SerenoVita: From $2K Wasted to 4x ROAS by Targeting the Right Audience

Launching a dropshipping store is exciting. You've got the products, the website is live, and you're ready to scale. But for SerenoVita, a worldwide camera dropshipping store run by two entrepreneurs, the excitement quickly turned to frustration.

Despite spending over $2,000 on ads targeting photography enthusiasts, they had low sales. Every campaign bombed. Their ROAS sat at a dismal 0.5x, meaning they were losing money on every dollar spent. With a 16-hour weekly grind creating campaigns that didn't convert, they were burning through budget and time with nothing to show for it.

The problem wasn't their products or their website. It was something more fundamental: they were targeting the completely wrong audience.

The Challenge: $2K Wasted, Wrong Direction

Like many new store owners, SerenoVita made assumptions about their ideal customer. Selling cameras? Target photography enthusiasts, hobbyists, and amateur photographers. It seemed obvious.

But 'obvious' was costing them everything:

• A couple conversions after $2,000+ in ad spend: Not a single sale despite running multiple campaigns
• 0.5x ROAS: Losing 50 cents on every dollar, a death spiral for any business
• Sky-high cost per lead: At $135 per lead, customer acquisition was financially impossible
• 16 hours weekly creating campaigns: Massive time investment with .50 cents on every dollar spent
• Pure guesswork: No data, no insights, just assumptions about what photography enthusiasts wanted

The two-person team knew they needed help. They considered hiring a digital marketing agency, but at $5,500+ monthly, it would drain their limited budget even faster. They needed a way to understand their market without betting everything on expensive outside help.

We were aiming in the wrong direction. We were targeting the wrong audience and we were wasting our time and money.

Finding WeThryv: Market Intelligence on a Startup Budget

When evaluating solutions, SerenoVita needed something that could answer a critical question: Who actually wants to buy our cameras, and why?

WeThryv's Starter plan offered exactly what they needed at a fraction of agency costs:

• Real customer pain points: Mine actual conversations from forums, reviews, and communities to understand what drives camera purchases
• Market opportunity detection: Identify underserved audiences and use cases they'd never considered
• Competitive intelligence: See what customers say about competitors' products
• AI-powered copy generation: Create ads, landing pages, and emails based on real customer language
• Website development insights: Optimize their store based on customer expectations

For a dropshipping business with tight margins and limited budget, the decision was clear. WeThryv would either reveal the insights they needed to succeed, or confirm they were in the wrong market entirely.

Customer pain points and market opportunities was really the game changer for us. We have just started our store and have a relative budget to work with, but we wanted to make sure we get the returns we invested.

The Game-Changing Discovery: Harsh Work Environments

Within two hours of signing up and running their first insights analysis, SerenoVita discovered something that completely changed their business trajectory.

The cameras they were selling weren't being sought by photography enthusiasts at all. Instead, WeThryv surfaced conversations from a completely different audience: professionals working in extreme, harsh environments.

• Automotive technicians needing cameras to inspect hard-to-reach engine components
• High-tower cabling workers documenting installations at dangerous heights
• Industrial inspectors requiring durable cameras for harsh conditions
• Construction professionals needing reliable documentation tools on job sites
• Maintenance workers in manufacturing facilities with extreme temperatures

These weren't hobbyists looking for the best shot, they were professionals who needed cameras as essential work tools that could withstand punishment. The pain points were completely different:

• Durability in extreme conditions (heat, cold, moisture, dust)
• Reliability when failure means lost productivity or safety issues
• Compact size for tight spaces and portability on job sites
• Easy operation with gloves or in low-light conditions
• Image quality sufficient for documentation and insurance claims

We generally targeted the wrong audience. The insight WeThryv gave was regarding extreme harsh working environments. We were able to shift our target audience to people who are looking for a camera to help them in their job, whether it was from automotive usage or high tower cabling jobs. This was the absolute game changer.

Implementation: The 5-Level Awareness Framework

Armed with these insights, SerenoVita completely rebuilt their marketing strategy. They implemented a sophisticated awareness-level framework that targeted customers at every stage of the buying journey, something that would have been impossible without understanding their true audience.

