Allvital: Marketing Budget Allocation Strategy

How a 47% Ad Spend Increase Revealed Why Some Markets Don’t Need More Budget

Introduction: Meet Allvital

For more than 20 years, Allvital has specialised in developing and distributing high-quality food supplements across the DACH region. Based in the Netherlands, the company operates both B2C and B2B channels, serving health-conscious consumers and medical professionals who value evidence-based nutrition.

All products are developed in-house and manufactured by certified companies in the EU, free from preservatives, colourings, and artificial additives.

The Challenge: Autopilot as a Ceiling

By early 2024, Allvital’s paid advertising had been running on autopilot due to limited resources and in-house knowledge. The approach was conservative:

Small budget with minimal testing across Germany and Switzerland
Promotional strategy unchanged for 20 years (three annual six-week periods of 10% sitewide discounts)
Standard campaign structures without market-specific optimisation
No systematic analysis of performance differences between markets

When I began working with Allvital in April 2024 as their day-to-day liaison with their performance marketing agency, the mandate was clear: make every euro work harder.

The company needed sustainable growth, but simply increasing ad spend wouldn’t solve the problem—we needed to understand where and how budget would work hardest.

The Solution: Phased Testing and Modernisation

My approach centred on three workstreams:

Phase 1 (2024): Promotional Strategy Overhaul

Changed from: Three annual six-week periods of 10% sitewide discounts
Changed to: Monthly thematic content and promotional strategy targeting different customer segments paired with educational content

This maintained consistent engagement whilst testing different promotional mechanics across markets. The 2024 calendar became our testing ground.

Phase 2 (2024-2025): Campaign Modernisation

Simultaneously implemented tactical improvements: new creative approaches, refined audience targeting and exclusions, competitive bidding strategies, and market-specific campaign structures in Google Ads.

Phase 3 (2025): Promotional Strategy Refinement

Based on 2024 learnings, we compromised: fewer promotional periods with deeper, wider discounts—combining 2023’s simplicity with 2024’s strategic timing. Customer feedback indicated site-wide discounts were missed, whilst operational reality showed monthly thematic promotions required unsustainable resources.

The Discovery: When More Budget Reveals Hidden Patterns

As we entered 2026 annual planning, I analysed nearly three years of Google Ads performance data. The surface-level view looked excellent:

Year-over-year (2024-2025):

Overall revenue growth: 10%
Germany Ad ROAS was around 16x
Switzerland Ad ROAD was around 42x

But when I examined ROAS and Ad spend by market over the three-year period, a striking pattern emerged:

ROAS amongst German ads declined from 60x (2023) to 30x (2024) to 16x (in 2025) while ad spend increased by 47%. In parallel, in Switzerland, ROAS dropped from 59x (2023) to 45x (2024) and to 42x in 2025, while ad spend increased by 18%

Industry Context: Typical vitamin/supplement e-commerce benchmarks show 3-4x ROAS and 7% CVR (Varos). So in absolute terms, both markets were crushing benchmarks—even Germany’s “lowest” performance at 16x was 5x better than the industry average.

The Critical Insight: Absolute vs Marginal Efficiency

Germany:

Each incremental euro returned less than the previous year
ROAS declined 73% over three years despite strong absolute performance
47% spend increase pushed into increasingly saturated territory
Performance heavily dependent on promotional periods

Switzerland:

ROAS remained remarkably stable as spend increased
18% spend increase maintained efficiency
Performance stayed strong during promotional and non-promotional periods
Market showed significantly more scaling headroom

The fundamental question shifted: Not “Is Germany performing well?” (it absolutely was), but “Where does our next euro work hardest?”

The Promotional Strategy Insight

When examining how 2024’s frequent small promotions compared to 2025’s fewer deep promotions:

Germany’s Results:

2024 (frequent, smaller promos): more consistent ROAS performance
2025 (fewer, deeper promos): ROAS deterioration despite level CVR
Insight: Germany benefits from promotional frequency over promotional depth

Switzerland’s Response:

2025 performance matched and exceeded 2024
Deeper discounts increased conversion without harming ROAS
Insight: Switzerland responds to promotional impact, not promotional frequency

When we isolated promotional vs non-promotional periods, the pattern was clear: Germany showed strong ROAS during promotions but significant decline in non-promotional months, whilst Switzerland maintained consistent ROAS regardless of promotional calendar.

