Most DTC brands do not have a traffic problem. They have a contribution margin problem.

Four areas and a plan. Unit economics, meaning contribution margin per order and SKU after product, shipping, returns and discount; acquisition, meaning what each channel costs and contributes per new customer; retention, meaning repeat purchase by cohort and entry product; and the offer, catalogue and conversion path a first-time buyer actually meets. The output is a written plan with owners, a marketing brief your vendors can be held to, and a monthly scorecard your team maintains.

An agency is paid to run and scale campaigns. This engagement is paid to find out where the brand actually loses money, and in ecommerce that is usually margin, discounting, repeat purchase or checkout rather than reach. Because we take no execution work inside the engagement, the plan can conclude that you should spend less, cut two channels and fix the offer. If you want execution afterwards it is scoped separately, and the brief is written so any agency, including your current one, can deliver against it.

Not inside this engagement, and that is deliberate. Reviewing accounts we do not run is what lets the plan say a channel should shrink. We do read the accounts in detail during measurement, and the plan sets each channel's role, its allowed cost per new customer and the evidence that counts. Where you want hands-on media management afterwards, paid social and paid search are separate engagements.

Brands with enough order history for cohorts to be stable and enough complexity for the mix question to be real: several product lines, more than one acquisition channel, and usually more than one selling surface. A brand in its first year with one SKU gets more from a tighter offer and a working retention flow than from a four-week diagnosis. We will say so at the scoping call rather than sell you the wrong thing.

A fixed fee quoted after a scoping call, with deliverables and dates written down before you commit. It varies with catalogue size, how many channels and selling surfaces are in scope and the state of the data, so publishing a rate would mislead most readers. For budget context, The CMO Survey puts marketing at an average 9.0% of company revenue, with 33.6% of digital activity run by outside agencies. Book a meeting for a scope and a number.

Yes, and it is one of the reasons to run the project. We work from order and cost data first, then reconcile platform-reported performance against it and state plainly which findings are solid and which are directional. 62% of organizations report losing revenue directly because of poor data quality and only 41% have a dedicated data governance owner, so this is the norm. The plan includes the tracking and process changes that make next quarter's decisions cleaner, or marketing operations consulting if the rebuild is larger.

Usually to stop discounting sitewide, and to price the promotions that stay. The common finding is that a promotion introduced to clear stock has become the brand's price, so contribution is set by the discount rather than by the product. The plan quantifies what each promotion costs in margin, which cohorts it recruits, and whether those customers ever pay full price. Then your team decides, with the number in front of them.

We document it as a commercial finding rather than a redesign project. The average documented cart abandonment rate is 70.22% across 50 studies, so the useful question is which part of yours is avoidable: shipping thresholds, payment options, forced accounts, price surprises or the traffic you chose to buy. The plan lists the fixes in priority order with the margin at stake, and your team or your agency builds them.

Yes, where they are in scope. Owned store, marketplace and wholesale channels have different margins, control and data quality, and the plan treats them as a portfolio: what each is for, what it is allowed to cost, and where they cannibalise each other. Brands that need the retail or wholesale side rebuilt commercially rather than reviewed should expect that to be a separate, longer piece of work.

Yes, at the level of roles and accountability rather than recruiting. The plan names which capabilities have to be in-house for the model to work, which are better bought, and what each owner is accountable for on the scorecard. Where that question is the main one, marketing team structure advisory or a fractional CMO engagement fits better than a growth diagnosis.

A marketing audit examines what is currently running and what it returns. This engagement is wider: it covers unit economics, catalogue and offer, retention and channel roles, which is where ecommerce growth is usually decided, and it ends in a plan rather than findings. Brands that want positioning and brand strategy rather than commercial mechanics should look at marketing strategy consulting instead.

No. We are not a broker, an investment bank or a valuation firm, and nothing here is investment, tax or legal advice. What we do is the commercial work underneath those conversations: showing how the brand really earns contribution by product and channel, how much of the growth is repeatable, and what the plan for the next four quarters is. Founders preparing for a raise or a process often use that alongside their own financial and legal advisors.

Twelve months of orders with product, discount and shipping detail; landed product cost; returns and refunds; ad spend by channel; and email or SMS performance. Subscription data if you have it. If cost of goods is incomplete, say so and we will work with ranges and label them. We reconcile against your accounting system rather than taking platform dashboards at face value.

Where it earns its place, and not as a theme. The CMO Survey reports AI use rising from 13.1% to 24.2% of marketing activities, mostly in creative production, merchandising copy and support. The risk is the other side: 71% of leaders say AI favours short-term performance and 69% feel pressure to deprioritise brand. If AI readiness is the actual question, AI marketing advisory is the better engagement.

Yes. The parent version is growth advisory, and the same engagement runs in other verticals with the mechanics changed, for example B2B SaaS growth consulting, where pricing model and retention replace catalogue and shipping as the levers.

Your team runs it, and every workstream has a named owner on your side. Many brands book a review at ninety days to re-measure contribution margin, repeat rate and cost per new customer, which takes half a day and is optional. Where you want ongoing marketing leadership rather than a project, a fractional head of growth or scorecard advisory is the next engagement, quoted separately.