E-commerce strategy.

02 · THE BRIEFING

1. I
   When to consider it
   Your CAC (cost to acquire a new customer) climbs, your average basket stalls, and retention no longer compensates. Or you are launching an eshop on a market you know offline but not online, and you want to avoid funding 12 months of Meta + Google learning.
2. II
   Why it matters
   Without a written loop, you steer acquisition, retention and basket as three separate projects. Arbitrages happen in silos, and net margin dilutes. What it really costs you is the customer value over 12-24 months (LTV) no ad campaign recovers later.
3. III
   What you get back
   A written LTV → CAC → basket mechanic, indexed on your gross margin. A per-phase lever grid (acquisition, first purchase, retention, reactivation). A frame to say no to promos that destroy margin without serving loyalty.
4. IV
   How we run it
   We look at 18 months of customer-cohort data (groups of clients by acquisition month), before laying down a single lever. We extract that data into BigQuery (Google dedicated data warehouse) and turn it into Looker Studio dashboards (Google reporting), cross-checked with your [GA4](https://analytics.google.com) Enhanced E-commerce. Hypotheses validated against your gross margin, scenarios delivered as a quarterly Notion grid.
5. V
   What it unlocks
   E-commerce arbitrages defendable at executive committee. A ground ready to plug in marketing automation on clean LTV cohorts. A clean base for AI workflows downstream, free of last-click bias (where the last click takes all the credit).

We get back to you within the week · scoping before any quote.

04 · WHAT WE WON'T WRITE IN AN RFP

An e-commerce strategy is only useful if lifetime value conditions acquisition cost.

Most strategies we inherit reason backwards: how many leads can I buy, and we'll see after. The result: a climbing CAC, a retention no campaign feeds, and a net margin draining. The right sequence: LTV (customer value over 12-24 months) first, acceptable CAC second, acquisition levers third. If the measurement mechanic does not hold, the agency vs freelance vs in-house debate stays theoretical.

• 01

  LTV computed per cohort

  You know the real customer value at 12, 24, 36 months by entry channel. No more global average hiding unprofitable ad cohorts (clients won via paid ads) beneath very profitable organic ones.

• 02

  Acceptable CAC per segment

  Each catalog segment has its CAC ceiling, indexed on gross margin and LTV. You no longer over-invest in promos that bring volume without margin, or low-value-over-time customers.

• 03

  Quantified retention loop

  Your repurchase and reactivation plan is tied to measured LTV cohorts. Each loyalty scenario has an estimated cost and return up front, not validated after the fact.

• 04

  Filter against margin-killing promos

  You receive six promo proposals a month. The written frame gives you the criterion to say yes or no in 5 minutes. Promos that destroy margin without feeding retention drop off the calendar.

05 · THE PLAY-BY-PLAY

Four steps. Six weeks on average. No promo launched without margin calculation.

1. 01

   We audit 18 months of LTV cohorts.

   Reading by customer cohorts (by entry channel, by catalog segment, by acquisition month). Data extracted into BigQuery (Google dedicated data warehouse) wired to your GA4 Enhanced E-commerce + your ERP or Shopify. We measure real LTV at 12 and 24 months, not the theoretical LTV from Meta / Google dashboards.

2. 02

   We set the CAC ceiling per segment.

   Workshop with your CFO and e-commerce lead. Per-segment gross margin against measured LTV. CAC ceiling signed in writing. Segments that cannot sustain a viable CAC drop out of the ad scope, the arbitrage is documented.

3. 03

   We model the retention loop.

   Per-cohort repurchase plan, reactivation window calibrated on natural purchase frequency, basket scenarios via cross-sell and up-sell (related products and upsell). Looker Studio wires the threshold indicators. The plan doesn't ship until per-cohort return is quoted.

4. 04

   We document the review procedure.

   Quarterly Notion grid, per-cohort threshold indicators and a written reallocation rule: if a cohort LTV drops by X%, here is the move. Handover to your teams or your existing e-commerce agency. You then steer without vendor dependency.

07 · NOT YET FOR YOU IF

Three cases where laying down an e-commerce strategy is not the top priority.

• You refuse to share your per-segment margin.

  Without visibility on per-segment gross margin, we cannot calibrate a defendable CAC ceiling. The LTV → CAC mechanic loses its backbone and the plan becomes generic, not actionable.

• Your e-commerce revenue is below 1 M€.

  Below this threshold, cohort LTV scoping rarely pays back. You will gain more by focusing on two profitable segments than by building a theoretical grid across the full catalog.

• Your e-commerce tracking layer does not hold.

  Without clean GA4 Enhanced E-commerce and a reliable BigQuery (Google data warehouse) export, LTV modelling rests on estimation. We prefer scoping the measurement layer first before laying down a strategy that will lean on it.

We open your LTV cohorts. We tell you where your CAC ceiling is breached without you seeing it.