Guides
Ecommerce growth audit: find why growth stalled before you hire or scale spend
Most brands at ~1–10M do not have a “spend more” problem.
They have a diagnosis problem.
CAC creeps up. ROAS looks fine in one dashboard and ugly in another. Email “works” until it doesn’t. The founder is still approving every creative. Agencies disagree. Nobody can point to the one constraint that actually matters.
A Growth Audit exists to end that fog.
What a Growth Audit is
A structured teardown of your brand, funnel, retention, measurement, and how the team (and agencies) actually operate.
You leave with:
- A clear state of marketing—written, not a vibe
- Ranked problems (not a 40-item laundry list)
- A 90-day priority roadmap you can run with or without me
It is not a sales call dressed as “discovery.” It is not a channel checklist. It is commercial insight: what is leaking, why, and what to fix first.
Who it is for
Shopify and DTC founders who already have traction—and feel growth getting harder than it should.
Typical triggers:
- Plateau after $1–5M
- Rising CAC while contribution margin after ads worsens
- Agencies executing without anyone owning the P&L
- Founder-led marketing hitting a ceiling
- Debate between hiring a full-time CMO, keeping the agency, or going fractional
If you are pre-revenue or still hunting product-market fit, an audit is usually premature. Ship. Talk to customers. Hire hands. Come back when there is a machine worth diagnosing.
What we look at
Brand & positioning. Is the offer clear? Is creative fighting the brand or carrying it?
Acquisition. Channel mix, creative throughput, landing and PDP conversion—not just campaign ROAS.
Retention & lifecycle. Repeat rate, email/SMS share of revenue, post-purchase systems.
Measurement. Do your numbers match the P&L? MER, contribution margin after ads, payback—or only vanity ROAS?
Org & vendors. Who owns outcomes? Where does work stall? What is over-resourced vs under-owned?
What you get
- Written diagnosis — plain language, no agency theater
- Ranked constraints — the few that move revenue if fixed
- 90-day plan — diagnose → prioritize → prove one lever
- Resourcing notes — what to keep, hire, fire, or fractionalize
You can take the plan and run it alone. Or we continue as Fractional CMO. Either path is fine. Clarity first.
What it is not
- I do not take over your Meta account for a week and call it an audit
- I do not invent fake case math
- I do not recommend “scale spend” when the leak is retention, creative systems, or measurement
As founding Head of Brand at Foodello, I supported commercial growth from €1M to €15M ARR. The lesson that stuck: diagnose systems before you buy more traffic.
Next step
Book a Growth Audit call. We will see if the fit is right and what the scope should be for your stage.
If you already know you need embedded leadership, skip ahead to a Fractional CMO intro. If you are stuck on the plateau or rising CAC, start here.