Lumière was reporting a blended ROAS of 2.4x. But ROAS doesn't account for product cost, fulfilment, shipping, returns, or ad fees. When we pulled the actual contribution margin per channel, the real picture was 11% — meaning for every $100 in revenue, $89 was going out the door before profit was even calculated.

At 11% contribution margin on $30k monthly ad spend, the brand was funding customer acquisition for near-zero real profit. Two channels were actively margin-negative and nobody knew because nobody was looking at the right number.

• Connected ad platforms, Shopify, and revenue data into one dashboard tracking real contribution margin per channel, not just ROAS
• Ran full quantitative analysis covering blended CAC, AOV, LTV, contribution margin by channel, and ROAS broken down by product category
• Ran qualitative analysis using customer reviews, post-purchase surveys, and return reason data to understand what was driving purchases and what was killing repeat orders
• Built product-level margin visibility so scaling decisions were based on which products actually made money, not which had the best reported ROAS

The top three Meta ad sets had been running for 47+ days without rotation. CPM had climbed 38% and CTR had dropped 44% over that same period. Nobody had noticed because the dashboard was showing aggregate spend numbers, not creative-level performance signals. The audience had seen the same ads so many times they had completely stopped responding.

Meta CAC had deteriorated from $47 to $81 over 6 weeks — a 72% increase driven almost entirely by creative fatigue, not audience saturation or market conditions.

• Immediate creative rotation — retire all ad sets over 30 days old and replace with fresh angles
• Build a structured creative testing framework with at least 3 new concepts per week in testing
• Set up creative fatigue alerts so no ad set runs past 3.5x frequency without replacement
• Test UGC-style and authentic content against current polished product photography — in beauty, authentic consistently outperforms glossy

With 24,600 monthly clicks landing on product pages, a 1.8% purchase conversion rate meant over 23,000 people per month were arriving, looking, and leaving. The pages led with ingredient lists and clinical descriptions — useful for people already convinced, completely useless for cold paid traffic who needed to be sold on the transformation before being educated about the formula.

At a 3% benchmark conversion rate, Lumière was leaving roughly 295 purchases per month untouched — at $74 AOV that's approximately $21,800 in monthly revenue from traffic they were already paying for.

• Rewrite above-the-fold content to lead with outcome and skin transformation, not ingredients
• Add social proof immediately visible — review count, star rating, before/after imagery where available
• Improve mobile page speed from 3.8 seconds to under 2
• Add urgency and scarcity signals specifically for paid traffic landing pages
• Test bundle offers at point of purchase to improve AOV

Over 17,000 people per month were adding products to their cart and then leaving. There was no abandonment email sequence, no SMS follow-up, and no retargeting specifically targeting cart abandoners. The brand was spending $30k/month acquiring warm purchase intent and then doing absolutely nothing to recover it.

Industry data suggests 5–15% of abandoned carts are recoverable with a proper email sequence. At 17,460 abandoned carts per month and $74 AOV, a 7% recovery rate is worth over $9,000 in monthly revenue at zero additional ad spend.

• Build a 3-step cart abandonment email sequence at 1 hour, 24 hours, and 72 hours
• Add SMS abandonment for customers who opted in at checkout
• Launch dedicated retargeting campaigns for cart abandoners on Meta and Google
• Test a small discount on the final recovery email to close hesitant buyers

PMax had no product-level exclusions configured. Margin-negative SKUs — primarily a promotional bundle with a 6% product margin — were included in the feed and being actively promoted. The campaign was technically generating revenue and even showing a positive ROAS, but the actual contribution margin was -4% after product costs, fulfilment, and returns were accounted for.

$7,800/month flowing into a campaign that was losing money on every sale it generated. This only became visible once contribution margin was tracked at the product and channel level separately.

• Exclude all margin-negative SKUs from PMax product feed immediately
• Implement target ROAS in PMax based on real contribution margin targets, not platform-reported revenue
• Feed PMax with first-party audience signals — past purchasers, high-value visitors, email list
• Separate brand and non-brand traffic within PMax using URL exclusions and campaign-level settings

Lumière had an 18% repeat purchase rate against a 30–40% benchmark for skincare brands with strong product quality. There was no post-purchase email sequence, no loyalty mechanism, and no retargeting designed specifically to bring back past buyers. The brand was spending $30k/month acquiring new customers while letting existing ones quietly drift away without any follow-up.

In skincare, LTV is the business model. A customer who buys twice is worth 2.3x a one-time buyer. Getting repeat purchase rate from 18% to 30% would improve LTV enough to profitably increase new customer acquisition spend without touching margins.

• Build a post-purchase email sequence focused on education, usage tips, and cross-sell into complementary products
• Launch dedicated retention campaigns on Meta targeting past purchasers with replenishment timing based on product usage cycles
• Create a bundle or subscription offer for the highest-repurchase products
• Test a loyalty incentive at the 30-day mark for single-purchase customers who haven't returned