How much to invest in advertising to grow a pet e-commerce

Roberto Caballero - ADV Strategist & Growth Marketing Manager — Published on September 12, 2026 - Updated on 12 September 2026

The short answer. A pet e-commerce starting from zero needs 20-25 euros a day, that is 600-750 euros a month. One that turns over around 15,000 euros a month should budget 1,500 euros a month. One that turns over around 40,000 euros a month, like Animal Instinct which I co-founded, works with 5,000 euros a month: about 3,000 on Meta and at least 2,000 on Google. The rule that holds the three thresholds together is to reinvest about 10% of sales in advertising, every month. That said, I have to add one thing right away: 10% is my rule, not an industry law. When I compared our numbers with international benchmarks I discovered we are far from the average, and it is worth understanding why. That is the most useful part of this article.

What international benchmarks say (and why we spend much less)

Eightx analyzed the SEC filings of listed DTC companies, including BARK which is pet, plus over 35 client companies in the 5-50 million dollar range. The result is a scale of advertising spend by revenue stage.

The principle is that the percentage drops as you grow, because the brand starts working on its own and acquired customers come back. Now the comparison, with our real numbers. Animal Instinct closed the last year at 520,000 euros in revenue investing about 60,000 euros in advertising: we are at 11.5%. According to the table, a company of that size should sit between 25% and 35%. We spend less than half of what the benchmark would suggest, and we still grow. There are two possible readings and both are partly true. The first: those benchmarks come largely from American companies backed by investors, who burn capital to grow fast and accept losing money for years. An Italian company that self-finances cannot play that game and should not try. Our 11.5% is the maximum spend compatible with an income statement that stands on its own. The second, more uncomfortable: it is possible we are leaving growth on the table. If the return numbers hold, there is room to push harder. If you run a pet e-commerce, the right question is not how much others spend but what is the maximum percentage your margin can bear. Which is a different question, and has a different answer for each person.

Pet is the sector where acquiring a customer costs the least

This is the data that surprised me the most and that you should know before deciding how much to invest. The customer acquisition cost in pet is about 23 dollars, in a band between 20 and 30. It is the lowest of any e-commerce vertical: for comparison, in beauty we are around 110 dollars and in clothing around 90. On Facebook the cost per acquisition in pet is 15.29 dollars versus 19.68 for the average of all sectors, with a CPC of 0.61 dollars. And there is a Google data point that almost no one uses: the combined Google and Microsoft Ads conversion rate in the pet sector is 13.41%, the highest of any sector, with a CTR of 8.12% versus the 3-5% average. What it means in practice: anyone selling pet products starts with an advantage. People love their animals, buy on impulse and buy again. If your pet e-commerce is not taking off, almost never is the problem the cost of traffic: it is the product, the price, the site or the fact that the campaigns are set up badly.

Before the budget comes the catalog

I constantly see pet e-commerce stores that launch campaigns before connecting the product catalog. It is the most expensive mistake, because it is invisible: the campaigns run, the money goes out, and no one understands why the return does not arrive. If you have Shopify or WooCommerce, the catalog must be connected to Meta. It is a technical step, done once, and it changes what the platform can do for you. With the catalog connected, Meta stops showing the same image to everyone and shows the right product to the right person: whoever looked at puppy kibble sees that kibble again, not a generic brand banner. Without a catalog you are buying visibility. With a catalog you are buying sales. They cost the same.

The sequence: Meta first, Google second, retargeting on both

First, Meta. It is where the pet audience lets itself be discovered. People do not search for a kibble brand they do not know: they come across it. Second, Google. It intercepts those who are already searching for you. It comes later because first you need someone searching for you. Given the pet conversion rates on Google, though, do not delay it too long. Third, retargeting, on both platforms. 97% of those who visit a site do not buy on the first visit: it is not a flaw in your store, it is the normal behavior of people online. The point is what you do after. The retargeting numbers are clear: cost per acquisition of 26 dollars versus 49 for cold traffic, that is 47% less, with a conversion rate of 3.8% versus 2.2%.

But retargeting is not the solution to everything

Here I have to be honest about something agencies do not like to say, because retargeting is the easiest campaign to sell: the return you see in the dashboard is inflated. When you do retargeting you are talking to people who have already visited your site. Some of them would have bought anyway, even without seeing your ad again. The platform attributes that sale to itself, but it did not generate it. Analyses on real incrementality indicate that the true effect is typically only 20-40% of the declared ROAS: a displayed 8x return may really be worth 2-3x. Consequently retargeting should be kept within a contained share of spend, roughly around 10% of the Meta budget, and not used as the main engine. If the bulk of your investment is on those who already know you, you are not growing: you are collecting what is there, and sooner or later it runs out. The big budget stays on acquisition. Retargeting is what makes acquisition efficient, not what replaces it.

The three thresholds, in practice

If you are starting now

With 20-25 euros a day you are not buying growth: you are buying data. In the first months the budget serves to understand which product pulls, which message works and how much a customer really costs you. Whoever starts with less does not gather enough information to decide. A portion goes on content and audience growth, but the larger share must go on sales campaigns. This is where it goes wrong most often: everything gets invested in followers and interactions, the profile grows and nothing gets sold. Followers do not pay the bills.

If you already sell and want to grow

When the store is running, the budget becomes a proportion. 10% of sales is the threshold below which, in my experience, growth stops. But be careful: 10% works only if the margin can bear it. Gross margins in pet are very different from each other; among listed companies they range from 29.8% for Chewy to 61.3% for BARK, and for a private label a reasonable target is between 45% and 60%. With a 30% margin, 10% of advertising spend weighs completely differently than with a 55% margin. Before fixing the percentage, look at the margin.

The average cart decides everything

There is a number that matters more than the budget: the average cart, because it determines after how much revenue you break even. The sector references: 40-60 dollars for accessories and various items, 70-120 dollars for premium food or multi-pack formats. If your average cart is below that band, every acquired customer must be repaid by a small margin and break-even moves further away. Before increasing the budget it is almost always worth working on the cart: pairings, larger formats, free-shipping thresholds. And there is a multiplier that in pet is worth more than elsewhere: repurchase. The average annual retention in e-commerce is around 28%, but brands that work with subscriptions reach 40-60%. Chewy, the largest pet e-commerce in the world, makes 83.3% of its sales through recurring purchases. In pet food repurchase is natural: the bag runs out. If you do not have a mechanism that intercepts it, you are rebuying every month customers you already had. The ratio to watch is the customer value versus the cost to acquire them: at least 3 to 1, calculated on margin, not on revenue.

Two things no one tells you

Seasonality is normal. There are months when you sell a lot and months when you drop. It is not a failure of the campaigns, it is the market. The damage is done by those who cut the budget at the first slow month: that way they also kill the good months that would come after. Stock is the real limit to growth. If you scale too fast you hurt yourself: the campaigns work, the orders arrive, the warehouse runs out. Customers are left waiting, negative reviews pile up and budget is burned on products you cannot deliver. The speed of growth is not decided by the budget, it is decided by your ability to restock.

Frequently asked questions

Written by Roberto Caballero, founder of Bau Pet Strategy and co-founder of AD&CO S.R.L., the company that runs Animal Instinct, a pet e-commerce with over 17,000 customers and 520,000 euros in revenue in the last year. The numbers on our e-commerce come from direct campaign management; sector benchmarks are cited with their source.