6 Ecommerce Budget Leaks Costing Your Marketing Profit

Most paid social campaigns are built using interest targeting, lookalike audiences, or website behaviour. While these methods provide scale, they often lack true purchase intent.

By using anonymised credit card transaction data, it becomes possible to create custom audiences based on confirmed spending behaviour. These audiences consist of people who have already purchased within a specific category or from identified competitors.

Typical use cases include:

• Targeting shoppers who have recently purchased from competing brands

• Reaching consumers who spend frequently within a defined retail segment

• Identifying higher-value buyers based on transaction patterns

When activated on Meta and TikTok, these audiences improve prospecting efficiency by prioritising users with real buying history. This results in stronger conversion rates, improved return on ad spend, and reduced reliance on broad interest targeting.

Our exclusive technology transforms transactional data into high‑intent custom audiences, helping brands reach real buyers and achieve stronger returns. To see how this can work for your campaigns, get in touch with our team today.

Not all products perform equally, yet many ecommerce accounts treat every product the same.

This creates a major inefficiency.

Within most product feeds, performance typically falls into three categories:

• Hero products that generate the majority of revenue and ROAS

• Assist products that support the journey but rarely convert directly

• Villain products that spend consistently without generating sales

Without a structured approach, budget is often wasted on products that quietly drain performance.

A refined product structure allows brands to:

• Push budget toward strong performers

• Limit or exclude products with repeated losses

• Test assist products separately without harming core ROAS

This restructuring often reveals immediate savings or unlocks room for smarter reinvestment.

Giving out discounts without a clear plan often reduces margin without driving meaningful results. A discount strategy should be designed to meet your specific business goals, such as increasing basket size, encouraging repeat purchases, or supporting affiliate partnerships.

In our Durex case study, we created a tailored discount code strategy for affiliates. Instead of handing out generic codes, each discount was structured to influence buying behaviour and maximise basket spend. The result was a noticeable increase in order value, while keeping overall discount costs under control.

A well-planned approach ensures that every code or cashback incentive contributes to revenue growth, rather than simply giving away money. By aligning discounts with business objectives, brands can boost profitability and guide customers toward higher-value purchases.

Influencer activity is frequently judged using surface-level metrics such as views, likes, or engagement.

These figures rarely reflect actual revenue impact.

When tracking is limited or inconsistent, brands cannot identify which creators drive sales and which only generate awareness with no commercial return.

A reliable influencer tracking framework should include:

• Affiliate links for direct attribution

• UTM parameters for traffic analysis

• Unique discount codes tied to each creator

• Exclusive offers to test conversion behaviour

Combining these elements provides a much clearer picture of performance and removes reliance on estimated reach or impressions.

Proper tracking protects budget and helps brands scale only what truly works.

Meta advertising still delivers strong returns when structured correctly, but many accounts rely heavily on generic setups.

Common overspending occurs when brands use only:

• Broad interest targeting

• Basic retargeting

• Algorithm-based discovery with little data control

While these approaches may generate volume, they often lack efficiency.

More advanced performance comes from building custom audiences based on transactional data. This includes users who have purchased from competitor brands or show strong buying signals.

When campaigns are supported by real purchase behaviour rather than guesswork, cost per acquisition often drops and return improves significantly.

Blind targeting leads to wasted impressions. Data-driven audiences focus spend where intent already exists.

We create high-intent custom audiences using anonymised credit card transactional data, enabling your Meta advertising campaigns to target people who have already purchased from relevant brands.

These audiences are added directly into your Meta ad account, helping your campaigns achieve higher conversion rates, better efficiency, and stronger return on ad spend.

Marketing spend often looks fine on dashboards, but inefficiencies silently erode profits. Reviewing affiliates, Google campaigns, product structure, discount strategy, influencer tracking, and Meta ad targeting can uncover significant savings.

Small changes in these areas often deliver bigger returns than simply increasing the budget. By acting on these six areas, brands can stop wasting money, improve ROAS, and create a more profitable marketing strategy in weeks.