Commerce growth
Profitable growth measured in contribution margin, not blended ROAS
Most ecommerce and retail brands scale spend against a metric that hides the truth. We rebuild measurement around contribution margin and repeat rate, then fix the product, feed and retention work that actually moves it.
- Margin-aware reporting: COGS, shipping, discounts and returns included
- New-customer versus repeat revenue separated in every report
- Feed, product page and retention work before more media spend
Models we treat differently
Direct-to-consumer brands
Paid-acquisition dependent, margin-sensitive, retention decides viability
Contribution-margin reporting, creative testing and lifecycle retention
Multi-brand and marketplace retail
Catalogue breadth, price comparison, feed quality decides visibility
Shopping feed hygiene, category SEO and merchandising
Bricks-and-clicks retail
Online research, in-store purchase, attribution is genuinely hard
Local inventory visibility and honest online-to-store measurement
Subscription and replenishment
Recurring revenue with churn as the primary constraint
Onboarding, churn-point intervention and reactivation
Acquisition challenges
What actually breaks in ecommerce & retail customer acquisition
The recurring pattern in commerce audits is a scaling decision made on a number that does not account for costs.
Blended ROAS hides unprofitable growth
Blended returns look healthy while new-customer acquisition loses money on every order. Repeat purchases from existing customers subsidise the average and disguise the problem until cash runs short.
Discounting substituted for positioning
Every promotion trains customers to wait for the next one. Margin erodes permanently while revenue charts look stable.
Product feed neglected
Missing attributes, poor titles, stale pricing and disapproved items quietly suppress shopping visibility. Feed work is the least glamorous and often highest-return fix available.
Product pages that answer nothing
Sizing, materials, delivery timing, returns terms — the questions that decide the purchase are buried or absent, and the traffic converts poorly no matter how good the ad was.
Retention treated as an email afterthought
Acquisition costs rise every year. Without a lifecycle programme, the brand pays full price for every order it ever takes.
Returns excluded from performance reporting
A category with a thirty percent return rate is not performing the way the dashboard claims. Returns must sit inside the reporting, not beside it.
Customer journey
How your customers actually buy
Commerce journeys are short but rarely linear, and the profitable part happens after the first order.
- 1
Discovery
A social feed, a search, a marketplace listing or a recommendation introduces the product.
Creative volume and variety, shopping feed coverage and category-level organic visibility.
- 2
Evaluation
Price, reviews, delivery time and returns policy are compared across two or three options in minutes.
Product pages that answer objections directly, with reviews, sizing detail, delivery expectations and clear returns terms.
- 3
Cart and checkout
Unexpected shipping cost, forced account creation or a slow mobile checkout ends a large share of sessions.
Checkout friction audit, transparent shipping thresholds and abandonment recovery flows.
- 4
First purchase
The order is placed — and in most brands, this is where marketing attention stops.
Post-purchase sequences, delivery communication and a first-to-second-order push.
- 5
Repeat and replenishment
The customer either returns within the expected window or lapses quietly.
Lifecycle segmentation, replenishment timing and win-back campaigns triggered by real purchase intervals.
- 6
Advocacy
Reviews, referrals and user content drive the next customer's discovery.
Review solicitation at the right post-delivery moment and a referral mechanic worth participating in.
Channel mix
What we recommend, and in what order
Measurement and merchandising come first; paid scale is only safe once contribution margin is visible.
Contribution-margin measurement
Reporting that includes COGS, shipping, discounts and returns is the prerequisite for every other decision in commerce.
Paid social and creative testing
The dominant discovery channel for consumer brands; performance is driven by creative volume and iteration rather than targeting tweaks.
Shopping feeds and paid search
Feed quality determines eligibility and cost. Cleaning attributes and titles routinely outperforms bid changes.
Product page and checkout conversion
Improving conversion lifts every channel at once and costs nothing per order.
Email and SMS lifecycle
Retention is where commerce margin lives. Flows compound while acquisition costs keep rising.
Category and product SEO
Durable non-paid demand at the category level, and protection against rising media costs.
Local inventory visibility
For retailers with physical stock, showing local availability converts online research into store visits.
Marketplaces
Volume at the cost of margin and customer ownership. Worth it deliberately, not by default.
Packages built for ecommerce & retail
Fixed scopes with published inclusions and exclusions. Final scope is confirmed after a discovery call.
