+71% blended ROAS in 90 days
Multi-channel scaling: paid + lifecycle + marketplace + analytics rebuild.
Where they were.
The founder asked one question on the first call: "why does the dashboard say 4.2× ROAS while the bank account says we're not growing?" That gap — between platform-attributed ROAS and Shopify net revenue — was the entire engagement. A $25M GMV DTC home-goods brand had plateaued at $1.2M/month after four years of growth, two prior agencies had churned in 18 months, and the founder was running marketing in the spare hours of CEO duties. Board pressure: $30M GMV at 3.5× blended efficiency or above.
What the audit turned up.
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.
- Restructured Google Ads: branded vs non-brand into separate budgets, PMax with brand exclusion list, search-term hygiene weekly.
- Deployed server-side GTM container + CAPI for Meta, TikTok, Google. Recovered 38% lost conversions in week one.
- Rebuilt Klaviyo welcome flow as 7-touch sequence. Added browse, post-purchase, replenishment, win-back, VIP flows.
- Switched lifecycle attribution to Triple Whale, reconciled to Shopify net revenue.
- Overhauled Amazon catalog (A+ content, image stack, bullets) before touching ads. Added DSP retargeting layer.
- Launched Walmart Connect, scaled to $80K/month at 4.2× ROAS in 6 months.
What moved.
| Metric | Before | After | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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% |
Transferable, not flattering.
- 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.
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