Revenue is a vanity metric. It tells you how much money comes in, but not whether you make a profit, whether your customers return, or whether your marketing is efficient. These 7 KPIs give you the real picture.
Contribution margin and ROAS
Contribution margin is your revenue minus variable costs: cost of goods, shipping, returns, transaction fees and marketing costs. This is the number left to cover your fixed costs. If your contribution margin is negative, you lose money on every order, no matter how fast your revenue grows.
Blended ROAS is your total revenue divided by your total ad spend across all channels. Not the ROAS that Meta or Google shows you (that's always too high because of attribution overlap), but your own calculation. Add up all ad spend, divide by your total revenue. That's your real efficiency.
CAC, LTV and MER
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is what it costs to acquire a new customer. Not a website visitor, not a lead, but a paying customer. Divide your total marketing costs by the number of new customers in the same period. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is how much a customer spends on average over the whole relationship. Your LTV:CAC ratio should be at least 3:1.
Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) is your total revenue divided by your total marketing spend. It's the simplest metric but often the most honest. A MER of 5 means: for every euro of marketing, 5 euros of revenue comes in.
Repeat purchase rate and AOV
Repeat purchase rate tells you what percentage of your customers buys more than once. For most e-commerce brands this should be above 25%. Average Order Value (AOV) is the average order size. Raise it with bundles, upsells, and free shipping above a threshold. At OMNIAIR we increased AOV by 23% with strategic product bundling.