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Stan Consulting · Industry

Ecommerce Marketing Built on Profitable Cost Per Acquisition

Ecommerce brands do not have a traffic problem. They have a margin problem. Stan Consulting structures paid ads and store conversion around one number: the CPA that makes your business profitable.

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Quick answer

Stan Consulting diagnoses and rebuilds ecommerce marketing systems across Shopify, WooCommerce, and custom platforms. Google Ads, Meta Ads, Performance Max, feed and conversion architecture. The $999 Conversion Second Opinion is the diagnostic-first entry. Higher-tier engagements scope on the intake call. Stan Consulting works with clients across the United States and internationally, including active engagements in New York, Texas, Los Angeles, Germany, and Israel. The office is in Roseville, California.

20+

Years in Paid Media

Google + Meta + Shopify

All Three Channels

Audit First

Before Any Campaign Change

$999

Diagnostic - 72-Hour Delivery

Root causes

The Four Ecommerce Problems We Diagnose First

These four structural issues appear in the majority of ecommerce accounts. Every audit starts here before any campaign recommendation is made.

Unprofitable ROAS

Platform ROAS looks strong but margin after ad spend, COGS, and fulfilment is negative. The optimisation target is wrong and the account is losing money on every reported win.

Channel Cannibalisation

PMax, Shopping, and brand campaigns sharing budget. Brand traffic credited to PMax. True new customer acquisition cost is unknown and scaled spend is inflating a false number.

Product Page Conversion Leak

Traffic is arriving but leaving before purchase. The product page is missing specific trust signals, mobile optimisation, or offer clarity that converts a warmed visitor.

Ad-to-Page Mismatch

The ad sets a specific expectation. The landing page does not continue it. Visitor confidence collapses at the first click and paid traffic leaves without converting.

Structural failures

Why Ecommerce Ad Accounts Underperform

These are the structural problems Stan Consulting identifies in almost every ecommerce account audit. Most can be traced to a single root cause that cascades across every campaign.

PMax Without Structure

No audience signals, no asset group segmentation, no separate brand campaign. PMax spends broadly and claims credit for revenue it did not generate, leaving new customer acquisition cost invisible.

Product Feed Errors

Missing GTINs, disapproved products, and incorrect categories reduce Shopping reach without any visible error in the account interface. The algorithm cannot serve ads for products it cannot read.

Attribution Inflation

View-through conversions and modelled data inflate reported ROAS. Spend decisions are made on numbers that do not represent real revenue and scaling accelerates the gap.

No Cold/Warm Separation

Cold prospecting and retargeting in the same campaign with the same creative and bid. Neither performs at the level it would with proper separation and audience-matched creative.

Creative Fatigue Unmanaged

The same ad creative runs until frequency drives CPM above profitable levels. No creative rotation system. No signal-based refresh schedule. Performance declines are attributed to the market.

Budget Scaled on Bad Data

Spend increased based on platform metrics rather than revenue attribution. Scaling accelerates the loss and the real problem - structural, not budget-related - goes undiagnosed.

What we review

What an Ecommerce Account Audit Covers

Every ecommerce engagement begins with a structured diagnostic across these six areas. No campaign changes are made until the audit findings are delivered.

01

Google Merchant Center Feed

Product feed reviewed for disapprovals, missing attributes, and title optimisation before any campaign changes. Feed errors are the most common suppressor of Shopping and PMax reach.

02

Campaign Architecture Review

Brand, Shopping, and PMax layer separation assessed. Budget allocation reviewed by intent stage. Bidding strategy alignment to a defined CPA target confirmed or corrected.

03

Conversion Tracking Verification

Purchase event confirmed in Google Ads and Meta. Attribution model reviewed. View-through conversions assessed and isolated from revenue-attributed data used for optimisation decisions.

04

Meta Ad Account Structure

Cold, warm, and retargeting campaign separation reviewed. Audience overlap assessed. Creative rotation and frequency caps evaluated against current CPM and conversion trends.

05

Product Page Conversion Audit

Trust signals, mobile layout, price presentation, social proof placement, and CTA reviewed against conversion best practice. Pages receiving paid traffic are prioritised.

06

Ad-to-Page Message Match

Every active campaign checked against its landing page for offer continuity, audience match, and visual consistency. Mismatches are documented and ranked by traffic volume.

