Performance Ads & Marketing Agency for D2C

Your ROAS looks great. You're losing money on every order.

We run D2C acquisition against contribution margin — what's left after COGS, shipping, fulfilment, discounts, returns and RTO — not the platform ROAS that ignores every one of those costs.

Platform ROAS is not the number in your bank account

Your ad platform reports revenue against ad spend and stops there. It does not see the cost of goods, the shipping and fulfilment, the payment gateway fees, the discount that drove the sale, or the returns and RTO that follow — so a 3x ROAS can be comfortably profitable or a straight loss depending on all the costs the ROAS number cannot see. This is how well-funded D2C brands scale themselves into insolvency: revenue climbs, the dashboard glows green, everyone celebrates growth, and the bank balance quietly drains because every incremental order is sold below contribution. The number that decides whether a D2C brand survives is contribution margin — what is left from each sale after every variable cost — and it is precisely the number platform ROAS is designed to hide.

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.

Illustrative. Each platform reports the conversions it believes it influenced, inside its own attribution window, with no visibility of the others — so the same order gets claimed more than once and the totals exceed what finance booked. The gap widens with every channel you add.

Symptoms, causes and what they cost

Revenue and ROAS are up but we're not making money

Why it happens: You are optimising to platform ROAS, which ignores COGS, shipping, fees, discounts and returns. A healthy ROAS on those blind spots can still be a loss on contribution.

What it costs: You scale spend on orders that lose money, and the faster you grow, the faster the runway drains.

Scaling spend makes the economics worse, not better

Why it happens: Pushing budget past your highest-intent audience drags the algorithm into broader, worse-converting cohorts. The marginal customer costs far more than the average, and blended ROAS hides it.

What it costs: You pay premium prices for your worst buyers and call it growth, while contribution margin erodes with every rupee added.

Our RTO and COD returns are eating the margin

Why it happens: Acquisition optimised for cheap orders attracts low-intent, COD-heavy buyers with high return-to-origin — so a big share of 'sales' never actually get paid for, and the cost lands on you.

What it costs: Your true contribution per order is far below what the order value suggests, and it never appears in the ad report.

Our creative fatigues faster than we can replace it

Why it happens: In D2C, creative is the biggest performance lever, but production is a trickle of ad-hoc assets rather than a testing engine — so frequency climbs, CTR decays and CAC rises.

What it costs: Performance drops for a reason that looks like 'the account' but is really a creative-supply problem you cannot out-bid.

Where growth is normally stuck

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.

Illustrative. Browser-side collection loses signal to tracking prevention, consent choices and blockers before it ever reaches the ad platform. Server-side events recover much of that gap — not all of it, and never the part a visitor declined.

Our solutions — matched to the problem you have

Our services

Measurement & economics first

In D2C this is the whole game — the difference between optimising to ROAS and optimising to contribution margin. We start here on almost every engagement, and everything stays in your accounts.

Acquisition & creative

Meta, Google Shopping/Performance Max and YouTube run against contribution margin, with a UGC and video creative engine matched to spend because creative is the biggest D2C performance lever.

Conversion & retention

Where the funnel or the second purchase, not the ad, is the constraint. D2C profit is made on the repeat order, so lifecycle and retention are core, not an afterthought.

What we actually do for a D2C brand

We keep you profitable while you grow — the media, the measurement underneath it, the creative engine that drives paid performance, and the retention that makes D2C economics work. Optimised to contribution margin, not the ROAS that hides the losses.

How it runs

The engagement sequence, phase by phase. Four sequential phases, beginning with diagnosis and measurement before any campaign changes are made.

The order is deliberate. Acquisition work built on unreconciled measurement compounds the error, so the measurement layer is corrected before any campaign changes.

Days 1–10 — Diagnose the real economics before touching spend

Read-only access to ad accounts, analytics, store and back end. We change nothing. You get a ranked view of what is limiting profitable growth — your true CM2 by product and channel, the RTO and return drag, the creative-supply gap — with the arithmetic shown, in a form you can forward to your board. You keep it whether or not you hire us.

