EUR 196,000 in Preventable Damage
A documented case of agency negligence at a European DTC ecommerce brand
Before vs. After Agency Management
| Metric | Before Agency | With Agency | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross Sales | EUR 1,720,115 | EUR 1,872,370 | +8.8% |
| Orders | 12,358 | 9,376 | -24.1% |
| Total Ad Spend | EUR 48,366 | EUR 244,831 | +406% |
| Blended ROAS | 35.6x | 7.6x | -78.6% |
All figures sourced from Polar Analytics. Revenue and order data verified against Shopify admin exports.
The Story
A plant-based DTC brand with two Shopify stores - one serving the US market, the other serving the EU - hired an agency to scale their paid advertising. The brand was already profitable. Blended ROAS sat at 35.6x. Unit economics worked. The brief was simple: spend more, grow faster.
Within months, ad spend exploded from EUR 48K to EUR 245K per year. The agency had turned up the budget dial without changing creative strategy, audience segmentation, or campaign structure. They simply poured more money into the same underperforming campaigns and accelerated the waste.
Revenue barely moved - up just 9%. But orders collapsed by 24%. The brand was spending 5x more to sell fewer units at higher acquisition costs. ROAS cratered from 35.6x to 7.6x. The agency never flagged it. The brand had no idea until an independent audit was conducted.
How It Escalated
Nine months from hire to documented damage. Every milestone was a missed red flag.
Critical Findings
- 01 Critical
EUR 53K spent on Google Ads with ZERO conversion tracking
The agency ran Google Ads campaigns for months without implementing conversion tracking. They were spending thousands per month with literally no way to measure what was working. This is the equivalent of running a store without a cash register.
- 02 Critical
No negative keywords across any campaigns
Search campaigns ran without negative keyword lists. The brand was paying for clicks from people searching for completely unrelated terms. Every irrelevant click was wasted budget - and the agency never set up the basic filters that any competent media buyer implements on day one.
- 03 High
No suppression lists
The agency was targeting existing customers with acquisition campaigns. Instead of excluding people who had already purchased, they were paying to advertise to people who already owned the product. One of the most basic and costly mistakes in DTC advertising.
- 04 High
All EU email campaigns sent in English only
The brand sells across multiple European markets - Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Nordics - yet every email campaign was sent in English. No localization. No segmentation by language. Open rates and click rates suffered accordingly.
- 05 Critical
Ad spend scaled 6x overnight with no ramp or testing
Budget went from EUR 48K to EUR 245K without corresponding changes to creative, audiences, or campaign architecture. No A/B testing. No incremental scaling. The agency simply turned up the spend on campaigns that were already underperforming.
- 06 Medium
No geo-fencing on region-specific products
Campaign targeting showed ads for region-specific products in regions where those products were not available. No dayparting optimization. No geographic bid adjustments based on market performance differences.
EUR 130,000 - EUR 195,000
Calculated as the difference between actual performance and projected performance at historical efficiency rates. Conservative estimate using the brand's own pre-agency baseline as the benchmark. All data verified against platform-native reporting across Meta Ads, Google Ads, and Shopify.
What would a forensic audit find at your company?
We found EUR 196K in preventable damage in this account. The brand had no idea until we looked. Most don't.
Takes 30 seconds. No credit card. No sales call. Just data.