+71% blended ROAS in 90 days
Multi-channel scaling: paid + lifecycle + marketplace + analytics rebuild.
Where it started.
$25M GMV DTC home-goods brand, plateaued at $1.2M/month after 4 years of growth. Two prior agencies had churned in 18 months. Founder was running marketing in spare hours alongside CEO duties. Board pressure to hit $30M GMV with paid efficiency at or above 3.5x blended.
What was broken.
Six findings from the forensic audit. Numbered, evidence-backed, prioritised by impact × effort × confidence.
Branded search at 12× ROAS was disguising a non-brand campaign sitting at 1.4× — the blended 4.2× number being reported was masking the inefficiency.
PMax with no brand exclusion list was eating 38% of branded conversions, claiming credit Google would have closed organically.
Klaviyo welcome flow was a single email generating $0.47 per profile — category benchmark was $2.30.
27 draft flows in Klaviyo had never been activated. Browse abandonment, post-purchase, replenishment, win-back — all sitting in drafts.
Server-side conversion tracking missing entirely — Meta CAPI not deployed, costing 30–40% of conversion signal.
Amazon Sponsored Products running with no negative-keyword harvesting in 14+ months. TACoS sitting at 22% when target should have been 12%.
The work itself.
Concrete actions, not vague verbs. Each line shipped over the engagement window.
- 01Restructured Google Ads: branded vs non-brand into separate budgets, PMax with brand exclusion list, search-term hygiene weekly.
- 02Deployed server-side GTM container + CAPI for Meta, TikTok, Google. Recovered 38% lost conversions in week one.
- 03Rebuilt Klaviyo welcome flow as 7-touch sequence. Added browse, post-purchase, replenishment, win-back, VIP flows.
- 04Switched lifecycle attribution to Triple Whale, reconciled to Shopify net revenue.
- 05Overhauled Amazon catalog (A+ content, image stack, bullets) before touching ads. Added DSP retargeting layer.
- 06Launched Walmart Connect, scaled to $80K/month at 4.2× ROAS in 6 months.
What changed.
Reconciled to net revenue where applicable. Numbers verified internally before publishing.
| Metric | Before | After | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blended ROAS (Shopify net rev) | 2.1× | 3.6× | +71% |
| MER | 1.8× | 2.9× | +61% |
| Email revenue % of total | 8% | 22% | +14 pts |
| Paid CAC | $87 | $52 | −40% |
| Amazon TACoS | 22% | 11% | −50% |
| Founder hours / week on agency oversight | ~6 | ~1 | −83% |
“I knew what was happening in my accounts for the first time in three years. Friday change log replaced quarterly mystery — and I stopped having to ask 'what did you do this week?'”
— Founder / CEO, DTC · Home goods · $25M GMV
Honest learnings.
- PMax exclusion lists do more for paid efficiency than any creative refresh — and most agencies skip them.
- Activating draft flows in Klaviyo is more valuable than building new ones.
- Walmart Connect at this scale was a faster path to incremental revenue than scaling Meta further.