The strategic implication: The same promotional calendar applied to both markets was not an optimal strategy.

Results: Strategic Clarity for 2026

This analysis established four core principles:

1. Switzerland Is Structurally More Efficient
Switzerland’s market potential is not just smaller, but has fundamentally different customer behaviour with higher baseline conversion intent, stable ROAS across promotional cycles, and cleaner scaling potential.

2. Germany Requires Different Strategic Treatment
While not underperforming, Germany is operationally different. Customers in this market have higher promotional dependency, benefit from frequency over depth, and show clear diminishing returns at higher spend levels.

3. Promotional Strategy Cannot Be Universal
Germany needs lighter but more frequent promotional touchpoints. Switzerland benefits from fewer, deeper, high-impact windows. Same discount value ≠ same economic outcome.

4. Budget Allocation Is a Strategic Decision
Both markets deliver excellent returns in absolute terms, but marginal efficiency differs dramatically. Capital allocation should reflect diminishing returns curves, not just historical success.

What This Means for 2026 Strategy

Armed with these insights, Allvital enters the 2026 planning period with the following key considerations:

Budget Allocation:

At what spend level does Germany’s efficiency drop below acceptable thresholds?
How much additional budget can Switzerland absorb?
What is the optimal allocation given different scaling curves?

Promotional Strategy:

Should Germany shift back toward more frequent, lighter promotional periods?
Should Switzerland maintain fewer, deeper promotional windows?
Can we run differentiated promotional calendars without operational complexity?

Performance Expectations:

Should we set market-specific ROAS targets?
Should Germany be treated as volume-led with efficiency guardrails?
Should Switzerland be prioritised as the efficiency anchor?

Conclusion: The Value of Strategic Analysis

This wasn’t about fixing broken performance—both markets delivered exceptional results by industry standards. It was about recognising that exceptional performance doesn’t mean unlimited scaling potential.

The real value came from:

Seeing patterns that surface-level metrics hide
Understanding market-specific dynamics
Distinguishing absolute from marginal efficiency
Providing strategic clarity for capital allocation

For Allvital, this transformed budget allocation from a tactical decision into a strategic one. Rather than asking “How do we scale Germany faster?” the question became “Given diminishing returns in Germany and scaling potential in Switzerland, where does incremental investment deliver maximum return?”

Key Takeaway for Multi-Market Businesses

If you operate in multiple markets, your biggest risk isn’t underperformance in one market—it’s treating all markets identically when they behave fundamentally differently.

The question isn’t whether your advertising works. It’s whether you’re allocating budgets based on where it works best at the margin, not just where it worked well historically.

Testing isn’t just for creative and campaigns. It’s essential for strategic budget allocation decisions.

Key Findings (Quick Reference)

Market Performance:

Germany ROAS: 60x → 30x → 16x (still 5x above industry benchmark)
Switzerland ROAS: 59x → 45x → 42x (14x above industry benchmark)
Both markets outperform industry CVR standards (~10-13% vs 7% respectively)

Strategic Insights:

47% ad spend increase in Germany showed diminishing marginal returns
18% ad spend increase in Switzerland maintained efficiency
Germany benefits from promotional frequency; Switzerland from promotional impact
Absolute performance metrics can mask marginal efficiency differences
Market-specific strategies outperform universal approaches

Want to uncover what your multi-market performance data is revealing about budget allocation opportunities? Let’s discuss what patterns might be hiding in your numbers.

Niki Harrold | Performance Marketing Strategy | DACH Markets Specialist

Appendix:

Performance Context (Full Transparency)

ROAS by Market (Annual Averages):

Germany:

2023: 60x | CVR: 7.4%
2024: 30x | CVR: 10.5%
2025: 16x | CVR: 10.1%

Switzerland:

2023: 59x | CVR: 9.4%
2024: 45x | CVR: 11.9%
2025: 42x | CVR: 13.6%

Important Context:

Technical tracking challenges from mid-2024 onward affect absolute accuracy
Directional trends and relative patterns remain valid
Both markets significantly outperform industry benchmarks (3-4x ROAS, 7% CVR typical)
Analysis focuses on strategic patterns rather than precise reporting

This analysis is based on verified 2023-2025 Google Ads performance data from Allvital, a vitamin and supplement ecommerce company serving DACH markets.