Smartly, a digital advertising automation platform, integrated Photoroom's Remove Background API to automate product image editing for client Emma's paid social campaigns. The integration cut catalog editing time from 30 hours to under 10, scaled campaign production from one catalog to seven across Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest, and delivered a 236% increase in average order value, a 73% increase in click-through rate, and an 18.42% improvement in return on ad spend.
Life before Photoroom
30 hours of manual editing per product catalog
Unprofessional and inconsistent product image backgrounds
Catalog image backgrounds didn’t align with the ad creative vision
Internal solution required manual work per product
One catalog advertised at a time
Life with Photoroom
236% increase in average order value
73% lift in click-through rate
18.42% improvement in return on ad spend
Automated background removal via API integration
Catalog editing cut from 30 hours to under 10 hours
Seven catalogs live across three channels at once
"We tried the Photoroom API and it was just a much smoother experience. It allowed us to launch in a shorter time, and we scaled from having one catalog advertised to having seven different catalogs being done all at once, on TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest."
— Hamza Abdou, Customer Success Manager at Smartly
Smartly builds advertising automation for brands running paid social at scale, handling media buying, creative production, and campaign optimization across channels.
When Smartly's team began building paid social campaigns for Emma, an e‑commerce company specializing in sleep products, they ran into a familiar problem: Emma's product catalog images had backgrounds that weren’t visually appealing, making them unsuitable for the ad creative Smartly’s team wanted to produce.
For campaigns running on Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest, visuals needed to look professional and consistent. But the raw catalog images made that difficult before any creative work could even begin.
The challenge: 30 hours to process images for a catalog
Smartly's team first tried an internal solution to fix the issue with Emma’s image backgrounds. The approach involved creating target images for each product, then manually removing and replacing the backgrounds. It was functional but slow; each catalog took roughly 30 hours to edit.
"We were spending around 30 hours per catalog on manual background removal. It was time-consuming, especially when we needed to launch campaigns quickly across multiple channels."
— Hamza Abdou, Customer Success Manager at Smartly
This manual image production process also wasn't scalable due to the varying product types, image compositions, and the complexity of automating keywords for different products. The team could manage one catalog at a time, but scaling to multiple campaigns across multiple channels was not realistic without a more automated approach.
From a manual process to an automated image processing platform
After evaluating options, including the internal manual process that had already proven too slow, Smartly selected Photoroom's Remove Background API for its processing speed and compatibility with existing workflows. The API connected directly to Emma's existing catalog systems, preserving dynamic elements such as real-time price updates while automatically removing backgrounds.
The difference in speed changed how quickly the team could move. Photoroom's API processes images in under 300 milliseconds, which meant editing was no longer the step that delayed campaign launches for Smartly. Instead of spending days preparing images for a single catalog, the team could process an entire product set and move straight into creative production.
That shift in speed further unlocked scale. Smartly went from advertising one catalog to running seven catalogs at once, across TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest. Six distinct campaigns ran simultaneously on the three channels, totaling 18 campaign variations, all with consistent image quality. The team redirected the hours they had previously spent on image editing toward creative strategy and campaign optimization.
A digital campaign visual created by Smartly for Emma. Source: Smartly
Better product visuals, better campaign performance
With more professional product images for ad creatives, Emma's paid social campaigns performed measurably better across all three channels.
236% increase in average order value (AOV): with cleaner product images, the team built stronger ad creatives that attracted higher-intent buyers across Emma's campaigns.
73% lift in click-through rate (CTR): more engaging product images attracted more traffic from paid social ads.
18.42% increase in return on ad spend (ROAS): campaigns generated more revenue per ad dollar spent.
Editing time reduced from 30 hours to approximately 8-10 hours per catalog, shifting the team's focus from image editing to creative strategy and optimization.
Scaled from one catalog to seven across Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest simultaneously.
The efficiency gains allowed Emma to allocate more budget to high-performing campaigns. The image consistency across channels also meant creative assets worked across platforms without needing to be re-edited for each one.
What's next: expanding the use of AI in future ad campaigns
With background removal embedded in the ad creation process, Smartly sees potential to extend the Photoroom partnership to other tools. "Features such as scene generation and video editing are anticipated to revolutionize content creation, offering even more personalized and engaging ad experiences," Hamza shares.
Photoroom is the AI product photography platform that enables advertising and tech teams to automate visual production, from catalog cleanup to creative asset generation. Background removal was the starting point for Smartly, and their campaign results make the case for what they stand to gain by expanding their use of Photoroom’s complete solutions.
