DATE
15/04/2026
LIDAH Drums
LIDAH Drums creates handcrafted handpans and sound instruments in collaboration with Balinese craftsmen.
Besides having a loyal customer base and selling products, growth was fragmented and overly dependent on a single Q4 spike in 2025. There was no systematic lead generation, no structured email infrastructure, no paid media playbook, and no consistent presence across markets.
It was my challenge as the Fractional Head of Growth to prepare the company for the next phase.
B2C
Ecommerce
Services
Fractional Head of Growth
Industry
Meditational Instruments & Wellness
Client
LIDAH Drums
Problem Analysis
LIDAH had strong products and a loyal customer base, but growth was fragile. Revenue was founder-dependent, heavily concentrated in Q4, and there was no system underneath it, no lead generation, no email infrastructure, no paid media playbook, and no clear picture of what was driving revenue.
The first thing we did was diagnose the funnel. Before any campaign went live, we mapped the full customer journey, identified where value was leaking, and established the benchmarks we'd need to make trustworthy budget decisions: maximum CPL by market, expected conversion rates by lead source, and average time from lead capture to purchase.
Without this foundation, scaling would just mean spending more on guesswork.
Key challenges included:
Revenue heavily concentrated in Q4 (Black Friday) with weak Q1–Q3 performance
No unit economics or benchmarks, marketing budget was allocated on instinct, not data
No lead generation engine, the funnel started at purchase intent, skipping awareness entirely
Email was underused: minimal flows, no segmentation, no lifecycle logic
Paid media was reactive, not strategic, and ad accounts had no clear prospecting model outside of sale periods
No multi-market presence beyond the Netherlands
No affiliate or creator program to generate earned reach at scale
Execution was founder-dependent, with no dedicated marketing team and thin creative output
The ambition was to build a full-funnel growth system, one grounded in real benchmarks and repeatable processes, that could take LIDAH from a founder-led brand to a scalable business.
Solution
We approached this as infrastructure, not a campaign. Every piece needed to connect, from cold audience to purchase, from first email to repeat buyer.
1. Growth Funnel Architecture
We mapped the entire customer journey from awareness to referral and identified the highest-leverage gaps. For LIDAH, the biggest opportunity was mid-funnel: people who were aware of handpans but needed education, trust, and a reason to choose LIDAH specifically.
We built the funnel around two core entry points:
The Handpan Beginner Guide is a lead magnet for people just discovering the instrument
The Handpan Sound Test is a tool for people actively comparing options before buying
Both are fed directly into Klaviyo email flows and Meta custom audiences, creating a warm pipeline that could be activated during sale periods.
2. Paid Media - Meta & Google
We rebuilt the paid media strategy from the ground up across both platforms.
Google Ads:
Launched Performance Max campaigns segmented by market (NL, BE, DE, FR, UK)
Built beginner handpan search campaigns targeting high-intent discovery queries
Introduced branded and competitor search campaigns in DE, opening a new revenue market
Scaled PMAX NL to ROAS 21+ during the Spring Sale, the strongest performing asset group of the quarter
Meta Ads:
Restructured audience architecture, clear separation between prospecting (cold), mid-funnel (lead magnet visitors), and retargeting (warm + purchasers)
Launched beginner funnel content in paid, educational creative aligned with the discovery mindset
Built Spring Sale retargeting campaigns that activated the warm pipeline built through Q1
Invested heavily in influencer & affiliate marketing to reach artists' fans directly
The model: Meta builds the pipeline. Google captures intent. Email closes.
Critically, we now have the data to run Meta prospecting profitably, not just during sales.
By tracking lead-to-purchase conversion rates per lead magnet and per country, we've established clear benchmarks: maximum CPL by market, expected ROAS per lead source, and the average time from lead capture to purchase.
This means budget decisions are made with known unit economics, not assumptions. We know which lead magnets in which markets produce buyers, how long it takes, and exactly how much we can afford to pay per lead while staying profitable, before a sale ever launches.
3. Email Infrastructure
Email went from an afterthought to the brand's most efficient revenue channel.