Growth Essentials
From $2,500/mo
A steady monthly programme across website, search and follow-up.
- Website and conversion improvements
- SEO or local SEO
- Content and campaign support
- CRM organization
Full-Funnel Growth
From $8,000/mo
Demand, content and conversion coordinated across the whole buying committee.
- Everything in Pipeline Engine
- Second acquisition channel added based on fit
- Content programme mapped to buying stages
- Nurture and lifecycle email
Conversion Website
From $5,000
A fast, credible marketing site built to turn visitors into enquiries.
- Messaging and sitemap
- Design system and page templates
- Build, responsive QA and accessibility pass
- On-page SEO foundation
- • Media spend (Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, or any other paid platform) is billed separately by the platform and is not included unless a package explicitly says otherwise.
- • Software, hosting, domains, call tracking, review platforms, backlink or placement purchases and other third-party costs are separate unless explicitly included.
- • Results are not guaranteed. We do not publish or promise lead volumes, rankings, revenue or ROAS.
Solutions we deploy here
Paid Search & Social
Google, Meta and LinkedIn campaigns built around cost-per-qualified-lead, not impressions.
Websites & Conversion
Fast, accessible websites and landing pages designed to turn traffic into booked work.
SEO & Content
Technical SEO, content architecture and authority building for durable organic growth.
CRM & Automation
CRM setup, pipeline hygiene and automations that remove manual follow-up work.
Branding & Creative
Identity systems, creative assets and messaging that make you the obvious choice.
Client examples shared under NDA
Our client work is covered by confidentiality agreements. We'll walk you through comparable engagements on a call.
See our workWhat we measure for ecommerce & retail
Every headline number is reported after costs, and new-customer performance is never blended with repeat revenue.
Contribution margin per order
Revenue minus COGS, shipping, payment fees, discounts and returns — the number scaling decisions should be based on.
New-customer acquisition cost
Media plus fees divided by first-time customers only, never blended with repeat orders.
New versus repeat revenue split
Where growth is genuinely coming from, reported separately every period.
Repeat purchase rate and time to second order
The clearest early indicator of whether the brand can afford its own acquisition costs.
Conversion rate by device and template
Mobile and desktop reported separately, by page template, so fixes can be prioritised.
Return rate by category
Returns applied against category performance rather than reported as a separate line.
Email and SMS revenue share
Owned-channel contribution to total revenue — the measure of retention health.
Feed health
Disapproved items, missing attributes and coverage against your full catalogue.
These are definitions of what we track and report, not promised outcomes. We do not publish or guarantee rankings, lead volume, revenue or ROAS.
Implementation
How the engagement runs
- Week 1–3
Margin and measurement rebuild
We rebuild reporting to include COGS, shipping, discounts and returns, split new from repeat, and establish the real contribution margin per order and per category.
- Week 2–4
Feed and catalogue audit
Attribute coverage, title structure, disapprovals, pricing accuracy and category mapping fixed before any spend increase.
- Week 3–8
Product page and checkout work
Objection-led product content, mobile checkout friction, shipping transparency and abandonment recovery.
- Week 5–9
Creative and campaign restructure
Campaign structure aligned to margin tiers, with a creative testing cadence rather than one-off asset drops.
- Week 6–12
Lifecycle programme
Welcome, abandonment, post-purchase, replenishment and win-back flows segmented by purchase behaviour and category.
- Monthly
Monthly margin review
Contribution margin by category and channel, return-rate movement, retention cohorts and where to scale or cut.
Ecommerce & Retail questions we get asked
Compliance and scope
- • Performance is reported after COGS, shipping, discounts and returns where that data is supplied to us.
- • Online-to-store measurement is directional and modelled; we label it as such rather than presenting it as verified revenue.
Get a margin and acquisition review
Share your catalogue, margins and current channel mix. We will show where growth is profitable, where it is not, and what to fix first.
Related reading
Comparison
Best Marketing Analytics Tools for B2B in 2026
From Google Analytics to Tableau — the analytics tools B2B teams need.
Reporting
UTM Tracking Guide: How to Measure Every Marketing Touchpoint
UTM parameters are the foundation of marketing attribution.
Automation
15 Marketing Automation Workflows Every B2B Team Needs
Pre-built workflow templates for lead nurture, scoring, routing, and reporting.