Case studies
The margin was always there. We found it.
A look at what an objective, evidenced audit of your marketing spend and unit economics actually surfaces, a marketing & margin audit. Anonymized to protect our clients; real in every number.
Every figure is evidenced, reviewed, and signed off, before it ever reaches this page.
Nothing here is raw model output. Every figure is rebuilt from your own data and personally signed off by a named senior auditor, the person accountable for it.
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74 marketing & margin audit case studies. One highlight finding each.
Browse all 74 and open any one to see the finding, the redacted working paper behind it, and the result. Filter by industry to watch the same objective method surface a different leak in every business.
Scaling spend was hiding a $134k annual margin leak.
Two prospecting campaigns were buying revenue below break even after shipping and returns.
Late quarter discounting was quietly eroding ACV margin.
Reps escalated discounts to close on time, and the pattern compounded every quarter unchecked.
Incentive spend acquired users who never funded.
Sign up bonuses optimized installs, not activated, funded accounts.
Volume rebates were paid on orders that never hit the tier.
Distributor rebate accruals were calculated on gross POs, not shipped and paid volume, overcrediting buyers who never reached the threshold.
CAC looked fine, until we split it by cohort.
Blended CAC masked a segment acquired far above its lifetime value.
Congress and KOL sponsorship showed no measurable return.
Six figure congress and KOL spend had no attributable share of voice or prescribing outcome.
Online ads were paying for in store demand.
Geo lift analysis showed much of paid social was nonincremental to stores.
Intake was dropping a third of qualified calls.
Marketing filled the top of funnel while operations leaked the bottom.
Seat true ups were underbilled as accounts grew.
Expanding teams added users faster than contracts were trued up, leaving seats unbilled.
Manufacturing · Water pipe producer
Volume rebates were paid on orders that never hit the tier.
Distributor rebate accruals were calculated on gross POs, not shipped and paid volume, overcrediting buyers who never reached the threshold.
Fintech · Consumer
Incentive spend acquired users who never funded.
Sign up bonuses optimized installs, not activated, funded accounts.
B2B SaaS · Enterprise
Late quarter discounting was quietly eroding ACV margin.
Reps escalated discounts to close on time, and the pattern compounded every quarter unchecked.
Retail · Omnichannel
Online ads were paying for in store demand.
Geo lift analysis showed much of paid social was nonincremental to stores.
Pharma · Biopharma
Congress and KOL sponsorship showed no measurable return.
Six figure congress and KOL spend had no attributable share of voice or prescribing outcome.
Fintech · Payments
Interchange margin varied wildly by acquisition channel.
Some channels brought volume at structurally worse economics.
Fintech · Exchange
Referral rewards were paid on self referred and gamed volume.
A referral program paid out on volume that was largely self dealing or wash activity.
Manufacturing · Packaging
A surcharge lag was never passed into customer contracts.
Resin and energy surcharges rose faster than contract pricing captured them.
Pharma · Rx brand (DTC)
Unbranded search was paying for traffic the brand site already won.
Disease awareness and branded campaigns overlapped, double buying the same high intent visitor.
B2B SaaS · Vertical
A $1.2M ad budget hid a 40% wasted impression rate.
Placements and dayparting were never optimized after launch.
Marketplace · Food delivery
Courier incentives overlapped organic supply in dense zones.
Peak time courier bonuses paid for coverage the densest zones already had without them.
Manufacturing · Kids furniture
Rising freight never reached the price list.
Landed cost had climbed for two years while list prices held; oversized carton surcharges quietly erased the margin on every flat pack line.
Fintech · Insurtech
Broker commissions were flat across very different loss ratios.
One commission rate applied to products whose underlying margins differed sharply.
Retail · Grocery
Loyalty points cost more than the repeat they drove.
Point liability outpaced the incremental margin of loyalty purchases.
Pharma · Diagnostics
Patient acquisition spend ran above what reimbursement paid.
Direct to patient test acquisition cost more per patient than reimbursement returned.
B2B SaaS · Usage based
A billing config gap left usage overages uncharged.
Metered overages above plan limits were never billed because of a misconfigured usage rule.
Manufacturing · HVAC components
Dealer co-op funds were subsidizing competitors’ leads.
Co-op marketing budgets funded distributor campaigns that promoted rival brands alongside their own; tightening the terms cut waste without losing reach.
