Feed quality, product page structure and margin-aware bidding — because revenue growth that loses money is not growth.
eCommerce is the one category where the data is genuinely complete — you know what sold, at what price, at what margin, to whom. That should make decisions easy. It usually doesn't, because most stores optimise toward revenue or ROAS, and neither of those tells you whether you made money.
A 4× return on ad spend is excellent at 60% margin and loss-making at 20%. Once the measurement carries margin, whole categories of decision get simpler and a lot of accepted wisdom stops applying.
Start with the feed and with margin data in the measurement layer, so bidding can be told what's actually worth buying. Restructure Performance Max so branded and non-branded demand are separable. Rebuild category pages as the primary organic targets, with product pages supporting rather than leading.
Then the retention layer — abandoned cart, post-purchase, replenishment and win-back flows — which for most stores returns more per dollar than any further acquisition spend. And conversion work on the checkout, where small friction reductions apply to every single order.
Contribution margin after ad spend and cost of goods, with new-customer acquisition cost tracked separately from returning-customer revenue. Blended ROAS hides the difference and lets a store convince itself that remarketing to existing customers is growth.
Effective and opaque. It performs well when it's fed a clean product feed, clear conversion values and structural separation from branded search — and it quietly takes credit for demand you already had when it isn't. The structure around it matters more than the campaign settings.
Profit, always, and it requires getting cost of goods into the measurement layer so bidding can see margin rather than revenue. Most stores never do this, which is precisely why the opportunity exists.
Shopify for most stores: less maintenance, better performance out of the box, fewer ways to break it. WooCommerce when you need unusual logic or deep integration with something existing. The platform matters far less than the feed, the measurement and the retention programme.
For an established store, usually the highest-return channel available and typically the most neglected. Acquisition costs rise every year; the customers you already have don't cost anything to reach again.
Book a free discovery session. We'll audit what you're running, tell you what's leaking budget, and show you what we'd do differently — no obligation.