Your ad platform says you are profitable. Your bank account disagrees.
We run paid acquisition against the numbers your CFO recognises — fully-loaded CAC, contribution margin, and payback period — not the ones your ad dashboard reports back to you.
- Priced on scope, never a percentage of your ad spend
- Every model, script and dashboard stays in your accounts
- You keep the system whether or not you keep us
The number on your dashboard is not the number in your business
Every ad platform reports the conversions it believes it influenced, inside its own attribution window, with no visibility of the others. Run four channels against a considered purchase and the sum of platform-reported revenue routinely exceeds what you actually booked — the same order claimed two or three times. Layer on browser privacy restrictions removing a chunk of the signal entirely, and you are optimising bids against numbers that do not reconcile to the bank. None of this is the platforms lying. Each is honestly answering 'did I contribute?' while you are asking 'where should the next rupee go?' — a question no single platform has the data to answer.
Platform-reported conversions versus booked revenue. Four advertising channels each report a share of the same conversions — Meta, Google, LinkedIn and YouTube. Because each measures inside its own attribution window with no visibility of the others, their combined claimed total is larger than the revenue actually recorded in the ledger.
Symptoms, causes and what they cost
Spend went up, revenue did not follow
Why it happens: Scaling pushes the algorithm past your highest-intent audience into progressively broader ones. The marginal customer costs far more than the average, and blended reporting hides exactly that.
What it costs: You are paying premium prices for your worst-performing cohort and calling it growth.
Lead volume is up and sales say the pipeline got worse
Why it happens: Campaigns optimise toward whatever event you send. Give the platform a form fill and it will find the cheapest humans who fill in forms — a different population from the one that buys.
What it costs: Your reps spend their day disqualifying, and effective capacity drops without appearing in any marketing report.
ROAS looks healthy but cash is tight
Why it happens: ROAS ignores gross margin and excludes agency fees and tooling. A 4x ROAS can be unprofitable, and a strong LTV:CAC ratio says nothing about when the money actually arrives.
What it costs: You scale into a cash-flow constraint that only becomes visible when the balance runs down.
Nobody can explain last month's numbers
Why it happens: Attribution windows differ per platform, modelled conversions are included by default and rarely labelled, and no one has reconciled any of it against booked revenue.
What it costs: Budget decisions get made on the most flattering dashboard rather than the most accurate one.
Where growth is normally stuck
- Conversion events stop at the form, so the algorithm never learns which leads were worth having
- Client-side-only tracking loses the signal that browser restrictions remove
- CAC is quoted excluding fees and tooling, understating the real cost by 20–40%
- Payback is computed on revenue rather than contribution, making it look months shorter than it is
- Creative volume cannot keep pace with spend, so frequency climbs and efficiency decays
- No single source of truth, so marketing and finance argue about which number is real
Conversion signal loss between the browser and the ad platform. Conversions fall at each stage of browser-side collection: tracking prevention and consent choices remove roughly a third, and further loss occurs before the event reaches the ad platform. A final bar shows the larger share that survives when events are also sent server-side.
Our solutions — matched to the problem you have
- Your growth stalled. Your CAC didn't. — for: “Spend keeps rising and profit does not follow”. Read more
- Lower the cost of every customer you win. — for: “Every customer costs more than the last one”. Read more
- Fix the leaks that cost you the most. — for: “Traffic arrives and does not convert”. Read more
- Build the model that tells you if the business works. — for: “You cannot prove the business works at a unit level”. Read more
- Know what a customer is actually worth. — for: “You do not know what a customer is actually worth”. Read more
- Modern search channels are capturing your buyer's intent. — for: “Buyers are asking AI assistants instead of searching”. Read more
Our services
Measurement first
Nothing downstream is trustworthy until this is right. We start here on almost every engagement, because optimising against numbers that do not reconcile just reaches the wrong destination faster.
- Server-side Conversions API
- Google Enhanced Conversions
- Analytics & technical telemetry
- Attribution audits
Acquisition
Paid media run against contribution margin rather than platform-reported ROAS, with creative volume matched to spend so frequency does not quietly erode efficiency.
Conversion & retention
Where the funnel rather than the ad is the binding constraint, more traffic makes the problem more expensive rather than smaller.
What we actually do
We take responsibility for the whole chain — the media, the measurement underneath it, and the economics that decide whether any of it was worth running. Not one channel in isolation.
