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Senior team since 2016
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Marketplace performance marketing runs separate budgets and creative for buyer acquisition and seller recruitment, preventing one funnel from starving the other. LinkedIn and Google Search fit B2B seller recruitment; Meta and Google fit consumer-facing recruitment. Measured against cost per transacting buyer and cost per onboarded seller, tracked separately.
Liquidity first, growth second
A marketplace that buys too many buyers and too few sellers disappoints everyone. The reverse wastes seller goodwill. So we plan paid media around liquidity: how quickly a listing sells, how many options a buyer sees, and where the supply gaps are. Budgets move to whichever side is holding the market back.
Too many on one side disappoints the other, so budgets move to whichever side holds the market back.
Separate funnels, separate creative
Buyer acquisition: Google Search and Shopping where the category supports it, Meta and TikTok for discovery-led categories
Seller recruitment: Google Search for "sell my" and "list my" intent, LinkedIn for B2B sellers, partnerships and referral offers
Retention: retargeting and CRM audiences so first-time buyers come back
The biggest marketplaces spend heavily here for a reason
Amazon reported around $68 billion of advertising revenue in 2025 (Marketing Dive, 2026). Part of what makes a marketplace valuable is the ad business its sellers create. For growing marketplaces, a simple sponsored listing product can fund part of your own acquisition, once there is enough buyer traffic to make it worthwhile for sellers.
Worth knowing
Referral loops beat paid for many marketplaces once they are working. Dropbox is the famous example outside marketplaces: its double-sided referral offer is widely credited with much of its early growth. We set up referral tracking alongside paid from day one so you can compare them.
What we report
Cost per transacting buyer, cost per active seller, time to first transaction on each side and liquidity by category and city. See marketplace SEO for the organic side.
FAQ
Should buyer and seller ads run on the same budget?
No, separate budgets and creative for each side prevent one funnel from starving the other.
Which platforms work for seller recruitment ads?
LinkedIn and Google Search for B2B sellers; Meta and Google for consumer-facing seller recruitment.
How is spend measured?
Against cost per transacting buyer and cost per onboarded seller, tracked separately.
What should a marketplace measure instead of sign-ups?
Transacting users on each side, and how quickly new users make their first transaction. Sign-ups alone hide whether the market is working.
Should we subsidise the first transaction?
Sometimes, in a new city or category. Set a clear end date and track whether subsidised users return without the discount.