We built a complete lifecycle email system:
Welcome flow - segmented by language (NL/EN/DE/FR) and lead source
Handpan Guide nurture flow - 12-email sequence educating beginners and introducing LIDAH's instruments
Handpan Test follow-up flow - product-specific sequences based on which instrument they tested
Browse and cart abandonment flows - re-engaging high-intent visitors
Post-purchase flow - care, cross-sell, referral, and community
Sale campaign architecture - pre-launch, early access, launch day, mid-sale, and final push sequences with NL/EN/DE/FR versioning throughout
4. Marketing Team & Creative Engine
Behind the system is a team. We built LIDAH's dedicated marketing department from scratch, assembling a five-person team covering paid media, content creation, email marketing, affiliate and social.
Speed of learning is the core advantage. The team runs 20+ creative hooks per week, testing angles, formats, and messaging across Meta and organic simultaneously. Each hook is evaluated on scroll-stop rate, CTR, and downstream conversion signal. What works gets scaled. What doesn't get cut within days, not weeks.
We also integrated AI into the content production process, from copy generation and variation testing to email flow drafting and briefing. This compresses the feedback loop: more output, faster iteration, lower production cost per asset. The team doesn't replace judgment with AI; it uses AI to remove the bottlenecks that slow judgment down.
The result is a creative machine that can feed the full funnel continuously: new hooks for Meta prospecting, fresh UGC briefs for creators, localised email copy in NL and EN, and campaign assets ready for every market.
5. Affiliate & Creator Program
We built LIDAH's first structured affiliate and creator program from scratch, recruiting artists and content creators whose audiences align with the handpan and sound-healing space.
In Q1 of 2026, I've onboarded 20+ affiliates to LIDAH, including Ethereal_in_E, whose total following amounts to 13m+, making him the biggest handpan influencer on the planet.
Creator content supported both organic reach and paid media; UGC assets were fed directly into Meta campaigns as top- & bottom-funnel creatives.
Utilising talking head content on follower audiences drove ROAS in Meta up to 19 during sale periods. Enabling LIDAH to scale budgets royally.
6. Multi-Market Expansion
Q1 2025 was effectively a single-market business (NL/BE). By the end of Q1 2026, LIDAH was running profitable campaigns across six markets:
Netherlands - core, scaling aggressively
Belgium (NL + FR) - live and performing
Germany - opened in January, first affiliates PMAX DE launched in March
France - Launched in February at a low budget
United Kingdom - Launched in February, early data gathering
United States - Landing page and campaigns in test phase by March
Each market required tailored language, localised email flows, local affiliate collaborations, market-specific Google campaigns, and adapted messaging.
Results
Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025 — Year-on-Year
KPI | YoY Growth |
|---|---|
Total Revenue | +287% |
Online Revenue | +542% |
Total Purchases | +299% |
Email Revenue | +761% |
Blended ROAS | Grew from 1.5 to ~4.5 |
Key callouts:
Blended ROAS grew whilst marketing spend scaled +444% YoY, absorbing a fully new team cost base that didn't exist in Q1 2025
March 2026 alone generated more revenue than all of Q1 2025 combined
Google PMAX NL peaked at ROAS 21+ during the Spring Sale
Email grew +761% YoY and is now a meaningful standalone revenue channel
1,290 leads generated in Q1 at 62% below the maximum CPL, against zero lead infrastructure the year before
Four new markets live by the end of Q1: Germany, France, the UK, and the US
Growth Funnel Enablement
At the core of this work is a full-funnel growth system, built to learn, iterate, and compound. Not a single campaign. A repeatable engine.
Every quarter, LIDAH now enters with:
A warm lead pipeline ready to be activated
A segmented email list with clear lifecycle flows
Paid media accounts with market-tested campaigns across 6+ countries
A six-person marketing team testing 20+ hooks per week and iterating in real time
AI-integrated production that compresses the time from idea to live asset
Localised creator and affiliate partnerships generating earned reach
A sales campaign playbook that has been proven twice and can scale further
The Black Friday spike in Q4 2025 was the proof of concept. Q1 2026, traditionally the quietest quarter for a seasonally driven instrument brand, was proof of the system.
How We Work?
