A luxury fragrance D2C on Meta retainer with a 15% commission deal. Daily reporting was a WhatsApp screenshot of last-click ROAS. ~$3K was leaving every month for revenue the ads never drove — and nobody could prove it either way.
The story in 10 seconds
A luxury fragrance D2C brand ran all its Meta spend through an agency on retainer plus 15% commission on every dollar Meta claimed to drive — reported daily as a WhatsApp ROAS screenshot. We built an independent attribution layer across Meta, Shopify and GA4 and found ~43% of those ‘Meta sales’ were double-counted or someone else’s. Once the brand paid only for revenue the ads truly drove and optimized on profit, it recovered ~$3K/month ($35K/year), grew revenue +19% on the same budget, and lifted POAS +41% in two months.
01 — The Setup
The brand ran all paid acquisition through a performance agency on retainer — plus 15% commission on every dollar of revenue Meta claimed to have driven.
Daily reporting arrived as a WhatsApp screenshot of last-click ROAS. When the number went up, the invoice went up. Nobody had an independent way to verify whether Meta drove those sales — or whether the sales were even profitable.
You can’t optimize what you can’t independently measure — and you can’t trust a number from the party being paid on that number.
02 — What Was Broken
Where ‘Meta sales’ actually came from
Reported ROAS vs True ROAS vs POAS
03 — What Flable AI Did
Reconciled Meta Ads Manager, Shopify orders, GA4, and post-purchase survey responses simultaneously. No single source trusted blindly — all cross-validated.
Replaced agency-reported ROAS with True ROAS (de-duplicated) and POAS — Profit on Ad Spend that accounts for product margin, returns, and full channel cost.
Every budget decision tested against POAS, not ROAS. Spend shifted daily toward high-margin SKUs; pulled from SKUs that only looked profitable on surface ROAS.
14 hours of weekly manual stitching replaced with automated daily reports. Numbers the brand team could trust and act on without waiting for an analyst.
04 — Outcome by Month 2
The accurate number. The 1.1x gap was entirely view-through double-counting the brand had been billed on.
Agency now paid only on revenue it genuinely drove. $35K recovered annually.
Spend reallocated to genuinely profitable SKUs — top line grew without increasing budget.
Profit on Ad Spend — the metric that reflects what the business actually keeps after costs.
Revenue growth + POAS recovery after independent attribution (Months 1–3)
Bottom line
When attribution is honest, margins follow. The brand stopped paying commission on sales their ads didn’t drive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Platform-reported ROAS is last-click and includes view-through conversions — so anyone who merely saw an ad gets counted as a sale. It also ignores your margin and returns. The result over-credits the channel, and if your agency is paid a commission on that number, you're paying on revenue the ads didn't really drive.
POAS is Profit on Ad Spend — revenue minus COGS, returns, and full channel cost, measured against spend. ROAS can climb while profit falls (for example, scaling a low-margin SKU). POAS is the number that reflects what the business actually keeps.
Flable reconciles Meta Ads Manager, Shopify orders, GA4, and post-purchase survey responses at once, cross-validating instead of trusting any single source — especially not the party being paid on the number.
No. The point is to pay them fairly — on revenue they genuinely drove — and give everyone an honest, profit-based scoreboard. Most agencies do better work once the metric is right; this brand recovered ~$3K/month simply by correcting what it was billed on.
Read-only connections to Meta, Shopify, and GA4. Flable doesn't move money or change campaigns to begin — it shows you how much of your attributed revenue is real, on your own data, typically within 48 hours.
Free 30-minute audit. We connect to your Meta + Shopify + GA4 in read-only mode and show you exactly how much of your attributed revenue is real — on your own data.
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