Retail · Fashion
Returns processing cost was missing from channel economics.
High online return rates carried handling cost that channel P&Ls never attributed to them.
D2C · Food & beverage
A discount habit was training the best customers to wait.
Always on promo codes eroded full price demand; a tiered structure protected margin.
Marketplace · Travel & experiences
Paid search was bidding on supply the platform already ranked for.
Branded and category search paid for clicks organic listings would have captured for free.
Pharma · Medtech / device
HCP and patient budgets were optimized in isolation.
Two teams bid against each other for the same audiences; a unified plan cut waste without losing reach.
Manufacturing · Water systems
Distributor margin was set once and never revisited.
A fixed dealer discount applied across the whole catalog subsidized low margin commodity SKUs at the expense of the engineered range.
Pharma · Generics
Detailing and sample spend produced no prescribing lift.
A large share of rep detailing and samples went to HCPs whose prescribing never moved.
Marketplace · Services
Supply side incentives outlived their purpose.
Onboarding bonuses kept paying for supply the platform no longer needed.
Subscription · B2B software
Seat true ups were underbilled as accounts grew.
Expanding teams added users faster than contracts were trued up, leaving seats unbilled.
Services · Legal
Intake was dropping a third of qualified calls.
Marketing filled the top of funnel while operations leaked the bottom.
Ecommerce · Amazon seller
FBA fees and returns had overtaken the margin on the hero ASINs.
Marketplace fee creep and a rising return rate pushed the best selling ASINs below true contribution.
Fintech · Wealth & robo
Free planning support cost more than small accounts earned.
Human financial planning support was offered to accounts whose AUM fee never covered it.
Ecommerce · Pet
Bestsellers were priced below their true landed cost.
Freight and packaging inflation had never been passed into unit economics.
Marketplace · Gig & freelance
Promotional fee waivers were never switched off.
Launch era fee waivers kept suppressing take rate long after they had served their purpose.
Retail · Furniture
Free assembly and delivery were bundled below cost on big ticket lines.
Large item orders included delivery and assembly priced under what they actually cost.
Pharma · Vaccines
Media ran outside the eligible population windows.
Campaign flighting and targeting spent heavily outside when and where eligible patients converted.
Subscription · Fitness
Annual plans were discounted below their retention value.
The annual discount exceeded the churn it prevented.
Manufacturing · Modular kitchens
Configurator upsells were discounted below their cost.
Default bundle pricing in the online configurator gave away high spec finishes at a negative contribution once fitting was included.
Manufacturing · Industrial fasteners
Small order handling cost exceeded the margin on the order.
A low minimum order value meant many small orders cost more to handle than they earned.
Services · Agency
Retainers were priced below delivery cost.
Blended rates hid unprofitable accounts inside a healthy looking book.
Retail · Home improvement
Click and collect was subsidizing the delivery it replaced.
Free click and collect still carried picking and handling cost the model assumed it removed.
Ecommerce · Home & living
The agency’s ‘winning’ campaign was the biggest loser.
Attribution credited a campaign for sales it didn’t drive; budget reset to incremental channels.
B2B SaaS · Dev tools
Free tier support cost more than the plan earned.
Cost to serve was never modeled against plan pricing.
Subscription · Digital media
Weak payment recovery was leaking revenue as involuntary churn.
An overlax failed payment flow let recoverable subscribers lapse instead of being retried.
Services · Accounting & tax
Fixed fee packages were scoped below the hours they consumed.
Standard packages had drifted below the real delivery hours as client complexity grew.
Retail · Electronics
Markdown timing was leaving margin on the shelf.
Discounts triggered before demand actually softened.
Pharma · Animal health
Retail vet channel discounts were set below margin.
A blanket vet channel discount undercut the margin on the products it was applied to.
Manufacturing · LED lighting
Dead SKUs tied up the margin in slow catalog lines.
A long tail of near zero velocity products carried inventory, listing and marketing cost that dragged the whole catalog’s margin.
DTC · Apparel
Free shipping was quietly deleting the margin on every third order.
A threshold set years ago no longer matched basket economics or carrier rates.
B2B SaaS · Channel
Partner referral fees were paid on deals sales had sourced directly.
Attribution credited partners for opportunities the direct team had actually originated.
Subscription · Meal kit
The pause and skip flow was leaking straight to cancellation.
