Three platforms, one order
Meta says it drove the sale. Google says it drove the sale. Your accounting system recorded one order. Every budget decision you make sits on top of that contradiction.
What's different here
E-commerce is the easiest vertical to measure honestly and the one where it is done worst, because a definitive answer already exists and nobody uses it. Your order data is the ground truth — every sale, its value, its date, no modelling. Reconciling platform claims against that table takes an afternoon and immediately sizes the error you have been budgeting against. Most brands never run it because the answer is uncomfortable.
E-commerce & DTC clients
What analytics & measurement looks like for e-commerce brands.
These are the plays that wouldn't appear on a generic analytics & measurement page — they only make sense in e-commerce & dtc.
Reconcile against the order table first
Sum what every platform claims and compare it to what your commerce system actually recorded for the same period. The gap is typically substantial, and stating it as a number ends the debate about whether measurement work is worth funding.
Send purchase events server-side from the order webhook
The order confirmation is the most reliable event you own and the one browser collection loses most often. Transmitting it from your commerce backend with a shared event identifier recovers the events and eliminates the double-counting that browser-plus-server setups usually introduce.
Feed net revenue, not gross
Refunds and cancellations are a large share of order value in most categories, and platforms optimise happily toward revenue that came back. Sending a refund signal is unglamorous plumbing that materially changes what the algorithm chases.
Hold blended efficiency as the headline
Total revenue divided by total spend, from your own systems. It cannot be inflated by a platform and it is the number to steer by; platform-reported figures are useful only for comparing two ad sets inside the same account.
What holds e-commerce brands back
Rising CAC is eating your margin
Meta CPMs climb every year. Without conversion rate and AOV improvements, your unit economics get worse even when campaigns 'perform'.
You're optimizing platform ROAS
A 3x ROAS on 30% gross margin loses money per order. Platform ROAS ignores COGS, shipping, returns, and discounts entirely.
One-and-done customers
If every order needs paid acquisition, you're renting customers. Repeat purchase rate is the strongest predictor of DTC profitability.
Your store converts below benchmark
The median Shopify store converts at 1.4%. Good ones run 3–4%. That gap is worth more than any targeting change you'll make.
The full scope.
Everything in a analytics & measurement engagement, applied to e-commerce & dtc.
Measurement audit and event map
Every event, where it fires, what it means and whether it correlates with revenue. Most accounts are optimising toward an event chosen because it was easy to implement rather than because it predicts money.
Server-side collection with deduplication
Events sent from your own infrastructure with a shared identifier so browser and server transmission cannot double-count. Running both without that identifier inflates conversions by a large margin, and teams celebrate it.
Consent-aware implementation
Collection that respects consent state by design rather than by a banner bolted on afterwards. This is a legal requirement in several markets and, done properly, recovers more usable signal than the non-compliant version most sites are running.
One revenue number, from your own systems
Blended efficiency calculated from your actual revenue and total spend. It cannot be double-counted or inflated by a platform, which is why it is the only paid metric that has not degraded.
Geo holdout test design and analysis
Switch a channel off in matched regions, run it past the purchase cycle, compare against control. It costs real revenue in the test markets and it is the only method here that answers the causal question.
Reporting a finance team will sign
A single view reconciling marketing-reported performance against booked revenue, with the methodology written down so nobody can quietly change models between quarters.
How this runs.
Audit and reconcile
Week 1–2We map every event and compare summed platform-claimed revenue against what your finance system actually recorded. The size of that gap is usually the moment the project gets prioritised.
Rebuild collection
Week 2–4Server-side transmission, deduplication, consent handling, and re-pointing optimisation at the event that correlates with revenue rather than the one that fires most often.
Validate against reality
Week 4–5A parallel run comparing new collection against your order data, because a tracking implementation nobody reconciled is a hypothesis rather than a measurement.
Design the holdout
Week 5–6Matched test and control regions, a run length set by your purchase cycle, and a pre-registered analysis so the result cannot be reinterpreted afterwards.
Read the result and reallocate
Post-testThe incremental figure usually differs sharply from the attributed one, most often on brand search and remarketing. That difference is the budget decision.
Hand over the documentation
OngoingEvent map, methodology and test protocol written down and yours. If you leave, the implementation does not stop making sense.
E-commerce & DTC results, in detail.
Full case studies with the numbers, the mistakes, and the recommendations clients didn't want to hear.
Scoped like the core service, no surcharge.
Every engagement is quoted from your actual brief. There's no vertical surcharge for this combination — request a quote and we'll scope it properly.
Audit
Teams who suspect the numbers are wrong and need to know how wrong.
Scoped to your brief
- Full event and tag audit
- Platform vs actual revenue reconciliation
- Consent and compliance review
- Prioritised remediation plan
- Findings session with your team
- Documentation yours to keep
Rebuild
Companies acting on data they cannot currently defend.
Scoped to your brief
- Everything in Audit
- Server-side collection implementation
- Deduplication and consent handling
- Conversion event re-mapping
- Parallel validation against order data
- Blended efficiency reporting
- 60 days of post-launch support
Measurement partner
Accounts where testing needs to be continuous rather than a project.
Scoped to your brief
- Everything in Rebuild
- Quarterly geo holdout programme
- Ongoing reconciliation and QA
- Incrementality-informed budget guidance
- Board-ready reporting pack
- Named analytics lead
All engagements start with a free audit. Prices exclude media spend, which you pay directly to the platforms on accounts you own.
E-commerce & DTC questions, answered straight.
Because they will look fine either way — that is the failure mode. Degraded measurement does not report an error; it reports a plausible number. The reconciliation is cheap and decisive: if summed platform revenue matches your order data, you are in good shape and we will tell you so and stop. In several years of running this check, that outcome has been rare, and the size of the gap is usually the thing that surprises people rather than its existence.
Let's talk about your growth constraint.
Meta says it drove the sale. Google says it drove the sale. Your accounting system recorded one order. Every budget decision you make sits on top of that contradiction.
Our commitment: The audit is fixed-fee and the findings are yours regardless — including if the conclusion is that your measurement is fine and you should spend the money elsewhere.