Sorena Greece
How a profitability-first media strategy turned Sorena’s wholesale traction into a scalable DTC engine, delivering 300%+ contribution margin every month.
The Case
Sorena is a Greek fashion brand known for its elegant, timeless designs and contemporary collections to fashion-conscious women unique & premium yet accessible pieces. The brand had already built strong market traction through wholesale, with more than 300 partner stores in Greece and another 300 worldwide – over 600 doors in total carrying Sorena products. While this wholesale success validated demand, Sorena’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel lagged behind. The ambition was clear: turn DTC into a scalable, profitable growth engine that could support both domestic dominance and international expansion.
The Challenge
By early 2025, Sorena’s DTC growth was under pressure.
- Despite wholesale traction, previous paid media campaigns for DTC failed to find a profitable path – volume was inconsistent and often came at the expense of contribution margin.
- Paid activity in Greece plateaued, leaving profitability inconsistent and expansion into Europe (Italy, Germany) unrealistic.
- The introduction of lower-value SKUs risked pulling down average order value (AOV) and weakening margins further.
The key question: how to achieve profitable growth in Greece and prove paid media could be a reliable driver of sustainable scaling in DTC?
Our Approach
Bravescale rebuilt Sorena’s paid media strategy around sustainable scaling:
- Full-funnel orchestration: Redesigned Meta and Google Ads to cover upper, mid, and lower funnel touchpoints, ensuring consistent visibility and conversion pathways.
- Profit-first measurement: Focused on First-Order Contribution Margin (FOCM) as the guiding KPI, rather than vanity metrics, to balance acquisition and profitability.
- Creative & UX acceleration: Launched a structured creative testing cycle on Meta and paired it with a CRO audit of Sorena’s DTC store, ensuring ads and onsite experience aligned & worked together to maximize conversion efficiency.
The Details
Channels Used: Meta Ads (acquisition + retargeting), Google Ads (Search, Shopping, PMax), CRO & UX Optimization
Budget: Scaled 2x within 45 days
Unique Tactics:
- Non-brand paid media expansion: Built out both Google and Meta upper–mid funnel campaigns to capture incremental demand, generate awareness, and convert first-time customers (achieving a 4.7x ROAS on non-brand paid activity).
- Creative testing cycle: Rolled out a diverse mix of video ads, lifestyle imagery and dynamic product ads (DPAs) to cover all funnel stages – from first-time exposure through to nurturing sequences and to conversion. This ensured users were guided seamlessly from discovery to becoming excited customers.
- CRO & UX recommendations: Data-informed optimizations to cart and checkout flow improved completion rates.
- User behaviour tracking: Implemented Microsoft Clarity to identify friction points and navigation nuances, enriching our GA4 data and guiding design decisions.
- Contribution margin tracking: Custom GA4 + FOCM layer ensured profitability remained visible at every step.
Results & What Made it Work
Within four months (April-July), Sorena achieved significant gains across core KPIs:
- First-Order Contribution Margin (FOCM): 300%+ every month (over 2.5x Year-on-Year)
- Revenue: +73% YoY
- Conversion Rate (CVR): +48% Year-on-Year
- Average Order Value (AOV): +6% – despite new lower-priced SKUs
- Media Efficiency Ratio (MER): Held steady above 11x – +84% YoY even as budget more than doubled in just 45 days.
- Non-Brand Paid Media ROAS: 4.7x – +88% YoY
With strong profitability achieved in Greece, plans are now in motion to extend results with more aggressive upper-funnel activity domestically and a structured push into Europe, starting with Italy and Germany.
What made it work
- Contribution Margin Focus: By prioritizing FOCM, the strategy ensured growth translated into real profit, not just top-line revenue.
- Controlled Budget Scaling: A phased 2x increase in spend maintained efficiency while opening new demand pockets.
- Conversion Optimization & Tracking: UX tweaks combined with MS Clarity insights and creative testing cycles unlocked higher cart and checkout completion rates, compounding the media impact.
Provided Services
The Results
Owner, Sorena Greece
Commercial Director, Sorena Greece
