences and more ads, and each of those puts pressure on margin, stock and cash. So the agency you hire has to think in contribution margin, not just ROAS. For the wider playbook at this stage, read how to scale a D2C brand past 10 lakh a month.
The four things the agency has to handle at this stage
Before you compare agencies, be clear on what the job actually is. At this revenue stage it comes down to four things.
| Area | What goes wrong without it | What a good agency does |
|---|---|---|
| Contribution margin | ROAS looks fine but the bank balance does not grow | Works out a break-even ROAS from your product cost, shipping, payment charges, discounts and returns, then sets targets above it |
| Creative testing | The two old winning ads tire, costs climb and scaling stalls | Ships new ad concepts every week and kills losers fast, with a clear creative testing framework |
| Repeat purchase | Every order has to be paid for with fresh ad spend | Plans for second orders: retargeting past buyers, bundles, refills and sensible use of your customer list |
| Cash flow | Ad spend goes out today, COD money and stock arrive later | Paces budget increases against your stock, COD remittance cycle and return-to-origin (RTO) losses |
Agency types, and which ones fit a 10 lakh brand
You will meet roughly four kinds of partner. Each can be right for some brand. At this stage, one fits better than the rest.
- Weighing up a hire instead? See in-house team vs performance marketing agency.
- On channels: at this stage most D2C brands get the bulk of new customers from Meta, with Google covering search demand. More in Meta Ads vs Google Ads for D2C brands.
| Type | Strength | Weak spot at 10 lakh a month |
|---|---|---|
| Freelance media buyer | Quick to start, close to the founder | Cannot make enough new ads alone, so creative becomes the bottleneck |
| Media-buying-only agency | Solid campaign setup and reporting | You still have to brief, shoot and supply every ad, which slows testing |
| Large full-service agency | Wide range of services | You are a small account, so senior people move on after the pitch |
| Performance agency with in-house video | The same team makes the ads and runs them, so testing is fast | Check they really shoot in-house and do not just pass the work to outside creators |
Questions to ask in the first call
A good agency answers these with specifics about how they work. A weak one answers with screenshots of other brands' ROAS.
- What is my break-even ROAS? Ask them to work it out with you from your real costs. If they never ask about product cost, shipping or RTO, they are working on revenue alone.
- How many new ad concepts will you ship each month, and who makes them? Find out who scripts, who shoots and who edits. Freelancers you have never met are a risk.
- What happens to tracking on day one? At this stage the Meta pixel alone is not enough. Ask how they will set up the Conversions API on your store. Our Meta CAPI setup guide covers what good looks like.
- How do you handle COD orders? Ask whether they push for prepaid orders, filter low-quality COD and track RTO by campaign.
- Who works on my account every day? Get names and roles, not just the person on the pitch call.
- What will I see, and how often? Daily numbers you can read without logging into Ads Manager beat a monthly PDF.
How agencies charge, and what each way rewards
How an agency gets paid shapes how it behaves. No option is perfect, but you should know what each one encourages.
- Fixed monthly charge: predictable for you. The agency is paid the same either way, so check how much creative and attention it actually covers.
- Share of ad spend: what you pay grows as spend grows. Fine for scaling, but make sure the agency also answers for margin, because more spend always looks good to them.
- Share of revenue or profit: sounds aligned, but argue it through first. Who counts the revenue? Does it include organic and repeat orders? Is it measured after returns?
- Mixed: a base charge plus a bonus tied to an agreed metric. This works best when the metric is contribution margin or new-customer revenue, not raw ROAS.
Red flags at this stage
- Promised ROAS figures before they have seen your margins or your account.
- A plan that is mostly "increase budget" with no mention of new creative.
- No questions about stock, RTO, COD share or repeat orders.
- Reporting that only shows platform ROAS and never ties back to the orders in your store.
- Long lock-in contracts before any results.
- They want to own your ad account or Business Manager. You should always own both.
What the first 90 days should look like
A sound agency does not double budgets in week one. The first quarter usually runs in three steps.
- Weeks 1 to 2: an account audit, tracking fixed with CAPI, break-even ROAS agreed, and existing winners and losers mapped.
- Weeks 3 to 6: a steady flow of new ad concepts against your best products, with budgets moved towards what works. Some tests will fail. That is the job.
- Weeks 7 to 12: budget increases only where margin holds, retargeting and repeat-order campaigns built out, and a clear read on which products can carry the next stage.
- If ROAS dips as spend rises, that is normal up to a point. Here is why ROAS drops when scaling ad spend and how to tell a healthy dip from a problem.
How Monastic Media helps
One in-house team in Surat scripts, shoots and edits the ads videos and runs the Meta and Google campaigns they go into, so the people who see the numbers make the next ad. See our performance marketing
Read next
Questions
Which performance marketing agency should a D2C brand doing 10 lakh a month hire?+
Pick one that works out your break-even ROAS from real costs, makes new ad videos every week with its own team, and paces spend against your stock and cash. Size and awards matter far less than these three things.
Should I hire an in-house performance marketer instead of an agency at this stage?+
One in-house hire can run campaigns but rarely has time to script, shoot and edit enough new ads as well. Most brands at this stage get faster testing from an agency that does both, and hire in-house later.
Is ROAS the right number to judge an agency on?+
Only alongside contribution margin. A high ROAS on discounted orders with heavy RTO can still lose money, so judge the agency on profit per order and new-customer revenue as well.
How long before I should expect results from a new agency?+
Expect the first few weeks to go on tracking, audits and creative testing. A fair judgement usually needs about a full quarter, unless basics like tracking or reporting are still missing after the first month.
Do I need Google Ads at 10 lakh a month, or just Meta?+
Meta usually brings in most new customers for D2C brands at this stage. Google Search and Shopping are worth running alongside it to catch people already searching for your product or brand name.
“MM helped us scale from 0 to ₹2.6 CR/month in just 6 months with clear communication and industry expertise!”Rakesh Naidu GM @ Naaptol
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