Order reconciliation
Analytics and ad platform purchases checked against store orders.
/INDUSTRIES / ECOMMERCE / INSIGHTS
Ecommerce Marketing Insights
Practical notes on measuring ecommerce marketing on profit, not only on revenue: returns, margins, new customers and the gap between analytics and real orders.
An online store can have great products and still lose to competitors who simply show up first and convert better. Growth comes from aligning catalog structure with how people actually search and shop.
/01
THE SITUATION
Online stores have more data than most businesses and still often decide on the wrong numbers. Analytics, ad platforms and the store each report different revenue. Returns, discounts and shipping costs rarely reach the marketing reports, and margins differ widely between products.
/02
WHY IT MATTERS
A campaign with a strong return on ad spend can still lose money if it sells low-margin products or items that are often returned. Without profit data, budget flows to the campaigns that look best in revenue, not to those that earn.
/03
HOW WE APPROACH IT
We reconcile purchases in analytics and ad platforms with the store's orders, add margin and return data to reporting, and separate new from returning customers. Where useful, margin or profit values are sent to the ad platforms so bidding follows profit.
/NOTES FROM THE WORK
Common findings in ecommerce measurement audits.
- Purchases in analytics differ noticeably from orders in the store
- Returns and cancellations never deducted from reported revenue
- Every product valued the same, regardless of margin
- New customer revenue mixed with repeat orders
/WHAT THE WORK COVERS
Margin and returns data
Profit, not only revenue, shown by product group and channel.
Customer segmentation
New and returning customers reported separately.
Tracking setup
GA4, Google Tag Manager, consent mode, and server-side tagging where the ad spend justifies it.
Dashboards
Looker Studio reports built around the decisions you make each month, not around every available metric.
/WHAT WE MEASURE
- /01
Profit on ad spend
What campaigns leave after product costs and returns.
- /02
New customer cost
What it costs to win a first order.
- /03
Repeat rate
How often customers from each channel order again.
- /04
Tracking accuracy
The share of real orders your analytics records.
/HOW LONG IT TAKES
/01
Tracking audit
We list every tag, event and conversion, and check each one against what really happened on the site.
/02
Rebuild and validate
Broken or missing tracking is rebuilt and tested against orders, calls or CRM records.
/03
Reporting and review
A monthly review of the numbers that matter, with the decisions they support written down.
/FAQ
Consent choices, blocked scripts, payment redirects and refunds all create gaps. We find which ones apply to your store and fix what can be fixed.
Yes, as conversion values based on margin, or through product labels that group products by margin for bidding.
Usually Looker Studio, connected to GA4, the ad platforms and an export from your store.
Access to analytics and the platform, one person who can approve changes, and an honest picture of what has been tried. Two hours in week one, then a weekly checkpoint.
Not always. It pays off when ad spend is significant or when browser tracking loses a large share of conversions. The tracking audit tells you which case you are in.
FIND OUT WHAT YOUR ECOMMERCE DATA IS MISSING
We start by comparing last month's orders in your store with what analytics and the ad platforms recorded.
REQUEST A TRACKING AUDIT
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