01
Blended ROAS
Return on ad spend measured across every channel at once. It reads healthy while hiding channel level waste, and it over counts, because Meta, Google and GA4 each claim the same sale.
Blended ROAS = total revenue ÷ total ad spend
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
$420,000 of revenue on $140,000 of ad spend reads 3.0×. An incrementality holdout can put one channel's true return at 1.1×, which is the leak the blend was hiding.
See it in a case:✓DTC / Ecommerce, $53k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
02
MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio)
Total revenue divided by total marketing spend, a blended, platform independent efficiency measure. Harder to game than per platform ROAS because no single channel can take credit twice.
MER = total revenue ÷ total marketing spend
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
$1,200,000 of revenue on $300,000 of total marketing spend is an MER of 4.0. If the platforms together report $1,860,000 of attributed revenue against that same spend, they are counting sales more than once.
See it in a case:✓B2B SaaS, $74k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
03
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
The fully loaded cost to win one customer: acquisition spend divided by new customers. Understated whenever it leaves out creative, tools, onboarding and team time, which is most of the time.
CAC = total acquisition spend ÷ new customers
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
$90,000 of media for 300 new customers reads $300. Add the $30,000 of creative, tools and team time the deck left out and the true CAC is $400.
See it in a case:✓Marketplace, +29% blended margin in 7 days
04
Contribution margin
Revenue minus every variable cost per order or unit: cost of goods, shipping, payment fees, returns. It is the real profit a marketing dollar defends, and the number blended ROAS quietly ignores.
Contribution margin = revenue − variable costs
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
A $100 order with $42 of goods, $9 of shipping, $3 of payment fees and $6 of returns allowance contributes $40. A 2.5× ROAS on that order spent $40 to win it, so the sale earned nothing.
See it in a case:✓DTC / Ecommerce, $59k a year found in 6 days
05
Incrementality
The share of conversions that happened because of the spend, against those that would have occurred anyway. High reported ROAS with low incrementality means you are paying for sales you already had.
Incremental share = (exposed conversions − holdout conversions) ÷ exposed conversions
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
A geo holdout: exposed regions convert 1,000 times, matched holdout regions 850. Only 150 of the 1,000 conversions, 15%, were incremental. The platform reported all 1,000.
See it in a case:✓Retail, $88k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
06
Non-incremental spend
Ad budget that buys conversions you would have won without it, classically branded search against customers already intending to purchase. The most common leak the audits surface.
Non-incremental spend = spend × (1 − incremental share)
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
$40,000 a month of branded search with a 20% incremental share means $32,000 a month bought demand that already existed.
Corpus Non-incremental paid spend appeared in 68% of the 74 audits, the most common finding in the corpus.
See it in a case:✓Pharma, $78k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
07
Attribution inflation
When several platforms each claim the same sale, so attributed revenue adds up to more than 100% of actual revenue. It over funds whichever channel claims most aggressively.
Attribution inflation = sum of platform attributed revenue ÷ actual revenue
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
Meta claims $300,000, Google $250,000 and email $100,000 against $500,000 of actual revenue: 130%. $150,000 of the attributed revenue never existed.
Corpus Attribution inflation appeared in 54% of the 74 audits.
See it in a case:✓DTC / Ecommerce, $31k a year of wasted spend cut in 5 days
08
Margin leak
A recurring, usually invisible loss of marketing margin, whether wasted paid spend, mispriced offers or retention drop off, that a healthy looking blended metric conceals.
Margin leak = recurring annual loss an audited fix would stop
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
A $3,000,000 revenue business leaking 18% of a $600,000 marketing budget is losing $108,000 a year while every blended report reads green.
Corpus Across the 74 audits a median 18.7% of marketing spend was leaking, inside an 11% to 28% band.
See it in a case:✓DTC / Ecommerce, $134k a year found in 6 days
09
Dunning
The process of retrying failed recurring payments. Weak dunning turns solvable payment failures into involuntary churn, quietly erasing retention gains.
Involuntary churn = failed payments not recovered ÷ active subscribers
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
2,000 subscribers, 120 failed payments a month, 40 recovered: 80 lost, a 4% monthly involuntary churn before anyone chose to leave.
See it in a case:✓Subscription, $52k a year found in 5 days
10
Take rate
The percentage a marketplace keeps from each transaction. A take rate set without passing landed cost through to pricing is a structural margin leak.
Take rate = marketplace revenue ÷ gross merchandise value
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
$150,000 of fees on $1,000,000 of GMV is a 15% take rate. Refund the buyer in full while keeping the fee only on completed orders and a 12% refund rate turns 15% into 13.2%.
See it in a case:✓Marketplace, $44k a year found in 7 days
11
Payback period
The time for a customer's contribution margin to repay their acquisition cost. Almost always longer than the board believes, because CAC excludes onboarding and blended metrics flatter it.
Payback period = CAC ÷ monthly contribution margin per customer
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
A $400 CAC against $25 of monthly contribution margin pays back in 16 months. The deck that used $50 of monthly revenue instead of margin said 8.
See it in a case:✓Fintech, +19% CAC payback in 6 days
12
LTV:CAC
Lifetime value to customer acquisition cost, a headline health metric that misleads when LTV is built on revenue instead of contribution margin.
LTV:CAC = lifetime contribution margin per customer ÷ CAC
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
$1,800 of lifetime revenue at a 40% contribution margin is $720 of lifetime margin. Against a $400 CAC that is 1.8 to 1, not the 4.5 to 1 the revenue version shows.
See it in a case:✓Subscription, +22% LTV:CAC in 5 days
13
Wasted ad spend
Media budget producing no incremental margin. Quantifying it, not just naming it, is the core output of a marketing audit.
Wasted ad spend = non-incremental spend + spend that converted nothing
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
Four locations bidding on the same keywords against each other raise the price of every click. The spend converts, so no dashboard flags it, and the margin it should have produced never arrives.
Corpus 22% of audited SMB marketing spend was wasted paid spend; only 62% was effective.
See it in a case:✓Services, $39k a year of wasted spend cut in 5 days
14
Marketing & margin audit
An independent, evidenced review of marketing spend and unit economics that finds where budget leaks, quantifies the recoverable margin and hands over a prioritized fix list.
Audit output = where it leaks + the recoverable figure + the fix list, in priority order
Worked example Illustration, not a client figure
A fixed fee, findings in 5 to 7 working days, one auditor with read only access, and a guarantee floor of findings per tier or the fee comes back.
Corpus 74 audits across 9 industries; the median highlight finding is worth $58k a year.
See it in a case:✓The benchmark