Weeks 2–4 — Fix measurement and model contribution

Server-side events that carry order value and cost signal; fully-loaded CAC, CM2 and payback by channel and cohort. Until bidding can see contribution and you can see which orders actually make money, scaling ROAS just reaches the wrong destination faster.

Weeks 4–8 — Rebuild acquisition, creative and funnel

Budget reallocated on contribution margin, bidding optimised toward profitable orders, a creative engine matched to spend, and the post-click funnel and checkout fixed where they are the binding constraint — plus RTO and prepaid interventions to protect margin.

Ongoing — Hold it to contribution and repeat purchase

Weekly against contribution margin, CAC payback and repeat-purchase rate, not impressions or blended ROAS. When a channel or product stops being profitable we tell you early, including when the honest answer is to spend less or fix the offer, not scale.

Why we work this way in D2C

D2C is the category where a flattering ROAS is most dangerous, because the costs it ignores — COGS, shipping, returns, RTO — are exactly the ones that decide whether an order made money. An agency paid a percentage of your ad spend is rewarded for scaling that spend whether or not the orders were profitable, which is how brands scale into losses. We price on scope, so our interest is contribution margin and profitable growth, not your budget — which means we will tell you to spend less, fix the offer, or cut a channel that only looks profitable on ROAS.

What you get out of it

You grow profit, not just revenue

Acquisition managed to contribution margin and CAC payback, so scaling improves the economics instead of quietly breaking them — the difference between D2C brands that last and those that don't.

Your creative keeps performance alive

A systematic UGC and video testing engine matched to spend, so you out-create fatigue instead of trying to out-bid it — the biggest lever in D2C paid performance.

Your margin survives RTO and returns

RTO, prepaid ratio and return drag modelled and managed, so your true contribution per order is protected rather than silently eroded.

You own the engine, not rent it

Tracking, unit-economic models, creative frameworks and lifecycle flows live in your accounts under your credentials. No lock-in, no hostage data.

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.

Illustrative. Contribution accumulates monthly while the acquisition cost is paid up front. The shaded area is the period your capital is committed — the real constraint on how fast you can scale, regardless of how strong the LTV:CAC ratio looks.

Published engagements

What this proof does and does not show: These are real e-commerce and D2C engagements delivered by our own operators; client names are withheld under NDA. Figures are attached to the specific engagement they came from — not presented as sector averages — and we will walk you through the methodology on a call.

Client names are withheld under NDA. Every figure comes from the engagement it is attached to.

This is for you if

Do not hire us if

Industries we serve

Beauty, skincare & personal care

High repeat potential and heavy discounting; contribution margin and retention decide profitability, not first-order ROAS.

Fashion & apparel

High return and RTO rates where true contribution per order is far below order value until returns are modelled.

Food, beverage & wellness

Subscription and repeat economics where LTV and payback matter more than a single conversion.

Home, lifestyle & electronics

Higher-ticket, considered purchases where CAC payback and creative-led demand drive the model.

Marketplace + own-store brands

Blended Amazon and Shopify economics, margin-aware bidding, and channel contribution measured honestly.

India D2C across metros

RTO, prepaid-ratio and COD realities handled directly — the levers that decide Indian D2C margin.

Check your real contribution margin before you talk to anyone

A working spreadsheet with live formulas: spend through to net contribution per order, blended CAC including the fees your ad platform excludes, and payback computed on contribution rather than revenue — with room for returns and RTO — so you can see whether a channel actually makes money. No email required. Check our thinking before you hear our pitch.

