Verdant Skincare
Rebuilding a D2C skincare brand around contribution margin
Revenue was growing and profit was not. We rebuilt media buying around per-product margin, fixed the mobile checkout and built the retention flows that had never existed.
- Contribution margin
+0%
Contribution margin
- Repeat purchase rate
+0%
Repeat purchase rate
- Email revenue share
0%
Email revenue share
Illustrative sample — client, figures and quote are not real. Replace before launch.
The challenge
Where things stood
The brand was reporting a healthy blended ROAS while the finance team could see margin shrinking each quarter. Discounting, shipping and a high return rate on one product line were absorbing the gains, and nobody was measuring past the platform dashboard. Meanwhile 68% of mobile sessions were abandoning at checkout, and the only email being sent was an occasional newsletter.
The strategy
What we decided to do
Model true break-even ROAS per product using landed cost, shipping and actual return rates
Restructure paid campaigns by margin band instead of by catalogue
Fix the mobile checkout experience before increasing acquisition spend
Build the retention flow programme that didn't exist
Execution
How it was built
Margin model and campaign restructure
We built a per-SKU contribution model, then rebuilt the Meta and Google account structure into margin bands. Two products that looked like winners on ROAS were, after returns, losing money on every order — they were paused.
Checkout and mobile speed
Six apps were removed from the theme, the cart was rebuilt as a drawer, and express payment options were surfaced above the fold. Mobile load time fell from 5.8s to 2.1s.
Retention flow programme
Welcome, post-purchase, replenishment, cross-sell and win-back flows were built and tested. Replenishment timing was set from actual product consumption data rather than a generic 30-day guess.
Ongoing testing cadence
A monthly test programme ran on product pages and cart, with each result documented so the findings compounded rather than being relearned.
Results
What it produced
Nine months in, revenue was up 28% while contribution margin was up 42% — the business grew and got more profitable at the same time, which is the harder combination. Email moved from a rounding error to 31% of revenue, reducing the pressure on paid acquisition. Mobile conversion rate improved 61%, recovering the majority of sessions that had been abandoning at checkout.
- Contribution margin
+0%
Contribution margin
- Repeat purchase rate
+0%
Repeat purchase rate
- Email revenue share
0%
Email revenue share
We'd been scaling something that was quietly losing money on two of our best-selling products. The margin model was uncomfortable to look at and completely changed how we buy media.
Services used
What this engagement covered
More work
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