How not to scale on Meta

Good DTC media buyers know the difference between the types of metrics that they are reporting on and actioning.

An extremely important distinction to make sure you and your paid media provider are paying attention to is the difference between:

• Attributed Data

&

• Financial Data

It’s crucial to understand what each can and can’t tell you.

You will be led astray if you don’t know the difference.

And I see this all the time.

Look at this chart from an audit we ran with a brand that had worked with a paid media agency for about a year. (see attached image)

The blue bar is the amount of money left over after the brand pays off all of their delivery + fulfillment costs + ad spend.

This is their Contribution Margin.

This client’s prior paid media team looked only at attributed stats from Meta.

So, the paid media team thought they were “scaling the brand with Meta ads.”

But the founders were confused why:

• Their advertiser kept telling them he was “rapidly scaling their brand”

• But they had less and less money in the bank each month

This is a perfect example of a marketer who has only ever worked in-platform misunderstanding what specific metrics were telling them.

Because of this, they destroyed the brand’s profitability. Unknowingly.

We are now working to bring this brand with an amazing product line back to being cash-positive.

This a perfect example of why DTC brands should hire a paid media team that understands the financial realities of the brands they work with.

And the consequences when they don’t.

Attributed Metrics can NOT tell you about the overall profitability of an ad program.

If your paid media team is only reporting their Meta ROAS + Attributed Revenue, be careful you don’t go bankrupt.

If you want a similar audit done for your DTC brand, send us a message.