E-Commerce & DTC Marketing

Revenue that compounds,
not CAC that climbs.

Every DTC brand knows the squeeze: Meta CAC up 30–60% since iOS 14.5 gutted attribution, Google Shopping auctions crowded with Amazon and Temu, and a P&L where paid acquisition eats the margin it was supposed to create. Brands that survive build a second engine — organic revenue from product and collection pages that rank, convert, and cost nothing per click.

We build that engine for Shopify and DTC brands: technical and product page SEO that captures buying-intent searches, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns run on clean feed data and real margin targets, and visibility in the AI shopping recommendations that are starting to decide what people buy. Blended CAC drops. Owned revenue grows.

The Problem

Why e-commerce marketing is harder than it used to be.

CAC keeps rising and attribution keeps lying

Since Apple's App Tracking Transparency, Meta under-reports conversions by 20–40% for many stores, so brands cut winning campaigns and scale losing ones. Meanwhile auction costs climb every quarter. Without server-side tracking, marketing-efficiency-ratio (MER) measurement, and a growing organic base, you're negotiating with a broken dashboard while paying more per customer every year.

Your product pages are invisible to Google

Most Shopify stores ship with duplicate manufacturer descriptions, thin collection pages, no Product schema beyond the default, and tag pages bloating the crawl. The result: Amazon, big-box retailers, and review affiliates rank for your products' own search terms. Product page SEO — unique copy, review markup, internal linking, clean indexation — is the highest-margin traffic most DTC brands never build.

Performance Max spends wherever it wants

PMax will happily report a 6x ROAS built mostly on branded searches and remarketing it would have won anyway. Without brand exclusions, feed segmentation in Merchant Center, and margin-based bidding by product group, you're paying Google to take credit for customers you already had. Most accounts we audit have 15–30% of "performance" spend doing exactly that.

AI is becoming the new product recommendation layer

Shoppers now ask ChatGPT and Perplexity for "best [product] under $100" and get specific brand recommendations with links — and Google's AI Overviews increasingly answer product research queries before anyone reaches a category page. Those recommendations draw on reviews, editorial citations, structured product data, and comparison content. Brands with no AI footprint are losing the consideration phase silently.

The System

Six channels, tuned for e-commerce.

Every SBG engagement runs as one integrated system — here's how each channel earns its place for e-commerce businesses.

How We Work

The e-commerce growth playbook.

01

Revenue & Tracking Audit

We rebuild measurement first — server-side tracking, MER baselines, true new-customer CAC by channel — then audit where organic and paid revenue is leaking: thin product pages, feed errors, PMax cannibalizing brand.

02

Foundation Sprint

Technical SEO cleanup, Product and Review schema, Merchant Center feed rebuild, brand exclusions, and conversion fixes on your top 20 revenue pages. The first 60 days stop the bleeding.

03

Growth Build-Out

Collection page content, comparison and buying-guide assets, restructured Shopping campaigns, and AI visibility work roll out in margin order — best-contribution products first.

04

Scale What's Profitable

Monthly reporting on contribution margin, new-customer CAC, and organic revenue share. Budget moves to whichever channel acquires profitable customers cheapest that month.

Why SBG

An agency that knows
your market.

$1M+
Ad budgets managed across 4 countries
12+
Years in performance marketing
6
Channels in one integrated system
24h
Response time on every account

We've managed over $1M in ad budgets across four countries, and the pattern in e-commerce is always the same: brands over-invest in paid because it's fast, under-invest in organic because it's slow, and end up renting 90% of their revenue. Our job is to flip that ratio — paid for velocity, organic for margin, both measured against the same contribution numbers.

The integrated system matters more in e-commerce than anywhere else. The product copy that ranks organically also lifts your Shopping feed relevance. The review volume that drives conversion also feeds AI shopping recommendations. The comparison content that wins snippets also retargets cheaper. We run one machine, not six line items, which is why blended CAC trends down as the program matures.

And we report like operators, not like an ad platform. Contribution margin after ad spend, new-customer CAC versus returning, organic revenue share — the numbers a founder takes to their accountant, not the numbers an algorithm uses to defend its budget. If a channel can't prove profitable acquisition, we cut it.

Talk to us about your e-commerce business
FAQ

E-Commerce marketing questions, answered.

How much should an ecommerce brand spend on marketing?
A working benchmark is 10–20% of revenue for growth-stage DTC brands, weighted toward paid early and organic as you scale. The more useful target is marketing efficiency ratio: total revenue divided by total marketing spend, with healthy DTC brands running a MER of 4–6. Below 3, margins usually can't support growth; the fix is typically shifting 20–30% of budget from paid prospecting into SEO and retention rather than spending more.
Is SEO worth it for a Shopify store?
Yes — it's usually the cheapest revenue a store will ever acquire. Organic clicks cost nothing at the margin, while Shopping CPCs in competitive categories run $0.50–$2.50 and climb yearly. A store ranking for its category and product terms typically sees organic reach 20–40% of revenue within 12–18 months, which directly lowers blended CAC. The work is product copy, collection page depth, technical cleanup, and schema — not blog posts about lifestyle topics.
Why is my Performance Max ROAS high but profit flat?
Almost always because PMax is harvesting branded searches and remarketing — conversions you'd have won anyway — and reporting them as incremental. Check the channel: add brand exclusions, segment branded traffic, and re-measure. We routinely find 15–30% of PMax spend is non-incremental. The fix is brand exclusion lists, feed segmentation by margin tier with custom labels, and judging campaigns on new-customer contribution margin instead of in-platform ROAS.
How did iOS 14.5 actually affect Meta ads, and what's the fix?
Apple's App Tracking Transparency cut the user-level data Meta relied on, so in-platform reporting now under-counts conversions by 20–40% for many stores while modelled audiences got weaker — CAC rose 30–60% for most DTC brands between 2021 and 2024. The fix is structural: server-side Conversions API tracking, first-party email and SMS capture, MER-based measurement instead of platform ROAS, and building organic revenue so Meta isn't your only engine.
How do products get recommended by ChatGPT and AI search?
AI shopping answers are assembled from structured product data, aggregated review volume and sentiment, editorial and "best of" citations, and comparison content the models can quote. Brands earn placement by shipping complete Product schema (price, availability, ratings), accumulating reviews on Google and category platforms, and publishing genuinely useful comparison pages that third parties reference. It's early enough that mid-size brands can outrank household names in AI answers — that window won't stay open long.
How long before ecommerce SEO produces revenue?
Technical fixes and schema improvements often lift existing rankings within 4–8 weeks. New collection and product page rankings typically land in 3–6 months, with competitive category head terms taking 6–12. Most stores see organic revenue become clearly attributable by month four and meaningfully change blended CAC by month eight to twelve. Shopping and PMax restructures show results faster — usually within two billing cycles — which is why we run both tracks in parallel.
Free 45-Minute Audit

See where your e-commerce business
is losing visibility.

The free Visibility Audit covers your rankings, ad waste, review profile, and AI citation opportunities against your top e-commerce competitors. Specific findings, whether you work with us or not.

No contract required
Response within 24 hours
Real findings, not a pitch