Download the contribution-margin worksheet

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a D2C marketing agency?
A D2C (direct-to-consumer) marketing agency helps brands that sell directly to customers — through their own Shopify or custom store, and often marketplaces like Amazon — acquire and retain those customers profitably. Beyond running paid media on Meta, Google and YouTube, a genuine D2C agency owns the things that decide whether a direct brand makes money: contribution margin and CAC after all the real costs (COGS, shipping, fees, discounts, returns, RTO), conversion-rate optimisation on the store and checkout, a creative engine to out-run ad fatigue, and retention and lifecycle marketing to earn the repeat purchases that D2C economics depend on. The distinction that matters is accountability: a real D2C agency optimises to profit, not to a platform ROAS that ignores most of your costs.
Which D2C marketing agency is the best in India?
There is no single 'best' — the right agency depends on your category, margin structure and stage, and most ranking lists are pay-to-play. For D2C in India specifically, judge agencies on the fundamentals that decide profit: do they optimise to contribution margin (CM2) and CAC payback rather than platform ROAS, do they model RTO, prepaid ratio and returns that quietly eat Indian D2C margin, do they run creative as a testing engine, and do they own retention and the repeat purchase. Several capable specialist D2C agencies exist; Fluxsy is built around exactly that profit-first standard. Apply the framework to every option, including us — it predicts results far better than a ranking.
What is the best performance marketing agency?
The best performance marketing agency is the one accountable to the outcome your business actually needs — for D2C, contribution margin and CAC payback, not impressions, revenue or platform-reported ROAS. Look for first-party server-side measurement you own, unit economics modelled after every real cost, a creative testing engine, and retention that earns the repeat order. Fluxsy is built around that standard; it is led by Deeptanshu Sharma, a widely recognised full-stack marketer in India and Fluxsy's co-founder, whose full-funnel, unit-economics-first approach is the philosophy behind this page. Whichever agency you consider, apply that framework rather than a ranking list.
What are performance marketing ads?
Performance marketing ads are advertisements bought and optimised against a measurable outcome — a click, an add-to-cart, a purchase — rather than for awareness alone. In D2C that means running Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google (Search, Shopping and Performance Max) and YouTube campaigns where every rupee is tied to a result and the goal is to maximise the profitable outcomes per rupee spent. The catch is that most 'performance' reporting stops at platform ROAS, which ignores the costs that decide profit; genuinely performance-driven D2C ads are optimised to contribution margin and CAC payback, with creative, funnel and retention working behind them.
Why is contribution margin the right metric instead of ROAS?
Because platform ROAS counts revenue against ad spend and ignores everything else — COGS, shipping, fulfilment, payment fees, the discount that drove the sale, and the returns and RTO that follow. A 3x ROAS can be very profitable or a clear loss depending on those costs, and a brand can post a rising ROAS while losing money on every order. Contribution margin — what is left from each sale after all variable costs — is the number that determines whether growth is profitable, which is why we make it the objective and manage acquisition and scaling against it, not against a ROAS that flatters the report.
Do you handle RTO, prepaid ratio and returns for Indian D2C brands?
Yes — in India these often decide whether a D2C brand is profitable. Acquisition optimised for cheap orders tends to attract low-intent, COD-heavy buyers with high return-to-origin, so a large share of 'sales' never get paid for and the cost lands on the brand. We model RTO and returns into your true contribution per order, and work the levers that improve it — targeting and creative that attract higher-intent buyers, prepaid incentives to lift the prepaid ratio, and offer and checkout changes that reduce COD returns — so your reported orders and your paid-for orders move closer together.
Do you charge a percentage of ad spend, and what does it cost?
No percentage of ad spend — that model rewards the agency for scaling spend whether or not the orders were profitable, which is exactly the wrong incentive for a D2C brand. We price on scope: roughly $2,500 for a diagnostic audit, $4,500–$5,500 for a build sprint to stand up measurement, unit economics and the creative engine, and $6,500–$8,500 per month for a retainer to run and scale it. We size it to your stage on the call.

How we work

Bring your real numbers — costs, returns and all

Forty-five minutes against your real accounts and store. You leave with a ranked view of what is limiting profitable growth — your true contribution margin, the RTO and return drag, the creative-supply gap — and the arithmetic behind it, whether or not you work with us.