Members who wanted to pause found canceling easier, turning saves into lost subscriptions.
Services · Implementation
Travel and onboarding time was going unbilled.
Delivery hours around kickoff and travel were absorbed rather than billed to the engagement.
Marketplace · Rentals
Take rate was leaking through unmanaged refunds.
A refund policy gap quietly reduced effective take rate every month.
DTC · Footwear
Affiliate commissions were being paid on sales the brand already owned.
Influencer and affiliate links claimed organic and branded purchases that needed no incentive.
Services · Field services
Quoting ignored callback and warranty cost.
Job quotes were built on first visit cost, excluding the callbacks and warranty work that followed.
B2B SaaS · Series A
Paid was subsidizing a channel sales already owned.
Brand term and retargeting spend claimed conversions that would have closed anyway.
Subscription · Box
Shipping tiers didn’t match cohort value.
The most loyal cohort subsidized shipping for the least loyal.
Manufacturing · Underfloor heating
Trade show spend had no attributable pipeline.
Six figure annual exhibition and sponsorship spend was never mapped to booked orders; reallocating to specifier led demand lifted return per dollar.
Retail · Beauty
Vendor promo funding wasn’t covering the margin given away.
Cofunded in store promotions discounted more deeply than the vendor support actually covered.
Services · Dental group
Every location bought the same keywords against each other.
Internal auction competition inflated CPCs across the group.
Ecommerce · Beauty
Bundles were cannibalizing full price hero SKUs.
A promo bundle sold well but pulled buyers off higher margin singles.
Retail · Convenience
Payment fees varied by tender and went unmanaged.
Interchange and scheme fees differed sharply by payment type with no steering or review.
B2B SaaS · Mid market
Content spend had no path to revenue.
Top of funnel investment never mapped to opportunities; budget moved to demand capture.
Subscription · SaaS
Win back campaigns were rebuying customers who’d have returned free.
Discounted win backs targeted naturally returning users.
DTC · Beauty
Retargeting was paid twice for the same customer.
Overlapping audiences double counted conversions across two platforms.
B2B SaaS · PLG
The cheapest leads were the most expensive customers.
A low intent channel filled the funnel but crushed sales cycle efficiency downstream.
Marketplace · Two sided
CAC looked fine, until we split it by cohort.
Blended CAC masked a segment acquired far above its lifetime value.
Services · Home
Lead spend ignored close rate by source.
The cheapest leads converted worst; reallocating lifted booked revenue per dollar.
Fintech · Lending
Acquisition ignored default rate by channel.
Channels were judged on approved loan CAC while their default rates varied wildly.
Pharma · OTC consumer health
Seasonal media weight ignored when the category actually converted.
Spend peaked with the flighting calendar, not with demand; reallocating to true in market windows lifted efficiency.
Marketplace · B2B wholesale
Buyer subsidies outran the repeat GMV they were meant to unlock.
Acquisition subsidies were justified on lifetime GMV that most subsidized buyers never delivered.
DTC · Supplements
Subscription churn was masked by aggressive new trial spend.
Net revenue retention fell below 100% once trial incentives were removed.
Services · Recruitment
Job board spend was spread evenly regardless of fill rate.
Budget was split flatly across boards while fill and margin varied enormously by source.
Manufacturing · Smart home products
DTC ads were cannibalizing higher margin retail.
Paid social drove direct sales that displaced the same units through retail partners at a better blended margin, net of returns and support.
Subscription · Media
Growth spend was outrunning retention.
Acquisition was healthy on day one but churn erased it by month three.
Pharma · Nutraceutical
Subscription acquisition ignored regulatory driven churn.
Claims restrictions raised churn on paid cohorts; creative and targeting were reset to compliant, higher retention angles.
Fintech · SMB
CAC payback was twice what the board believed.
Fully loaded acquisition cost was understated by excluding onboarding.
What clients said, one from each industry
Quoted as approved in writing by each client. Identities withheld under NDA. Figures are the audited figures published in the case study, unadjusted.