- Rebuild the measurement layer: server-side Conversions API, first-party event collection, and events that carry values rather than counts
- Reconcile every platform against your booked revenue so you have one number, not four competing ones
- Model fully-loaded CAC, contribution margin and payback by channel and cohort
- Run and scale paid acquisition across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, YouTube and marketplaces against those numbers
- Rebuild the post-click experience where the funnel, not the ad, is the constraint
- Feed qualification and closed-won events back to the platforms so bidding optimises toward revenue
How it runs
The engagement sequence, phase by phase. Four sequential phases, beginning with diagnosis and measurement before any campaign changes are made.
Days 1–10 — Diagnose before touching anything
Read-only access to ad accounts, analytics and CRM. We change nothing in the first phase. You get a ranked view of what is actually limiting growth, with the arithmetic shown, in a form you can forward to your CFO without translating it.
Weeks 2–4 — Fix the measurement layer first
Optimising against numbers that do not reconcile just gets you to the wrong place faster. Server-side events, first-party identifiers, values on conversions, and reconciliation against your ledger — before a single campaign change.
Weeks 4–8 — Rebuild acquisition against contribution
Budget reallocated on reconciled numbers, bids optimised toward qualified outcomes rather than form fills, creative volume matched to spend, and post-click fixed where it is the binding constraint.
Ongoing — Hold the system to the numbers
Weekly against contribution margin and payback, not impressions. When something stops working we tell you early, including when the honest answer is that the constraint has moved somewhere we are not.
Why we work this way
Most agencies are paid a percentage of your ad spend, which pays them more when your budget grows whether or not the growth was profitable. That single incentive explains most of what is wrong with the category: budgets that only go up, reports built on platform-reported ROAS, and a quiet reluctance to tell you the channel has stopped working. We price on scope so the incentive points at the system performing. It also means we will occasionally tell you to spend less, which a percentage-based agency structurally cannot.
What you get out of it
You can defend the number
Fully-loaded CAC and payback on contribution, baselined and tracked. When your board asks where the money went, the answer reconciles to the ledger.
Budget goes where it actually works
Reconciled attribution changes allocation decisions, usually materially. Channels flattered by double-counting stop being funded on that basis.
Scaling stops eroding margin
When bidding optimises toward qualified revenue rather than form volume, growth improves unit economics instead of diluting them.
You own what we build
Tracking configuration, models, playbooks and dashboards live in your accounts under your credentials. Our goal is to make ourselves unnecessary.
Cumulative contribution against customer acquisition cost over twelve months. Contribution accumulates month by month as a rising line, while acquisition cost is a flat line paid up front. The two cross once cumulative contribution overtakes acquisition cost. The shaded area before that crossing is the payback period, during which capital is committed.
Published engagements
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How a Marketplace Beauty Brand Doubled Account ROAS in 63 Days
— D2C & Marketplace
— Return on Ad Spend across marketplace accounts: Sub-1 ROAS (0.7x) → 2.0x Total ROAS
A marketplace-only beauty brand was bleeding ad spend across 300+ campaigns with no KPIs. Here's the 63-day turnaround that cut spend 43% and lifted total ROAS 200%.
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How a Global EdTech Fixed a Sub-1 ROAS by Rebuilding the Funnel
— EdTech & Upskilling
— Return on Ad Spend across global geos: Sub-1 ROAS (0.5x) → Up to 3.0x ROAS
A global upskilling platform was running ROAS below 1 in major markets. Here is the geo-by-geo funnel, landing page rebuild, and Andromeda creative testing framework that cut CPL 60-70% and lifted ROAS by 80% to 300%.
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How a K-12 Online School Fixed a Losing ROAS by Fixing Who It Targeted
— EdTech & K-12
— Sustained Return on Ad Spend: 0.3 - 0.5 ROAS → 8.0 - 10.0 ROAS
A K-12 online school was paying for leads who weren't even parents. See the targeting rebuild that lifted qualification 300% and took ROAS from 0.3 to 8–10.
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How a Wearables Brand Fixed Its Weakest Channel — Without Touching Anything Else
— D2C & Wearables
— Media-buying Return on Ad Spend: 0.8 - 1.4 ROAS → 2.3x - 2.5x ROAS
A healthy electronics brand had one weak channel: bought media converted at 1% vs 3-8% elsewhere. Here's the media-buying rebuild that lifted ROAS to 2.3-2.5x.
