How a $4M e-commerce business found $620K of hidden profit by re-pricing CAC across channels
$4M revenue e-commerce, 12% net margin, ostensibly healthy unit economics. Six weeks of work. $620K of hidden profit found. Not in cuts — in CAC re-attribution across channels.
SITUATION
Ukrainian home-products e-commerce. 18 SKUs. 65% repeat purchases. Blended marketing CAC = $42, LTV = $180. Owner: «We're stable but profit isn't growing — how do we get to 18% margin?»
What we found
| Google Ads | CAC $28 · LTV $220 · 7.9× |
|---|---|
| Meta (FB+IG) | CAC $87 · LTV $95 · 1.1× |
| Email automation | CAC $4 · LTV $310 · 78× |
| Influencer placements | CAC $61 · LTV $130 · 2.1× |
| Direct / SEO | CAC $9 · LTV $290 · 32× |
33% of the marketing budget went to Meta — a channel running at LTV/CAC 1.1×. Every dollar into Meta brand campaigns came back inside statistical noise. Email automation — the best channel in the business — got $4K/month against $32K on Meta.
What we did
- Killed Meta brand campaigns (kept retargeting on warm list only)
- Tripled the email automation budget — 4 new sequences, SKU segmentation
- Doubled Google Ads spend on search-intent
- Kept influencer placements only on tier-A creators (LTV/CAC > 5×)
| Marketing spend | −14% (from $42K to $36K/mo) |
|---|---|
| Revenue | +22% (from $4.0M to $4.9M run-rate) |
| Net margin | 12% → 18% |
| Hidden profit (annualised) | $620K |