Where budgets are lost

Where Ecommerce Agencies Lose Your Budget

The same agency failures appear across accounts. These are not mistakes - they are predictable patterns that follow when senior judgment is absent from daily account decisions.

Running the Same Creative for Months

No creative testing system. No refresh protocol. CPMs rise as frequency climbs and the account manager optimises bids instead of creative. The real problem - audience exhaustion - goes unaddressed.

Reporting Vanity Metrics

ROAS, CPC, and impression share reported without revenue attribution. The business owner cannot tell if the channel is profitable. The agency looks productive. The store loses margin.

Ignoring the Store

Campaign changes made without reviewing whether the product page can convert the traffic. The bottleneck is on the page. The agency fixes the ad. Nothing improves and budget continues to run.

No Senior Oversight

A junior team member manages the account. The senior person who pitched the work reviews it quarterly at best. Account decisions are made by someone without the experience to identify structural problems.

Scope clarity

Is This the Right Fit?

This Is

  • Diagnostic before any campaign changes
  • ROAS calculated from actual purchase data
  • Feed audit before Shopping or PMax
  • Creative rotation with a defined refresh system
  • Product page reviewed alongside campaign
  • Senior-level account decisions on every engagement

No-fit

  • Traffic at any cost
  • Platform-reported ROAS without verification
  • PMax without audience signals
  • Broad match with no negative keyword strategy
  • Guaranteed returns
  • Paid Advertising Management

Common questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Google Shopping and Performance Max work best for ecommerce brands with existing search demand and clear product categories. Meta Ads work best for brands with strong visual product differentiation and a definable target audience. Most profitable ecommerce accounts run both with separate budget allocation and defined CPA targets per channel.
Traffic without sales on a Shopify store is almost always a product page problem, not an ads problem. The most common causes are weak social proof, price presentation without context, poor mobile layout, and message mismatch between the ad and the landing page. The $999 Conversion Second Opinion identifies the specific cause within 72 hours.
Revenue-attributed ROAS calculated from actual purchase data - not platform-reported ROAS which includes view-through attribution and modeled conversions - is the correct metric. If your Google Ads or Meta account reports high ROAS but your store revenue has not increased proportionally, the tracking or attribution is inflated. Stan Consulting audits attribution as the first step in every ecommerce account review.
Fix the store first if conversion rate is below 1% and you have at least 500 sessions per month. Every dollar spent on ads is wasted if the page cannot convert the traffic. The Conversion Second Opinion determines the right fix sequence for your specific account.
The fastest entry point is the $999 Conversion Second Opinion - a 72-hour structured diagnostic of your paid ads and Shopify store. It identifies the top three structural problems and delivers a prioritised fix list. No retainer required. 24-hour fixed scope.

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Tool for ecommerce operators

What target ROAS keeps paid ads profitable?

ROAS (return on ad spend) is revenue divided by ad spend. A 3x ROAS means every $1 of ad spend returns $3 in revenue. But revenue is not profit. The question is: what ROAS do you need so the campaign actually makes money after you pay for the product AND the ads?

Enter your gross margin and the net profit you want to keep. The calculator tells you the minimum ROAS you need for the campaign to hit that profit target.

Minimum ROAS to hit your target

2.5x

Every $1 of ad spend must return at least this much revenue for the campaign to leave your target profit on the table.

Break-even ROAS: 1.67x

At break-even: campaign pays for product cost plus ad cost. Zero profit.

Below target ROAS: you are not hitting your planned profit margin. Every sale eats into it.

Above target ROAS: campaign produces more net profit than planned. Room to scale or reinvest.

Note: this calculator assumes the ROAS reported by your ad platform reflects real revenue attributable to those ads. In many Shopify stores it does not, because of duplicate conversions, view-through bloat, or organic sales counted as paid. The $999 Conversion Second Opinion audits attribution before any target is set.

Beyond the Campaign

When the Marketing Problem Is a Business Problem

Ecommerce marketing problems are rarely just campaign problems. Feed structure, offer positioning, checkout architecture, and post-purchase sequencing all sit upstream of the ads. When fixing the campaign does not fix the revenue, the problem is structural.

Stan Consulting works at the level where those decisions are made. Campaign management, full system builds, and strategic consulting engagements are all available depending on what the business actually needs.

Your Shopify store is telling you what's wrong.

$999 one-time - 72-hour delivery - No retainer - 24-hour fixed scope

Get the $999 Diagnostic