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    European Search Awards 2026 · Best Small PPC Agency

    Measurement · Philosophy

    The metric follows the objective.

    There is no single metric we optimise every client towards.

    A brand with 40% gross margin and a warehouse full of last season's stock does not have the same measurement problem as a subscription brand whose economics live in month nine. Picking one number for both is how accounts end up optimised precisely towards the wrong thing.

    01 / Objective to metric

    Six objectives. Six ways of being right.

    Each of these is the correct primary metric for one commercial question, and a misleading one for the other five.

    PRODUCT PROFITABILITY

    POAS

    Contribution margin per pound of ad spend. The right metric when the question is whether the products being sold are worth selling at the price the auction demands.

    POAS explained

    CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

    nCAC, payback, LTV

    New-customer acquisition cost, the months to recover it, and the value that follows. POAS on a first order will always understate a Gateway product.

    INVENTORY AND CASH

    Cash recovery, sell-through

    When capital is trapped in ageing stock, the objective is not margin. It is converting units back into cash before the next buying cycle, at a defined floor.

    INCREMENTALITY

    Holdouts and experiments

    Attributed revenue is not necessarily incremental revenue. Geo holdouts, brand pause tests and campaign experiments answer what would have happened anyway.

    DEMAND CAPTURE

    Brand and generic decomposition

    Blended account performance is mostly a report on how much brand demand you have. Splitting it turns a vanity number into a diagnostic.

    BUSINESS OUTCOME

    Contribution

    What reaches the P&L after COGS, fulfilment, returns and media. The only number that survives contact with a board meeting.

    02 / Where POAS fits

    POAS is the answer to one question, not all of them

    It answers product profitability better than any other single number. It does not answer acquisition, cash or incrementality.

    POAS ANSWERS

    Whether the products this account is selling generate contribution at the price the auction charges. It is the right lead metric for most catalogue-led ecommerce, which is why it leads almost everything we publish.

    POAS DOES NOT ANSWER

    Whether a Gateway product losing money on its first order is worth acquiring. Whether £250,000 of ageing stock should be discounted to release cash. Whether the revenue would have arrived without the ad. Those need different numbers.

    03 / Anti-patterns

    Measurement that flatters rather than informs

    • 01One blended ROAS target applied across a catalogue with a 50-point margin range
    • 02Revenue reported as conversion value with returns never netted off
    • 03Brand and generic reported together, then read as account performance
    • 04Platform-reported conversions reconciled against nothing
    • 05Attribution model changes presented as performance improvements
    • 06A single north-star metric held constant while the commercial objective moves

    Measurement questions

    Measuring advertising against the commercial objective it is actually serving, rather than against a single platform metric. Product profitability is measured with POAS. Acquisition is measured with new-customer CAC and payback. Inventory pressure is measured in cash recovered. Incrementality is measured with holdouts. The metric follows the objective.

    No. There is no single metric we optimise every client towards. POAS answers product profitability, and it is the right lead metric for most catalogue-led accounts, which is why it appears everywhere on this site. It is the wrong lead metric for a brand whose constraint is customer acquisition payback or trapped inventory.

    Expected return rate is netted off the conversion value at SKU level before it reaches the bidder, and actual returns are reconciled monthly against the P&L. In categories like apparel this single change can move reported contribution by double digits, because a 30% return rate makes gross revenue a work of fiction.

    Geo holdouts where the account has enough volume, campaign experiments where it does not, and brand pause tests on navigational terms. We prefer a smaller, well-designed test with a clean read to a large one with a contaminated one, and we report the confidence honestly rather than declaring a winner on a two-week movement.

    Contribution against spend, POAS by commercial job, new-customer share and CAC, cash position on Recovery SKUs, and a written note on what changed and why. Platform metrics appear as supporting evidence, not as the headline.

    Tell us the commercial objective and we will tell you which number should be governing the account.

    Book a commercial review