"The Hidden Leak": How One E-commerce Brand Discovered a $120K Problem Using Data

It started with a gut feeling. Julia, the COO of a fast-growing e-commerce brand, sat in her Monday meeting reviewing reports.

• Sales were up
• Marketing budget was growing
• But profit margins? Flat.
• Returns? Increasing.
• And no one could explain why.

“I feel like something’s leaking — we’re spending more, working harder… and somehow making less,” she said.

It wasn’t a panic moment. It was a slow burn. A familiar one for many scaling businesses — things look fine, but something’s off.

The problem is that most bottlenecks don’t scream. They whisper. And Julia decided to finally listen.

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Fast Growth, Multi-Channel Chaos

Julia’s brand sold premium minimalist home décor. Their customers came from everywhere — Meta ads, TikTok trends, Pinterest boards, Klaviyo email flows, and more.

They were scaling fast:

• Daily Shopify orders
• Growing influencer collaborations
• New campaigns across platforms every week
• Even a new wholesale B2B program launching via LinkedIn Ads

And still, Julia felt like the team was “flying blind.”

“Marketing had their reports. Sales had theirs. Ops had their own spreadsheets. But no one could give me a single, clear answer:

Where exactly are we losing money?

Which campaigns drive real profit, not just clicks?

What’s our actual CAC when we factor in returns, shipping, and fulfillment issues?”

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The Turning Point: From Frustration to Strategy

Julia began searching for a better solution — something smarter than static reports and slower than hiring more analysts.

That’s when she found KPI-Board.

“I just wanted someone who could connect the dots — all our tools, all our data — into one system that tells me the truth in real time.”

And that’s exactly what we did.

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Here’s how we helped Julia turn invisible problems into crystal-clear insight — and massive savings.

Step 1: Connected All Data Sources

We integrated the full e-commerce ecosystem:

• Shopify (orders, customers, returns, products)
• Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
• Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Display)
• Pinterest Ads
• TikTok Ads
• LinkedIn Ads (B2B/wholesale traffic)
• Amazon Ads (for their U.S. marketplace)
• Klaviyo (email campaign performance)
• CRM (lead status, pipeline)
• Shipping & fulfillment tools (to track delays and costs)

All data was centralized in an Azure SQL Data Warehouse, cleaned, normalized, and connected with custom ETL processes.

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Step 2: Designed Smart Dashboards in Power BI

We didn’t build “just dashboards.” We built role-specific decision tools.

‍For Julia (COO):

• Daily Sales vs Profit
• Margin per campaign
• Return rate by SKU
• Inventory alerts + lead time forecasts
• Slack alerts for red flags

For Marketing Lead:

• ROAS by campaign/channel
• CPA per creative
• Funnel drop-off analysis
• Campaign fatigue detection
• Email flow engagement from Klaviyo

For Sales Managers (B2B):

• Leads by source (LinkedIn, inbound, email)
• Conversion rates per rep
• Average deal size
• Deal cycle time
• Quota progress vs actual

For Operations:

• Inventory velocity by SKU
• Forecasted out-of-stock risks
• Supplier delay monitoring
• Delivery time analytics

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Step 3: Mobile Dashboards on iPhone & Android

Julia travels a lot, so we optimized key dashboards for the Power BI Mobile App:

• Quick-access cards: Yesterday’s Sales, Today’s Spend, Inventory Risk
• ROAS and CAC at a glance
• Return alerts
• Campaign status

She could literally wake up, grab her phone, and know exactly what’s happening — without asking anyone.

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Step 4: Slack Alerts for Real-Time Decision-Making

We connected Power BI to Slack via Power Automate. The system automatically notified the right person when:

• A campaign’s ROAS dropped below 1.5
• Inventory of a top SKU hit 90% depletion
• A sales rep had zero activity for the day
• Email open rates fell below 10%
• Ad budget exceeded 80% with low conversions

No waiting for Monday reports. No surprises at end of month. Just proactive control.

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The Big Discovery: A $120,000 Leak

Two weeks after the full system went live, Julia’s team spotted it:

• A Pinterest Ads campaign had a massive CTR — great!
• But it drove mostly iOS traffic
• The mobile landing page? Not optimized
• Return rate on those orders? 32% higher than average
• That campaign was consuming 25% of total monthly ad budget 🤯

They were literally paying for returns.

We paused the campaign, restructured landing page UX, and redirected spend to better-performing segments.

Within 3 weeks:

Saved $10,000/month in ad spend

Increased net profit margin by 18%

Improved mobile conversion by 25%

Prevented future waste with alerts + visibility

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Julia’s Words One Month Later:

“We’re not guessing anymore. I open my phone and instantly know what’s happening across marketing, sales, fulfillment, and revenue.”

“We didn’t just plug data together. We built a system that thinks.”

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The Takeaway: You Can’t Grow What You Can’t See

If you’re scaling and:

You have multiple channels (Meta, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, Klaviyo, Amazon)

You’re unsure what’s working beyond ROAS

You rely on spreadsheets or delayed reports

You feel like your team’s busy but can’t explain the numbers...

You might have a hidden leak too.

Let’s find it — and fix it.

Book a free strategy session and we’ll map out exactly how you can build a similar data-driven system tailored to your business.

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