Monthly Campaign Strategy

Each month, they run five campaigns using WeThryv insights, targeting different awareness levels:

• Totally Unaware: Targeting professionals who don't yet know inspection cameras exist for their work
• Problem Aware: Reaching workers frustrated with current documentation methods
• Solution Aware: Educating prospects on how portable cameras solve their specific challenges
• Product Aware: Showcasing why SerenoVita's cameras are ideal for harsh environments
• Most Aware: Converting ready-to-buy customers with specific offers

What once took 16 hours of guesswork now takes 1 hour using WeThryv's AI copy generation. The initial setup took 2 hours, but subsequent campaigns are generated in under an hour, a 94% time reduction.

The Halloween Campaign Success

Their first major test came with a Halloween promotional campaign. Using WeThryv insights about their industrial audience, they created messaging focused on 'Don't let darkness stop your work' and positioned their cameras as essential tools for reduced-visibility fall and winter work conditions.

The results validated everything. Sales finally started flowing in consistently.

The Results: From $200 to $1K Weekly (and Growing)

The transformation wasn't just significant, it was business-saving. By targeting the right audience with messaging that resonated, every metric improved dramatically.

Performance Transformation

• ROAS jumped from 0.5x to 4x: From losing money on every dollar to making $4 profit per dollar spent
• Cost per lead plummeted 89%: From $135 to $15.31, making customer acquisition actually profitable
• Weekly revenue: $50 to $1,000+: Went from low sales to consistent four-figure weekly revenue
• Projected growth: $10K weekly by year-end: On track for 10x revenue growth within months

Efficiency & Cost Savings

• Campaign creation: 16 hours → 1 hour: 94% time reduction per campaign cycle
• Launch speed: 10x faster: Ideas go from concept to live campaigns in hours, not days
• Monthly savings: $5,500 + 16 hours: Eliminated need for expensive agency while reclaiming massive time investment

Qualitative Transformation

Beyond the numbers, SerenoVita gained something invaluable: certainty. Instead of throwing money at different audiences hoping something would stick, they now know exactly who their customers are and what motivates them.

• Deep market understanding: Clear picture of customer pain points, objections, and buying triggers
• Eliminated guesswork: Every campaign decision backed by real customer conversations
• Consistent sales: Predictable revenue instead of hoping for occasional lucky breaks
• Professional marketing: Agency-quality insights and copy without the agency price tag
• Confidence to scale: Proven formula ready for increased ad spend

We'd only hear sales from a few customers. Now we're getting sales on a consistent basis.

The Intelligence Advantage: Why WeThryv Outperforms Generic AI

SerenoVita had access to ChatGPT and other AI tools, but those generic solutions couldn't provide the critical insight that saved their business. Why? Because they couldn't analyze real market conversations to reveal unexpected audience segments.

WeThryv's ability to mine the public web for actual customer discussions, pain points, and use cases uncovered an audience that no amount of generic prompting would have revealed. The AI wasn't just writing better copy, it was discovering better targets.

I love how intelligent the AI is. I've been able to get so many insights from the public web that I would have never known about. ChatGPT and others can't compare.

Scaling Forward: The Path to $10K Weekly

With a proven formula and consistent sales, SerenoVita is now focused on scaling. They continue running monthly insights to stay ahead of seasonal trends and emerging pain points in their industrial customer base.

Their five-level awareness campaign framework, which seemed impossibly complex when they were guessing at messaging, now runs like clockwork. One hour per month to generate all campaigns, then monitor and optimize based on performance.

The projection to hit $10,000 in weekly sales by year-end isn't just optimistic thinking. It's based on their current trajectory and the proven playbook they've built using WeThryv insights.

Key Lessons for Dropshippers

• Your assumptions might be completely wrong: SerenoVita thought they were targeting photography enthusiasts, their real customers were industrial workers
• Find pain points, not just interested audiences: People buy when something solves a real problem, not just an interest
• Market research beats generic AI: ChatGPT can't tell you about audience segments you don't know exist
• Awareness-level targeting multiplies effectiveness: Meeting customers where they are in their buying journey dramatically improves conversion
• Time efficiency matters for small teams: Reducing 16 hours to 1 hour means more time for business growth, not campaign creation
• Smart tools beat expensive agencies: $60/month with WeThryv delivered better results than a $5,500/month agency would have

What They'd Tell You

When asked what they'd tell other store owners considering WeThryv, the SerenoVita team was clear:

We were aiming in the wrong direction. We were targeting the wrong audience and we were wasting our time and money. WeThryv gave us the insights to target the right audience and we're now getting sales on a consistent basis. I can't recommend this application enough.

Their story demonstrates a critical truth: the difference between a failing dropshipping store and a successful one often isn't the products, it's understanding who actually needs them and why.