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Three levers, and most brands only pull one

Traffic, conversion rate, order value. Almost every DTC brand that plateaus has been buying more traffic for a year while the other two sat untouched.

What's different here

E-commerce revenue is the product of exactly three numbers, and the one most teams reach for is the only one that costs money every month. Doubling traffic doubles your media bill forever; doubling conversion rate is paid for once and makes every channel cheaper simultaneously. We run all three as one system precisely so nobody can optimise their own metric while the other two decay — which is what happens when acquisition, site and retention sit with different owners or different agencies.

+214%Avg. revenue growthe-commerce & dtc average

E-commerce & DTC clients

NorthwindLumen LabsHarborlineVerdantAtlas FoodsPoka HealthBrightsideCobalt BankMeridianArdentFoundryKestrel
Vertical-specific tactics

What digital marketing looks like for e-commerce brands.

These are the plays that wouldn't appear on a generic digital marketing page — they only make sense in e-commerce & dtc.

01

Model the three levers before touching any

Traffic, conversion rate and order value, each with its current figure and a realistic ceiling. It usually shows that the cheapest available revenue isn't where the budget is going.

02

Sequence retention before scaling spend

Repeat purchase rate sets your bid ceiling. Scaling acquisition into a leaky bucket doesn't just waste money — it locks you out of auctions you could otherwise win.

03

One contribution margin model everyone works from

Media, site and lifecycle teams optimising against different numbers is how a brand grows revenue while margin falls. One model, one definition, shared.

04

Test where the levers interact

A free-shipping threshold raises order value and changes conversion rate at once. Isolated channel testing misses the interactions, which is where a lot of the compounding lives.

The constraints

What holds e-commerce brands back

01

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'.

02

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.

03

One-and-done customers

If every order needs paid acquisition, you're renting customers. Repeat purchase rate is the strongest predictor of DTC profitability.

04

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.

What's included

The full scope.

Everything in a digital marketing engagement, applied to e-commerce & dtc.

01

Full-funnel growth audit

Every channel, every step, mapped with real numbers. You'll see exactly where your funnel leaks before you sign anything.

02

Server-side conversion tracking

GA4 + server-side tagging + platform CAPIs, so you optimize to real conversions instead of platform guesses.

03

Paid acquisition management

Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok — structured, tested, and scaled against your actual CAC ceiling.

04

SEO & content engine

Topic clusters built around buying intent, published on a predictable cadence, internally linked to compound.

05

Lifecycle email & SMS

Welcome, nurture, abandoned cart, win-back, and reactivation flows that run whether or not you're spending on ads.

06

Conversion rate optimization

Continuous testing on the pages that matter most, so every channel gets more efficient at once.

07

Live revenue dashboard

One Looker Studio dashboard: spend, CAC, LTV, ROAS, pipeline, by channel, updated daily.

08

Weekly growth calls

No monthly PDF you never read. A working session every week with the people actually running your account.

The process

How this runs.

  1. Diagnose

    Weeks 1–2

    Two-week deep audit of analytics, ad accounts, funnel, and competitors. We deliver a written growth thesis with prioritized bets.

  2. Instrument

    Weeks 2–3

    Fix tracking first. Server-side events, conversion definitions, and dashboards — because you can't optimize what you can't measure.

  3. Unblock the constraint

    Weeks 3–6

    We attack the single biggest bottleneck first — usually conversion rate or offer, not traffic volume.

  4. Scale what works

    Month 2+

    Winning channels get budget and creative volume. Losers get cut fast. Decisions are made on data, weekly.

  5. Compound

    Month 4+

    Layer in the durable assets — SEO, email lists, retention — so your paid dependency drops quarter over quarter.

Investment

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.

Focus

One or two channels, executed exceptionally well.

Scoped to your brief

  • 2 channels managed
  • Conversion tracking setup
  • Monthly strategy call
  • Live revenue dashboard
  • Up to $50k/mo ad spend
Request a quote
Most popular

Engine

Companies ready to run the full funnel as one system.

Scoped to your brief

  • Up to 5 channels managed
  • Server-side tracking + CAPI
  • Dedicated growth strategist
  • In-house creative studio (12 assets/mo)
  • CRO testing program
  • Lifecycle email & SMS
  • Weekly growth calls
  • Up to $250k/mo ad spend
Request a quote

Scale

Multi-market brands spending $250k+ per month.

Scoped to your brief

  • Unlimited channels & markets
  • Incrementality & MMM testing
  • Dedicated squad (5+ specialists)
  • Custom data warehouse & modeling
  • Creative volume: 40+ assets/mo
  • Executive reporting & board decks
Request a quote

All engagements start with a free audit. Prices exclude media spend, which you pay directly to the platforms on accounts you own.

Questions

E-commerce & DTC questions, answered straight.

Often you shouldn't — if they coordinate and share a margin model, specialist depth beats generalist breadth. The case for consolidating is when nobody owns the interaction between them: the ads team reports ROAS, the site team reports conversion rate, the email team reports open rate, and no one can say whether contribution margin moved. That's the failure we're solving, not a lack of skill.

Digital Marketing × E-commerce & DTC

Let's talk about your growth constraint.

Traffic, conversion rate, order value. Almost every DTC brand that plateaus has been buying more traffic for a year while the other two sat untouched.

Our commitment: 90-day performance commitment: hit our agreed leading indicators or we work the next month at no charge.