How we expanded Kivari into a new market and new generation, increasing purchases by 199% at 10.92 ROAS across all regions.

Kivari makes coastal, effortless resortwear for women who’d rather be somewhere sunny. It’s a brand with a loyal following, and a few growing pains.

For one, weather. 

Kivari sells spring and summer, so every Australian winter brings a demand cliff. Fortunately though, there exists an entire opposite hemisphere – one that could provide a second summer (in the US) if we played our cards right.

The next was age demographics. Kivari’s audience tended to skew older, and a brand that only speaks to one generation is its own worst enemy.

Both meant doing something that looked like a step backwards. 

To reach and resonate with younger audiences, our digital marketing experts swapped polished campaign shoots for lo-fi, Reels-first content, which Kivari was understandably nervous about. And to tackle the US, we pushed harder despite the Meta Ads dashboard saying things were getting worse.

On paper, both looked risky. In reality, both paid off.

Kivari had two goals that pulled in different directions.

Firstly, a new generation. Long-term growth meant reaching women aged 25–45 with a different fashion appetite. Simpler, more effortless, denim-led and allergic to anything that looks like a campaign shoot. The risk was winning them at the expense of losing the customers Kivari already had.

And there was a creative problem too. 

More than 60% of time spent on Meta happens on Reels. But Kivari’s creative engine ran on polished studio content built for a different era, so there weren’t enough vertical, full-screen Reels to test, learn from and scale. 

Prioritising Reels meant moving away from the content Kivari had always trusted, towards lo-fi formats that looked, on the surface, like a drop in production value.

Kivari was hesitant, and fair enough. 

We were asking them to trust that looking less polished would make them more effective.

And next up, cracking the US. That goal was never just a nice-to-have, but how Kivari would turn a seasonal business into a year-round one – selling summer in the US just as Australia cools down.

But before we could even push hard in this market, turbulence hit. 

Tariff uncertainty in the second half of 2025 forced an almost complete pause on US spend.

By early 2026, the platform numbers looked bleak enough that the team began asking whether 2025’s record first half had been a one-off. Still, we pushed harder instead of retreating – but the picture stayed murky. 

From April to July, Meta reported US revenue down 17% year on year. Kivari’s actual US sales over the same period were up 13%. 

Was Meta working or not?

Taking the dashboard at face value would have meant pulling out of a market that was growing, so we encountered the secondary challenge of finding proof.

In terms of expanding Kivari’s audience demographics, our partnership wins looked a little like so:

• Purchases from Australian campaigns nearly tripled, up 199%.
• Cost per purchase fell 25.5% – and return on ad spend rose from 7.96x to 10.37x.
• Video (mostly Reels) soon made up around 87% of spend and 88% of revenue, outperforming static and other formats at scale.
• Every age group grew. Kivari’s core 55–64 audience still grew impressions by 168%  (i.e. more than any other bracket), while every younger bracket grew too. We’re not a digital marketing agency that would trade one audience for another.

As for creating a second summer in the States, 

• Meta’s conversion lift study confirmed that growth was coming from Meta. With 99.9% confidence, it showed a 2.97x incremental ROAS lift.
• Kivari’s actual US sales grew 13% year on year, and across all international markets, return on ad spend rose 44% over the same period.
• Sales among people who saw the ads were around 3.6 times higher than Meta’s estimate of what they’d have been without them.

Off the back of those results, Kivari is now putting more investment and sharper focus into the US and its other international markets.

The creative Kivari was nervous about (aka. Reels) also became the content that nearly tripled its sales. 

We moved the account to a Reels-first approach. 

Not as a one-off trial, but a sustained shift. 

Crazy considering the previously hi-fidelity content Kivari preferred, and their audiences were used to. But we didn’t just dive into Reels willy-nilly, unintentionally. No, every video was built for the format, with vertical 9:16, sound on and a hook in the first three seconds.

We also varied every element (e.g. concept, background, music, models and product range) instead of repeating one winning ad until it wore out.

Other factors of consideration?

Two creator benches, one account.

To reach a new audience without losing the old one, we ran two sets of creators side by side. One being a proven creator bench that Kivari’s existing customers already loved (to retain and nurture them) and the next being younger, fashion-focused creators speaking to the 25–45 audience that Kivari wanted to win.

Media budget was split 70/30 between new and existing customers, so one account did two jobs through content alone – without picking one audience over the other.

Content that feels like a message from a friend.

This year’s best performers didn’t look like ads. They looked like Instagram posts.

• Mirror selfies
• Fit checks from the founder, creators and influencers
• Speaking-to-camera OOTD (outfit-of-the-day) videos
• Faceless outfit reveals

Each one opened with something that stopped the scroll. Recognisable sounds, or a greeting like “Hey, it’s Jess!” that feels like a video from a friend. 

All small variations on a winning formula, never the same ad twice.

Let the data decide.

We tracked performance format by format, comparing video and Reels against statics and carousels, then benchmarked against the same period last year. That way the numbers (not our assumptions) decided where to push harder.

The logic underneath was to trust Meta’s delivery system rather than second-guess it. 

Meta increasingly reads signals from the video itself to decide who sees it, so a varied pool of native content gives it more to work with.

Moving on to creating a second summer, our digital experts:

Double down, deliberately.

Nothing fazes Meta’s best-in-class performance agency. 

When the platform data got murky, we got sharper instead of pulling back:

• More budget into the US states that were performing best
• Implementing a dedicated reactivation campaign to win back customers who’d lapsed during the 2025 tariff pause
• 70% of US spend reserved for new customers, matching acquisition goals

Gambling on denim.

Except it was less a gamble, more an educated decision. 

Denim might be a stretch for a resortwear brand. But it was on trend in warmer US “cowboy states” and kept coming up as a favourite with the younger audience at home.

We didn’t break the account apart on a hunch. Denim ran inside the existing structure first. Only once the signal was clear did we give it a dedicated campaign of its own.

Establishing cleaner signals.

Meta’s Advantage+ (i.e. its AI-driven system for finding the right people to show ads to) has underpinned the account from day one, and the US push leaned on it further.

We also switched to click-based attribution only, dropping the mix of clicks and views. The data may be stricter, but definitely cleaner and more reliable.

Quick sign-up forms also power Kivari’s ongoing database growth strategy, collecting early-access sign-ups ahead of each new drop. They run year-round, giving shoppers who aren’t ready to buy an easy way to stay close to Kivari.

Kivari asked us to do two things that both felt like risks.

Talk to a new generation without alienating the old one, and keep investing in a market the dashboard said was slipping.

Both came down to trust, backed by proof. 

Lo-fi Reels nearly tripled sales and grew every age group, core demographic included. And a Meta conversion lift study showed Kivari’s international growth efforts in the US were properly working and that Paid Social was behind it.

A seasonal brand now has a second summer, and a new generation to sell it to.

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