$134k a year found in 6 days
Contribution margin on the two top campaigns: −7% → +9%
“Revenue grew and cash didn't. Victoria rebuilt margin per order after shipping, returns and payment fees, and our two biggest prospecting campaigns were losing money on every sale. We stopped scaling them.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$118k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Rebates paid on volume never actually earned: 19% → 1%
“Rebate expense outran distributor volume and we could not see why. Cristian reconciled rebates paid against volume actually shipped and paid for, tier by tier: accruals had run off gross purchase orders. Quarterly true ups now catch it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$96k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
App installs that funded a real account: 24% → 63%
“Installs looked great and funded accounts stagnated. David followed sign ups through to funding, and the bonus was buying registrations from people who claimed it and never transacted. Incentives now pay on activation, not the download.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$92k a year found in 7 days
Enterprise deal margin lost to quarter end: 5 pts lost → 0 pts lost
“Bookings hit target while margin slipped. Cristian split our discounting by timing and rep: concessions spiked in the last days of every quarter because buyers had learned to wait. Approval thresholds fixed it without losing deals.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$88k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Paid social proven to lift store visits: ~1 in 3 → 9 in 10
“Our CFO doubted that online ads drove store visits. David's matched market geo lift test proved the doubt right: footfall barely changed where the ads were off. The budget moved to markets and channels that passed the test.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off−27% risk adjusted CAC in 7 days
Risk adjusted acquisition cost per loan: $540 → $400
“Our cheapest channel was our worst credit. David split default rates by acquisition source: the low CAC channels brought borrowers who defaulted materially more often. Budget now follows risk adjusted cost per loan, not just CAC.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$88k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Congress spend with a tracked return: 8% → 88%
“Six figures a year in congresses and KOL sponsorships, renewed on habit. Leslie tried to connect it to share of voice, engagement or prescribing and found no instrumentation at all. The unmeasurable part now funds engagement we can track.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$83k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Referral rewards on genuine, nongamed volume: 67% → 98%
“Referral payouts grew faster than real users. David examined the volume behind the rewards: self referrals through second accounts, circular trades, wash volume. Integrity checks now run before any payout; gamed rewards were clawed back.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$83k a year found in 7 days
Interchange margin on the worst channel: +0.4% → +2.4%
“Every channel cost the same per merchant, so we treated them as interchangeable. David split profitability down to the interchange line: some channels brought merchants who earned us a fraction. Budget now follows margin, not just CAC.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$79k a year found in 7 days
Contract margin vs live input costs: 9% → 16%
“Volume was stable and contract margin kept eroding. Cristian compared resin, board and energy cost movements against the surcharges we actually passed through, and the lag was costing us every month. An indexed pass through fixed it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$78k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
High intent visitors paid for twice: ~1 in 3 → ~1 in 30
“Two teams, two search programs, one visitor bought twice. Leslie looked at branded and disease awareness search together for the first time: about one high intent visitor in three was paid for twice. Shared negatives and one plan ended it.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$74k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Share of all impressions hitting no convert inventory: 40% → 6%
“Forty percent of our impressions landed where buyers never convert. Cristian's delivery teardown found placement, dayparting and geo settings untouched since launch on a seven figure budget. We rebuilt them.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$74k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Courier bonuses paid into already full zones: 22% → 3%
“Incentive spend rose while service levels stayed flat. Alex matched bonus payouts against real time courier availability by zone: in dense areas we paid couriers who would have worked anyway. Bonuses now fire only where coverage is short.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$72k a year found in 7 days
Portfolio margin across the product mix: 11% → 17%
“One flat commission across very different products steered brokers to the wrong mix. David set commission against each product's margin and loss ratio; thin lines were being sold near unprofitable. Commission now follows the margin band.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$72k a year found in 7 days
Landed margin on the flat pack lines: −1% → +6%
“We held prices for two years and freight did not. Cristian rebuilt landed cost from current carrier invoices: oversized carton surcharges had erased the margin on every flat pack line. We repriced and redesigned the worst packaging.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$71k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Loyalty program margin vs its liability: −8% → +6%
