Your best market is across a border.
Most Vancouver businesses sell into the US, but most of them work out their unit economics in one currency. That shortcut hides where the margin really goes.
Benchmarks in this market
- CPA from creative volume
- -38%CPA from creative volume
- Contribution per order after repricing
- +44%Contribution per order after repricing
- Creative output at local production rates
- 6×Creative output at local production rates
Illustrative ranges for engagements of this type, not verified Vancouver-specific client data. Orientation, not a guarantee. Your starting point changes the range.
How we work here: Remotely from our San Francisco office, with PT coverage for calls and travel for kickoffs. We don't claim a Vancouver office we don't have.
Clients across every market
What's actually different about Metro Vancouver
Vancouver's home market is small next to the one just south of it. So many businesses here sell across the border from early on.
That brings costs most marketing plans handle badly. Revenue comes in one currency and costs go out in another. Physical goods pay duties and brokerage. Taxes work differently. And US buyers usually have no idea the seller is Canadian.
On top of that, Vancouver has a deep pool of creative and technical talent from film, visual effects and games. That makes high-quality production unusually affordable here. It's a real advantage, and most local brands don't use it enough.
Work out your margin in the currency you spend
If revenue is in US dollars and costs are in Canadian dollars, your real margin moves with the exchange rate. A break-even ROAS worked out in one currency is wrong in the other. We model profit per order with the two currencies kept separate. That often changes which products are worth advertising at all.
Duties and brokerage should shape your shipping offer
For physical goods, the cost of reaching a US customer includes duty and brokerage, and the customer may get hit with it at delivery. That surprise leads to a refund and a bad review. Decide upfront who pays it, and set your free-shipping threshold around the real delivered cost. That matters more than most on-page conversion work.
Production is cheap here, and brands underuse it
Thanks to the film and visual-effects industry, skilled crews and post-production are available at rates that would be unrealistic in California. If the amount of creative you can make is what limits your growth, that's a big advantage. Yet most local brands still order the same amount of creative as competitors who don't have it.
Your US buyers don't know you're Canadian
It changes almost nothing in your messaging and a lot in operations: how prices are shown, shipping expectations, support hours and the returns address. The friction shows up as lower conversion on US traffic. It usually gets blamed on the creative when it's really a logistics problem.
What usually moves first in Vancouver.
Based on what tends to be the binding constraint for companies in this market. Your audit may point somewhere else. We go where the numbers say.
Industry playbooks relevant in Vancouver
Specific playbooks for Vancouver businesses
The part clients actually remember.
Not the reports. The uncomfortable conversation that changed the trajectory.
We were terrified of going light-mode in a category where everything is dark. It turned out to be the whole point. People finally remembered who we were.
Our offices had been competing against each other in Google for years without anyone realizing it. Fixing that alone changed the numbers before any new content was even published.
We were generating 400 leads a month and closing nothing. Now we generate almost no leads and close eight-figure pipeline. Marketing and sales finally look at the same screen.
Vancouver questions, answered straight.
Show prices in the customer's currency. A US shopper who sees Canadian dollars either does the math and leaves, or gets surprised at checkout. What matters even more is that your internal profit model keeps the two currencies separate. A margin that looks healthy in one can be thin in the other once the exchange rate moves. Get the display right for conversions, and the model right for decisions.
Let's look at your numbers.
A free 30-minute teardown of your funnel, ads, and site, run against what actually works in Metro Vancouver. You keep the findings either way.