Ecommerce Marketing Agency Toronto: Growth for Canadian DTC Brands

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Searching for an ecommerce marketing agency Toronto teams can work with day to day usually means you want someone who keeps your hours and understands Canadian buyers. Brand Scaling is a New York agency with no Toronto office or local team. We serve Canadian brands remotely, and because Toronto and New York share Eastern time, it rarely feels remote: we work the same hours you do.

We have not published a Canadian client result, so the numbers on this page are agency-wide. What follows is how we adapt the work for a brand selling to Canadians, whether you are based in Toronto or selling into Canada from the US.

What should a Toronto DTC brand look for in an ecommerce marketing agency?

Look for an agency that runs paid ads, creative and retention for Canadian buyers specifically: CAD pricing, provincial sales tax, PIPEDA and anti-spam consent, cross-border shipping and French for Quebec. Brand Scaling works from New York on the same Eastern time as Toronto, so calls and reporting run on your normal working day.

Same clock, same working day

There is no time-zone planning with Toronto. A Monday morning call, a midday creative review and an end-of-day budget check all happen while both teams are at their desks. When a campaign spikes on a Friday afternoon, we see it at the same moment you do.

That matters most in high-pressure weeks. During BFCM and Boxing Day we can make changes in real time with your team rather than leaving notes for the next morning.

CAD pricing and provincial sales tax

Canadian shoppers see prices in Canadian dollars, and an ad that quotes USD, or a store that converts at checkout, loses trust quickly. We set up ads, product pages and offers in CAD with price points that look deliberate rather than converted.

Sales tax is the part that catches brands out. Canada has a federal GST, some provinces combine it with provincial tax into a single HST, and others charge a separate provincial sales tax on top. The rate a buyer pays depends on where the order ships, so the same product carries a different total in Ontario, Alberta or Quebec. Unlike the UK, Canadian prices are normally shown before tax, with tax added at checkout, which means your break-even ROAS should be built on the pre-tax figure and your free-shipping threshold should be tested with tax in mind.

Cross-border shipping and duties from the US

Many brands selling to Canada ship from a US warehouse. That can work, but duties, brokerage fees and taxes collected at the door are one of the most common reasons Canadian buyers stop ordering. A customer who pays an unexpected fee on delivery rarely comes back, and that shows up later as a weak repeat rate rather than as an obvious ad problem.

Before we scale Canadian spend for a US brand we look at whether duties can be collected at checkout, whether a Canadian fulfilment partner makes sense, and what delivery time the ad can honestly promise. Trade and tariff rules between the two countries change, so we treat this as something to confirm with your logistics provider, not something to guess.

Landed cost shown at checkout so there is no fee at the door
Delivery promise in the creative that matches the real shipping time
Repeat rate tracked separately for Canadian buyers

Quebec French, PIPEDA and email consent

If you sell to Quebec, French is not optional. Quebec's language rules require French for commercial content aimed at its consumers, including product information and websites. In practice that means French ad creative for Quebec audiences, a properly translated store rather than a machine-translated one, and French versions of key emails and SMS. We run French and English campaigns separately so each language is tested on its own merits.

On privacy, PIPEDA governs how businesses collect personal information across most of Canada, and Quebec has its own, stricter privacy law. Canada's anti-spam law requires consent before you send commercial email or SMS, so Klaviyo sign-up forms and flows need clear consent language. On the tracking side we set up the Conversions API alongside your consent tool so ad platforms get clean data within those rules.

The Canadian calendar and how we work

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are major in Canada, and Boxing Day remains a big sales event, so Q4 for a Canadian brand runs from late October to the end of December. Canadian Thanksgiving falls in October, earlier than the American one, which shifts some gifting and family-sale timing.

Every engagement starts with a Brand Growth Audit with Gaurav, then runs through Foundation, Test, Optimize and Scale over the first 90 days and beyond. Pricing is quoted after the audit, using a retainer, a percentage of ad spend, a performance fee or a mix depending on your spend and margin.

Proof from real accounts

$50M+ Meta ad spend managed: Across our client accounts, agency-wide (see the proof)
3.97x Median ROAS across 25 published cases: Agency-wide, not Canada-specific (see the proof)
12+ years In ecommerce: Founder-led by Gaurav Kapoor (see the proof)

Frequently asked questions

Do you have an office in Toronto?

No. Brand Scaling has one office, in New York at 27 W 24th Street, Suite 702. We serve Toronto and Canadian brands remotely. Because both cities are on Eastern time, we keep the same working hours as your team, so calls, reviews and budget changes happen during your normal day without anyone working late.

Have you worked with Canadian ecommerce brands?

We have not published a Canadian client case study, so we will not claim Canadian results. What we can show are agency-wide numbers, such as $50M+ in Meta spend managed and a 3.97x median ROAS across 25 published cases, plus a published UK result that shows how we handle a market outside the US.

Do Canadian shoppers expect prices to include sales tax?

Generally no. Canadian prices are usually shown before tax, with GST, HST or provincial tax added at checkout depending on the province. That makes the final total vary by region. We build break-even ROAS on pre-tax revenue and test shipping thresholds and bundle prices with the added tax in mind, so the offer still feels fair at checkout.

Do we need French ads to sell into Quebec?

If you are targeting Quebec consumers, you should plan for French across ads, the store and customer emails, because Quebec language rules require French in commercial content. We run French campaigns separately from English ones and brief creative natively in French where possible, rather than translating English hooks word for word, which tends to read poorly.

Can a US brand scale Meta ads into Canada?

Yes, but fix the landed cost first. If Canadian buyers pay duties or brokerage fees on delivery, repeat orders suffer and the ad account looks worse than it is. We check checkout duty collection, fulfilment options and delivery promises before scaling, then run Canadian campaigns in CAD with their own break-even targets.

Book a Brand Growth Audit on Eastern time

Meet Gaurav on a video call during your working day. We review your ad account, creative, store and Canadian unit economics and tell you what to fix first. Book a Brand Growth Audit.