“Loyalty was untouchable, so nobody had priced it. David set our accrued point liability against the incremental margin the program drove, and it was underwater. We restructured earn and burn without gutting the rewards members value.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$71k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Acquisition cost vs reimbursement per test: 122% → 78%
“Acquisition and reimbursement sat with different teams, so nobody compared them. Cristian reconciled cost per patient against reimbursement per test: several high volume tests lost money on every patient we marketed in. We capped those.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$70k a year found in 6 days
Billable usage actually invoiced: 92% → 99%
“I expected a slide deck. Alex reconciled metered usage against invoices and found a whole category of overages recorded for analytics but never billed. A config fix, no price change, and customers expected to pay for it anyway.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$69k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Online margin once its returns are charged in: 2% → 9%
“Online looked as profitable as our stores, which felt wrong. David charged returns processing to the channel that generated each return, and online's margin fell from flattering to honest. We stopped scaling the wrong channel.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$69k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Co-op budget spent promoting rival brands: 28% → 3%
“Our co-op money was promoting our competitors. Cristian reviewed what distributors actually spent it on: campaigns featured rival brands next to ours, sometimes more prominently. Reimbursement now needs proof of brand presence.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$68k a year found in 6 days
Full price sell through: 61% → 78%
“Our best customers had learned to wait for a code. Victoria showed that a large share of discounted orders would have happened at full price anyway. We moved to a tiered structure for new customers and bigger baskets, and volume held.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$66k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Paid clicks the site already won organically: ~1 in 3 → ~1 in 30
“We were bidding on terms we already ranked for. Alex paused paid search on those terms in a test and bookings barely moved. Roughly one paid click in three we would have won for free. That spend now goes where paid actually adds demand.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$64k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Detailing spend that moved no prescribing: 28% → 4%
“Reach and call counts looked healthy. Leslie matched detailing and samples to prescribing change per HCP, and 28% of the effort landed on physicians it never moved. Field time now follows responsiveness, not coverage targets.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$64k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Budget lost to the two teams overbidding: 22% → 3%
“Our HCP and patient agencies were bidding against each other for the same impressions. Cristian examined both programs together for the first time and merged audience planning. Reach held, and the internal premium was gone.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$64k a year found in 6 days
Dealer margin on the engineered range: 14% → 20%
“One dealer discount across the whole catalog felt simple. Cristian set it against margin at product level: commodity fittings got a generous cut while our engineered range subsidized them. Discount tiers by margin band fixed it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$63k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Supply incentives hitting a real shortage: 35% → 94%
“Our onboarding bonus solved a shortage we no longer had. Alex checked every incentive against current supply by category, and we were still paying to recruit providers in saturated ones. We kept bonuses only where supply is genuinely short.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$63k a year found in 6 days
Active users actually being billed: 93% → 99%
“Expansion lagged what we saw inside accounts. Victoria reconciled active users against billed seats: many customers used more seats than they paid for. Automated true ups now capture it, and nobody pushed back.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$62k a year found in 6 days
Qualified inbound calls that became bookings: 2 in 3 → 9 in 10
“Marketing hit every target and revenue stalled. Leslie followed our qualified calls into intake and about a third were dropped at busy times or never followed up. Fixing staffing and call handling converted demand we had already paid for.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$61k a year found in 6 days
Net margin on hero ASINs, fees & returns in: −2% → +6%
“ACoS looked efficient while our hero ASINs lost money. Victoria rebuilt contribution per ASIN with FBA fees, storage, referral fees and returns loaded in. We repriced and repacked the affected lines.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$61k a year found in 6 days
Support cost vs fee on small accounts: 140% → 85%
“Small accounts used as much planner time as large ones for a fraction of the fee. David modeled cost to serve by tier: below a certain balance the support ran at a loss. Human planning now sits with the tiers whose fee covers it.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off+26% media efficiency in 7 days
Media weight landing in real demand windows: 45% → 88%
“Our flighting calendar was older than our customers' habits. Cristian compared spend timing against when the category actually converts: our heaviest weight landed in weak windows. Same budget, real demand windows, efficiency up 26%.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$59k a year found in 6 days
Contribution margin on the three bestsellers: −2% → +7%
“The more our bestsellers sold, the flatter profit looked. Victoria rebuilt landed cost from the supplier invoice up, and our three top SKUs were priced below cost after freight and packaging. We repriced in stages and volume held.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$58k a year found in 6 days