Client names are withheld under NDA. Every figure comes from the engagement it is attached to.
This is for you if
- You are spending enough that a percentage point of efficiency is material
- Your platform-reported revenue does not reconcile to what finance booked
- You are being asked for payback and unit economics you cannot currently produce
- You have a competent team who need the measurement layer fixed, not replacing
- You want the system to remain yours when the engagement ends
Do not hire us if
- Retention is the real problem. If cohorts are still falling at month 12, acquisition efficiency is not your constraint and fixing the top of the funnel moves money through a bucket that still leaks.
- Product-market fit is unsettled. If you cannot name who the product is for and why they choose it, there is nothing stable to optimise against.
- You want someone to run ads and report on ROAS. That is a cheaper service and several firms do it well.
Industries we serve
D2C & e-commerce
Marketplace and own-storefront acquisition, margin-aware bidding, repeat-purchase economics.
B2B SaaS
Down-funnel signal back to the platforms so bidding optimises on opportunities rather than form fills.
EdTech
Long consideration cycles, high enquiry volume, lead qualification as the binding constraint.
Real estate
High-value, geography-bound enquiries where lead quality dominates lead volume.
Automotive & local retail
Bridging online enquiry to an offline sale that happens weeks later.
Fintech & regulated
Acquisition where consent, PII handling and what may be transmitted shape the architecture.
Check your own numbers before you talk to anyone
A working spreadsheet with live formulas: spend through to net contribution, blended CAC including the fees your ad platform excludes, and payback computed on contribution rather than revenue. No email required — it is a file, and you should be able to check our thinking before you hear our pitch.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How is a performance marketing agency different from a digital marketing agency?
- In practice the labels overlap, and plenty of firms use them interchangeably. The meaningful difference is what the engagement is accountable to. A performance engagement should be measured on cost per acquired customer, contribution margin and payback period. If the reporting leads with impressions, reach or platform-reported ROAS, the label is performance but the accountability is not.
- Do you charge a percentage of ad spend?
- No. That model pays the agency more when your budget grows, whether or not the growth was profitable, and it makes recommending a spend reduction structurally irrational. We price on the scope of the work: $2,500 for a diagnostic audit, $4,500–$5,500 for a build sprint, $6,500–$8,500 per month for a retainer.
- What does the first month actually look like?
- Read-only access to your ad accounts, analytics and CRM. We change nothing without your sign-off. Days 1–2 are access and orientation, days 3–5 reconciling platform-reported revenue against what finance booked, days 6–8 rebuilding CAC and payback on contribution, days 9–10 a one-page ranked view of the constraints with the working shown.
- How quickly will we see results?
- Measurement fixes usually show within two to four weeks because they correct data you are already collecting. Acquisition and funnel changes need one to two full buying cycles to read reliably — longer if your sales cycle is long. Anyone promising a specific lift on a specific date has not seen your numbers.
- Do you work with companies outside India?
- Yes. We are based in Bengaluru and work with companies across the US, UK, UAE, Singapore, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland. Engagements run remotely with working hours overlapping your timezone.
- Who owns the tracking setup and models when we stop working together?
- You do, entirely. Everything is built in your accounts under your credentials — server-side tracking configuration, unit-economics models, dashboards, playbooks. We do not hold code or withhold access at the end of an engagement.
- Why can we not see your client names?
- Our clients are under NDA, so engagements are described by sector and situation rather than named. We would rather show you a real result with the name withheld than a named logo we cannot substantiate, and we will walk you through the methodology and the measurement on a call.
- What size company do you work best with?
- Companies already spending meaningfully on acquisition, with a defined product and buyer. Below that the constraint is usually product-market fit rather than the growth system, and we will tell you so rather than take the engagement.
How we work
- Priced on scope, never as a percentage of your ad spend
- Every model, script, tracking configuration and dashboard stays in your accounts
- Client names withheld under NDA — methodology walked through on a call
- Senior operators on the account, not a junior team learning on your budget
- We will tell you when the constraint is somewhere we are not
Bring your actual numbers
Forty-five minutes against your real accounts. You leave with a ranked view of what is limiting growth and the arithmetic behind it — whether or not you work with us.