Ecommerce marketing for how Pakistan buys
Drifted runs ecommerce marketing for Pakistani brands the way the market works: the sale closes in a DM or on WhatsApp, the courier collects cash at the door, and the return rate is part of the arithmetic. We run Meta ads in rupees from your own account and count orders where they close. The Gallery’s campaigns, all of them to July 2026, brought back $5.20–$6 per $1 spent on ads.
In detail
What is different about ecommerce marketing in Pakistan?
Three things, and an agency that has only run stores abroad misses all of them. First, the checkout is a conversation: buyers ask in the DMs or on WhatsApp before they order, so the ad has to open a chat, not push to a cart. Second, the money arrives at the door: a sale is not a sale until the courier has been paid, and a refused parcel costs you the delivery both ways. Third, the budget is in rupees on a dollar-priced platform, so a campaign can lose money once the exchange rate and the returns are counted. The method is built around those three.
How we run an ecommerce account here
- 01
Count the real margin first
Price, less the product, less delivery, less the share of parcels that come back unpaid. That figure, not the sticker price, decides what an order can cost to win. We work it out with you in week one.
- 02
Set up the inbox like a shop floor
Saved replies for size, spelling, delivery time and price. A sheet that logs every conversation to an order, a no, or a maybe to follow up. A way to mark the returns, so the number is counted after them.
- 03
Ads built to open a chat
Creative whose job is a message, not a click. The campaigns are optimised toward conversations, in rupees, from your own ad account, and the losers are cut by the second week.
- 04
Confirm orders before counting them
An order is counted when the courier confirms delivery and payment. Spend is read against that every week, not against what the platform says it did.
- 05
Fix the store where it leaks
If buyers who reach the site leave before ordering, we rebuild the product page, the delivery promise or the checkout. Seyr is a storefront we built around the purchase; most Pakistani brands need less than that, and we say so.
Why does the return rate matter so much?
Because cash on delivery lets a buyer change their mind at the door, and every parcel that comes back has cost you two courier legs and a week of stock. A campaign with a healthy return per rupee on paper can be underwater once a share of the orders is refused, and most reports never subtract it. We do. The return rate is tracked by product, by city and by creative, because it is rarely evenly spread: one product with a sizing problem or one city with a slow courier can carry most of the damage. Fixing that is cheaper than buying more orders to cover it.
Selling by DM and selling by checkout
| DM-first | Checkout-first | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the ad sends people | To the inbox, with a question ready | To the product page |
| What the campaign is optimised for | Conversations started | Purchases the platform can see on its own |
| How the sale is confirmed | In the chat, then at the courier | At the card payment |
| Where the return happens | At the door, unpaid | By post, after payment |
| What is measured by hand | Conversations to orders, and orders to deliveries | Little; the store counts for you |
| Who it fits | Most of Pakistan, and anything personalised | Brands with card-paying buyers, mostly abroad |
The Gallery, counted at the door
The Gallery sells personalised newborn wear across Pakistan. Every order is a conversation about a name and a date, so the campaign was never going to close on a product page. Ten creatives were built with one job, to get a stranger to open the chat, and the spend was pointed at the inbox rather than the site. Every chat was logged to an order or a no, and orders were counted when the courier confirmed them, with the refused parcels taken out first.
On that basis every campaign to July 2026 returned $5.20–$6 per $1 of ads. The spend behind the figure is not published, and we would rather leave that gap visible than fill it with a guess.
What to measure, in order
- Margin after delivery and returns, per product. Everything else is read against this.
- Conversations started per thousand rupees of ads, by creative.
- Conversations that became confirmed, delivered orders.
- The return rate, by product and by city.
- Repeat orders, because a brand that only wins new buyers is renting its revenue.
- Store conversion, only once the DMs are working, and only if the store is where people actually buy.
Do you build the store as well as run the ads?
Yes, when a store is the right tool, and we say so when it is not. Seyr is an ecommerce storefront we built around the purchase: what a buyer needs to see, in the order they need to see it, then handed over to run itself. For many Pakistani brands the honest answer is a well-set-up Shopify store that takes a cash-on-delivery order in two taps, with the DM flow doing the selling. We would rather fix the inbox and the product page than sell you a rebuild you do not need, and the first call is where we tell you which you are.
The questions that follow.
Do you work with cash-on-delivery brands?
Mostly. The method on this page was built for them: open a chat, confirm at the courier, subtract the returns before calling it a result.
Can you run ads in rupees from our account?
We do not run them any other way. The ad account, the card and the history are yours; we are a partner you can remove.
Do you manage marketplace listings?
We will read what a marketplace is doing for you and say whether it is worth the margin it takes. Our work is your own channels: the ads, the inbox, the store and the content.
What is the minimum ad budget?
Enough to buy a readable number inside a week, which depends on your price and your margin after returns. We give you the figure on the first call rather than a round number here.
How much does ecommerce marketing cost with you?
Meta ads management on one account is $2,000 a month on Starter, with spend separate. The full loop of content, search and email is $4,000. A store build is scoped on its own.
Do you guarantee a return?
No. Anyone who guarantees one is guessing with your money. We guarantee the method and report the result every week, good or bad.
The price is published.
Where this leads.
No deck. No discovery theatre. One metric, one date, in the contract.