Should Spend Be The Most Important Metric You Follow?

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In today’s newsletter 

• Turn your Shopify brand’s email marketing into a profitability engine

• Should Spend Be The Most Important Metric You Follow?

• A Quick Takeaway from 'The Winning Ad workshop'

• Increase your DTC margin 4-15% with coupon protection

  Let's dive into it!👇

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Turn your Shopify brand’s email marketing into a profitability engine

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• Generate 15% more repeat purchases

• Send shoppers to branded storefronts with a 20% conversion rate

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Should Spend Be The Most Important Metric You Follow?

This was actually a really good take by Harry. While I don’t completely agree that spend is the most important metric to follow, you can still take away some really good lessons after reading this post. And yes, spend can definitely give you early signs on how you’re doing, if it’s promising, and all that good stuff.

Want to read the full post? You can check it out on X here.

A Quick Takeaway from 'The Winning Ad workshop'

We had an overwhelmingly good response from the workshop yesterday.

While the best has already been shared in the workshop, presenting the gist of the workshop below.

If your Meta ads aren’t working, it’s probably not the platform—it’s your testing process.

Most businesses burn money because they test too little, change too many things too fast, or rely on guesswork instead of a structured approach.

Here’s what actually works:

1. Follow a 5-phase testing system – Research, Hook Testing, Creative Testing, Video Testing, and Audience Testing. Each phase builds on the last, so you’re not just throwing money at random ideas.

2. Start with hooks – Your first 3 seconds determine if people stop scrolling. Before investing in full video ads, test hooks using simple image ads in traffic campaigns (much cheaper than conversion campaigns).

3. Creative testing matters – Once you find a winning hook, test different creatives, colors, and formats to see what resonates most. Keep everything else the same so you know exactly what’s making the difference.

4. Data over opinions – Instead of assuming what works, track key metrics:

   • Hook Rate (First 3 sec view %)

   • Hold Rate (People who watch 50%+ of your video)

   • CTR (Are people actually clicking?)
     If an ad has strong engagement but isn’t converting, fix the landing page. If no one’s clicking, fix the ad.

5. Kill bad ads fast – Run ad tests for 48 hours with a controlled budget. If an ad isn’t hitting benchmarks, turn it off and move on. No emotional attachment.

6. Audience testing still matters – Despite what some say, different creatives work for different audiences. If an ad is converting well, test it across multiple audiences before scaling.

The difference between losing money and running profitable ads isn’t magic—it’s method. Stick to a structured process, let data guide you, and stop every ad tweak.

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Have any questions that you need help with?

Ask here - look out for Friday’s issue where Ibrahim will answer them.