E-commerce Marketing

Profitable growth, not just more revenue.

Scaling an online store is easy if you ignore contribution margin. We build campaigns around what you actually keep after ad spend, returns and shipping.

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is determined by gross margin, return rate and fulfilment cost — not by an industry benchmark

Break-even ROAS

is determined by gross margin, return rate and fulfilment cost — not by an industry benchmark

Source: Unit-economics principle

acquiring a new customer typically costs substantially more than selling to an existing one

Repeat purchase

acquiring a new customer typically costs substantially more than selling to an existing one

Source: Widely replicated retention research

cart abandonment is consistently among the largest recoverable revenue losses in e-commerce

Checkout friction

cart abandonment is consistently among the largest recoverable revenue losses in e-commerce

Source: Baymard Institute

Revenue is vanity when acquisition costs more than the margin

It is straightforward to grow an online store's revenue. Increase the budget, widen the targeting, discount harder, and the top line moves. Whether the business is better off afterwards is an entirely different question — and one a return-on-ad-spend figure cannot answer, because it is calculated on gross revenue before returns, shipping, payment fees and cost of goods.

We plan e-commerce campaigns against contribution margin: what actually remains after all of those costs. That single change usually reveals which products and channels are genuinely funding the business and which are quietly consuming it.

Return on ad spend is a misleading target on its own

A campaign at 4x ROAS on a category with a 25% gross margin and a 20% return rate can be losing money. In the Indian market, cash-on-delivery adds a further complication — orders that are placed but never accepted still cost you shipping in both directions while never appearing as revenue. Any serious e-commerce measurement has to account for this, and most agency reporting does not.

New customer acquisition cost is the number to defend

Blended ROAS conceals the truth, because it mixes in repeat purchases from customers you already paid to acquire. Separating new-customer acquisition cost from returning-customer revenue tells you whether the business is genuinely growing or simply harvesting existing demand more efficiently.

Retention is where profit lives

The first order frequently breaks even at best. Profit comes from the second and third, which means email, WhatsApp and SMS flows — abandoned cart, post-purchase, replenishment, win-back — are not a nice-to-have but the mechanism that makes the acquisition maths work at all.

Feed quality quietly decides paid performance

For Shopping and catalogue campaigns, the product feed is the campaign. Titles, attributes, imagery, availability and pricing accuracy determine what you are matched against and how you convert. Feed work is unglamorous and routinely delivers larger gains than creative testing.

Conversion rate work compounds

Every improvement to product pages, site speed and checkout increases the return on all traffic, paid and organic, permanently. On a store with meaningful volume, removing friction from checkout typically returns more than an equivalent increase in ad budget.

Industry challenges

What makes e-commerce marketing hard.

Growth that loses money

Revenue scales while contribution margin does not, because ROAS was measured before returns, shipping and cost of goods.

Returns and COD wastage

Return rates and refused cash-on-delivery orders erode margin invisibly and rarely appear in campaign reporting.

Rising acquisition costs

New-customer cost climbs as spend scales, hidden inside a blended figure that mixes in repeat purchases.

No retention engine

Every rupee of revenue paid for again, because there are no flows bringing existing customers back.

A neglected product feed

Poor titles, attributes and imagery capping Shopping performance regardless of budget.

Our solutions

How we solve them.

Contribution-margin reporting

Campaigns judged on what remains after cost of goods, returns, shipping and fees — the number that decides whether to scale.

New vs returning separation

Acquisition cost for genuinely new customers reported apart from repeat revenue, so growth is real rather than apparent.

Product feed optimisation

Titles, attributes, imagery and availability tuned, which usually moves Shopping performance more than creative testing.

Retention flows

Abandoned cart, post-purchase, replenishment and win-back sequences over email and WhatsApp, where the profit actually is.

Conversion rate optimisation

Product page, speed and checkout work that lifts the return on every visitor you already have.

Creative production at volume

A steady supply of product and lifestyle content, because creative fatigue is the usual cause of decaying performance.

Services offered

What we run for e-commerce brands.

Our process

How an engagement actually runs.

  1. Discover

    We listen, audit and research — understanding your market, audience and goals before anything else.

  2. Strategise

    We craft a clear, measurable roadmap designed to hit the outcomes that matter to your business.

  3. Execute

    Our team builds, creates and launches with precision — pairing engineering rigour with bold creativity.

  4. Scale

    We measure, optimise and double down on what works to compound your growth over time.

Why Sphurit

Why e-commerce brands work with us.

We optimise to margin, not revenue

If scaling a campaign would cost you money, we will show you the arithmetic and recommend against it.

We account for returns and COD

Indian e-commerce realities built into the model, not discovered at the end of the quarter.

We produce the creative

Product photography, lifestyle imagery and video shot in-house, so testing never stalls waiting on assets.

Retention treated as core

Flows built alongside acquisition, because acquisition alone rarely pays for itself on a first order.

FAQ

E-commerce marketing — your questions answered

What ROAS should we be targeting?

There is no universal figure — it depends entirely on your gross margin, return rate and shipping costs. We calculate your break-even ROAS first, then set a target above it. Anyone quoting a target ROAS without knowing your margins is guessing.

How do you handle returns and cash-on-delivery in reporting?

We model them explicitly. Reporting nets out returns and refused COD orders, because a campaign that looks profitable on gross revenue can be loss-making on delivered, accepted orders.

Do you work with Shopify, WooCommerce and marketplaces?

Yes to all. We work across your own store and marketplace channels, though we generally push toward owned-store share because the margin and the customer relationship are better.

How important is email and WhatsApp marketing?

Usually where the profit is. First orders frequently break even; the second and third purchases are what make the business work, and flows are what produce them.

Can you improve our conversion rate as well as run ads?

Yes, and it is often the better investment. A conversion rate improvement raises the return on all traffic permanently, whereas budget increases only buy more of the same.

What if our margins are too thin for paid advertising?

Then we will tell you, and focus instead on retention, organic, conversion rate and average order value until the unit economics can support paid acquisition. Not every store should be scaling ad spend.

Related reading

Other industries we serve

Let's grow your e-commerce business.

Tell us your targets and we'll come back with a costed plan — channels, budget split and the cost per lead you should expect. No obligation.

See our results