Unit economics: every number you can afford, worked back from margin

A guessed stop-loss line leaves "good results" undefined. Start from each order's real margin and work back to your ceiling per add-to-cart, click and CPM.

In this chapter

• Going from price all the way down to contribution margin, with shipping, free shipping, payment fees, platform commission and returns all counted
• Where the "purchases" in the report differ from the money you actually receive, and how payment success rates and pickup rates go into your costs
• Working out your break-even ROAS and affordable CPA, and why your target can't equal break-even
• The three lines (stop-loss, target and scale-up) and what to do when you hit each one
• Working back from the purchase ceiling to ceilings for add to cart, landing page views, clicks and CPM, so even a small budget can stop losses early
• A cost spreadsheet you can build yourself in Google Sheets