Effective take rate after the old waivers: 9.5% → 12.5%
“Our effective take rate sat below our stated one for years. Alex traced it cohort by cohort to launch era fee waivers that had never been switched off. We retired them on matured cohorts and kept relief only for new participants.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$58k a year found in 6 days
Margin on big ticket orders, delivery in: −1% → +6%
“Free delivery and assembly were eating our biggest orders. David rebuilt the true cost with two person crews, vehicle time and failed deliveries, and some lines were near break even. Tiered service pricing on the largest items fixed it.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$58k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Media spend outside eligible patient windows: 24% → 2%
“Reach looked healthy, but a quarter of our media reached people who could not act on it. Leslie compared delivery against the eligible population and its windows: 24% of spend fell outside them. Flighting now follows eligibility.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$57k a year found in 6 days
Annual discount vs the churn it prevents: 1.8× over → right sized
“We were discounting loyalty we already had. Victoria compared the annual discount against the churn it actually prevented: a large share of members taking it would have stayed anyway. We right sized it and kept the deep offer for real churn risk.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$57k a year found in 6 days
Margin on the smallest orders: −3% → +6%
“Our smallest orders cost more to pick, pack and ship than they earned. Cristian rebuilt handling cost per order and set a minimum that covers it. A small order charge and consolidation incentives did the rest.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$57k a year found in 6 days
Margin on configured upsell orders: −3% → +8%
“Configured orders always carried thinner margins than manual quotes. Cristian priced real configurations down to installed cost: default discounts were selling premium finishes at a loss on every order. A margin floor in the tool ended it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$54k a year found in 6 days
Fulfillment margin on click and collect orders: −2% → +5%
“Click and collect was never free. David rebuilt the cost of a collection order, the picking, staging and handover labor hiding in store payroll, and on many order types it matched the delivery it replaced. We repriced those.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$54k a year found in 7 days
Retainers priced below their delivery cost: 6 of 34 → 0 of 34
“Our blended margin said every account was fine. Leslie broke it apart account by account: six of thirty four retainers were priced below delivery cost, funded by the profitable ones. We repriced or exited them, our own advice.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$53k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Incremental ROAS: original campaign vs replacement channels: 0.2× → 2.1×
“Our agency's hero campaign was the biggest loser. Victoria ran a geo holdout and sales barely moved when it was off. Two years of attributed revenue, almost none of it caused by the ad. The budget now goes to channels that pass that test.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$52k a year found in 6 days
Free account cost vs the plan revenue it earns: 130% → 78%
“Free felt cheap until Alex modeled cost to serve. Support tickets, infrastructure and engineering time made a free account cost more than our entry plan earned. We reset free tier limits and repriced the entry plan.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$52k a year found in 5 days
Involuntary churn from failed payments: 4.1% → 1.6%
“A slice of our churn was never churn. Victoria split voluntary from involuntary and found expired cards getting one token retry before we wrote the subscriber off. Smarter retries and a card updater cut involuntary churn from 4.1% to 1.6%.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$52k a year found in 6 days
Margin on the fixed fee engagements: 9% → 17%
“Busy, revenue holding, and profit per partner hour falling. Leslie reconciled logged hours against every fixed fee package: complexity had pushed many below cost. We repriced and rescoped them, with a scope trigger so it stays fixed.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$49k a year found in 6 days
Stock marked down before demand softened: ~40% → ~8%
“Our markdown calendar was cutting prices on lines still selling at full price. David compared markdown timing against each SKU's real demand curve. Discounts now trigger on live sell through instead of a date, and clearance still clears.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$49k a year found in 6 days
Margin on the thin vet channel lines: −2% → +5%
“One discount for the whole range looked competitive. Leslie checked it against margin by product line, and on our thinner lines it pushed them below cost. Discount tiers now follow margin band, and the channel kept its competitive pricing.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$48k a year found in 5 days
Catalog margin after the dead SKU tail: 11% → 16%
“A broad catalog felt like an asset. Cristian ranked every SKU by velocity against the cost it carried, and a long tail of dead products was dragging the whole range's margin. We retired them and set a velocity threshold to stay listed.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year found in 5 days
Orders shipped free below break even: 1 in 3 → ~1 in 20
“One order in three shipped free at a loss. Our threshold was set years ago and never revisited, and the cost sat in logistics where nobody looked. Victoria reset it, and average order value went up, not down.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Referral fees paid on self sourced deals: ~24% → ~2%
