“Can you tell me what my marketing is actually returning?”
A store selling with no tracking at all
Know what every dollar returns before spending the next one. Built the tracking first, then the channels — so nothing ran on guesswork, on a product where a bad month of ad spend eats the whole margin.
- Client
- A founder-led direct-to-consumer seed brand
- Scope
- Measurement · Performance advertising · Lifecycle email
Disclosure. Operator proof. This is a venture the principal owns and runs, not an arms-length retainer — it is included because the build is real and fully documented, and it is labelled as such rather than presented as third-party validation.
The problem
The engagement started by fixing a security hole, not by pitching marketing. That access became trust, and trust became the work.
There was no conversion tracking in GA4, Meta, or Google Ads. No product feed. No paid channels. And single seed packets sell for $2.99 — at that price there is no margin to spend on guessing.
What was done
- 01
Audit before spend
Found the blockers first: a flagship bundle showing a false out-of-stock, conversion tracking missing end to end, a product feed that would have failed validation, and product pages with no trust signals.
- 02
Instrument everything
Built GA4, Meta Pixel, and Google Ads conversion tracking on native Webflow Ecommerce — replacing page-view-only analytics with real funnel visibility.
- 03
Build the acquisition surfaces
Generated an 82-product Shopping feed and structured Search and Shopping around real demand research. The brand had effectively zero branded search volume, so Google captures crop-term and heirloom demand while Meta and organic have to create it.
- 04
Build the retention layer
Stood up lifecycle email — welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase, win-back — capturing each customer’s growing zone so the season can personalise the send.
- 05
Operate weekly
Read channel data every week after launch. Caught a full week of paid campaigns running dark and relaunched them the day it surfaced.
fell ~8x in two weeks
Shopping cost per click
$0.77 → a stable $0.09, without losing click volume — efficiency found, not spend withheld
Not recomputed · Google Ads account · 2026-07-25
+$127 on $425 revenue
Cumulative net profit
Small dollars, but the account has never gone cumulative-negative since real operations began
Not recomputed · Plan-vs-actual tracker · 2026-07-25
$44.85 return on $10.65 spend
Best single product
Better than 4x on one SKU
Not recomputed · Google Ads account · 2026-07-25
Stated plainly. This is an early, small-dollar account with thin conversion volume. The story is not "we scaled a brand." It is what disciplined measurement looks like applied from literally zero, on a brand where every dollar has to earn its keep.