“Partner fees grew faster than partner pipeline. Alex reconciled partner attributed deals against their true origin: many were sourced by our own team with a partner tagged late. Fees now require documented sourcing.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year found in 6 days
Would be pauses lost to a full cancel: ~4 in 10 → ~1 in 10
“Pause was buried and cancel was one tap away. Victoria mapped the pause, skip and cancel journeys and about four in ten would be pauses ended as full cancellations. We rebuilt the flow and offer pause first inside the cancel journey now.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year found in 6 days
Delivery hours actually billed to clients: ~80% → 98%
“Every project ran thinner than its day rate. Leslie reconciled real effort against billing and found travel, kickoff and early onboarding absorbed as goodwill. Those hours are written into every scope now.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$44k a year of wasted spend cut in 5 days
Commissions paid on sales you already owned: ~29% → ~2%
“Affiliate revenue kept climbing and margin didn't. Victoria tested incrementality and coupon partners were collecting commission on customers who arrived through branded search and direct. We now pay for demand partners actually create.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$44k a year found in 7 days
Take rate actually kept vs the 15% contracted: 11.1% → 14.0%
“Finance couldn't explain why we kept less than our contracted take rate. Alex traced every dollar from gross booking to net revenue and found it in refunds nobody owned. Clear rules and one accountable owner closed the gap.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$44k a year found in 5 days
Job margin once callbacks are counted: −1% → +5%
“Jobs kept landing below what we quoted. Leslie loaded callbacks and warranty visits back onto the jobs that caused them, and the quoting model had never counted them. Quotes now price the whole job, not the first visit.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k annual budget redeployment identified in 5 days
Share of all paid spend that was incremental: 28% → 82%
“Our safest lines were the least incremental. Alex showed brand term search and retargeting were intercepting demand from sales calls and word of mouth, then invoicing for it. We cut both to a defensive minimum.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k a year found in 6 days
Shipping margin on the monthly cohort: −4% → +8%
“A flat shipping tier felt fair. Victoria mapped shipping cost against cohort value and our most loyal subscribers were subsidizing the least loyal ones. Tiers now follow order frequency, so loyalty stops paying for churn.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k a year found in 5 days
Promo discount covered by vendor funding: 78% → 96%
“The vendor pays for it, we assumed. David reconciled every cofunded promotion against the support we actually received, and the discounts routinely ran deeper than the funding. Renegotiated terms and promo guardrails closed it.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Trade show spend tied to a booked order: 6% → 90%
“Six figures a year on trade shows because we always had. Cristian traced the spend to booked orders and found no link at all; in our specifier led category the events reached the wrong buyers. The budget now follows traceable pipeline.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$39k a year of wasted spend cut in 5 days
Search cost per click across the clinics: $2.40 → $1.78
“Our cost per click climbed with no new competitor in sight. Leslie found the competitor was us: clinics bidding against each other on the same keywords in the same auctions. One geo partitioned account structure ended it.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$36k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Content spend with a traceable path to revenue: 9% → 92%
“Eighteen months of content, not one sourced opportunity. Cristian traced the program forward through the funnel and could not connect it to pipeline. We kept the assets sales actually used and moved the rest of the budget to demand capture.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit offaudits in DTC / Ecommerce, here’s where the margin most often leaks.
Not sure where to start in the 74 above? Choose your industry for the short version: the leaks we surface most, the typical recovery, and how fast we find it. The one draining your margin is often among them.
Whether you sit in the CFO, CEO, CMO or COO seat, the leak shows up in your numbers, thin margin, wasted spend, operational cost, or hidden risk. What we recover gets redeployed into growth, not simply cut.
Every one of these hid behind a healthy ROAS, the leak only showed once shipping, returns and true landed cost were loaded in. Most accounts we audit have one.
Request an audit →Why you can trust the numbers
$10,000 to $50,000 of findings, or your money back.
We stake our fee on the outcome. If the audit doesn’t identify your tier’s guaranteed $10,000–$50,000 in recoverable margin or savings, you don’t pay.
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Read on from the case studies
- All 74 findings, rankedEvery case by annual value, $58k median, plus the five leak patterns by prevalence.→
- By industry9 industries, the leaks found most in each, with the published median outcome.→
- Client reviews60 statements in the client's approved words, each beside the audited figure it came from.→
- CompareAn audit against a consultant, your agency or your own team, side by side.→
- The checklist30 checks across paid media, attribution, pricing, retention and reporting.→
- GlossaryBlended ROAS, MER, incrementality and the other terms behind every audit.→
See what we’d find in your marketing.
Request an audit today and get a clear, evidenced view of what’s working, what’s wasting budget, and what to do next.