full
Deep Dive Into Contribution Margin and Why It's Important in Marketing
Nathan Perdriau, Co-Founder and Head of Paid Media at Blue Sense Digital, is back to talk about contribution margin and its importance in marketing and business operations. Listen to this episode as Caden Thompson, our Google Ads Strategist, sits down with Nathan in this deep dive about contribution margin. Learn more about:
What contribution margin is
The three types of contribution margin and which one to track for eCommerce
Methods for tracking contribution margin
The relationship between contribution margin and other KPIs
Connect with Nathan Perdriau and Blue Sense Digital here:
Blue Sense Digital website: https://www.bluesensedigital.com.au/
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0:00 Intro
0:25 Deep Dive Into Contribution Margin and Why Its Important in Marketing
1:55 What is contribution margin?
5:33 How to start if you have a lot of products
12:10 Methods for tracking contribution margin
13:16 eCommerce Discounting Model
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Transcript
Contribution margin and net profit is the be all end all
2
:for a lot of different angles
when it comes to marketing.
3
:it's just hard to essentially, tell
the algorithm to optimize for it.
4
:You have to be aware of the actual
financial side of business too.
5
:We're in a very different position.
6
:We shouldn't be scaling acquisition.
7
:We should be fixing acquisition
first and potentially we should
8
:be changing our retention
strategy so we're not discounting.
9
:Hey, how's it going everyone?
10
:So upon popular request,
we have Nathan back here.
11
:going more into the technical
side of things that hurt my
12
:brain, but also helped me learn.
13
:so yeah, anything you want to say in a
little introduction back to the platform?
14
:I don't think we made a
video for us so late either.
15
:So it's cool.
16
:been a little while.
17
:no, thanks for having me.
18
:I'm looking forward to this one.
19
:It'll be, it'll be good talking
about CFO, CMO kind of topics again.
20
:So this is going to be a very technical
video from what we've been discussing.
21
:and so Nathan has a lot
of good insights on.
22
:how CFOs think and what are
some areas of improvement.
23
:were talking a little bit about
contribution margin, and this is
24
:one of those topics that is being
discussed more and more, however,
25
:there's a lot of variables to that.
26
:it's not as simple as just saying,
Hey, this contributed to this.
27
:There's so many other factors that
are outside of marketing, that we
28
:don't really have control over.
29
:So measuring the right ones are, Obviously
the most important set of things.
30
:So yeah, I'll let you jump right into it.
31
:I think tracking contribution
margin for most e com operators
32
:is the best North star.
33
:You can look at MEI, you can look at CAC,
but at the end of the day, contribution
34
:margin is going to tell you whether
you're covering your OPEX expenses or not.
35
:And then I'm probably going to start
talking about contribution margin now.
36
:And some people are watching
going, what even is that?
37
:So let me define it.
38
:And let's zoom out because when people
say contribution margin, they're often
39
:talking about different things because.
40
:There's actually three
contribution margins.
41
:There's contribution
margin one, two, and three.
42
:One is the same as product cost.
43
:So you could almost look at it as gross
margin as well, where it's just the
44
:price of the product minus the cost
to buy the product from the factory.
45
:So that's contribution margin one.
46
:That's really what I'm referring to there.
47
:contribution margin two
is the cost of delivery.
48
:So it's the price of the
product minus the cost.
49
:But also minus the cost to deliver it.
50
:So that's the shipping fees, the 3PL fees,
and then the transaction fees as well.
51
:So now you're starting to
get lower down the P& L.
52
:And then contribution margin three
is where you also take away CAC.
53
:So you take away the cost
to acquire the customer.
54
:And now you're all the way down at
the bottom of the P& L where the
55
:only last thing to minus off is
OPEX, and then you've got net profit.
56
:And so contribution margin three
is what most e com operators should
57
:be tracking on a day to day basis.
58
:And you can do that very easily using.
59
:Really any software you can use
data studio, and it's just basic
60
:equations on minusing off average cogs.
61
:You can pull in cogs from Shopify.
62
:And so you can actually
have cogs being dynamic.
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:You can have average shipping,
average transaction fee assumptions.
64
:And so you can see what your contribution
margin is on a day to day basis.
65
:Where it starts to get even deeper and
where you can draw more insights is
66
:when you start to look at where you
can gain efficiencies and contribution
67
:margin at all different levels within
the business, And this is where, as a
68
:marketing partner or an e com operator,
you can look at contribution margin at
69
:the product level, or the order level, or
you could look at the time level, which
70
:is what I was just talking about, and you
can start to figure out, are we driving
71
:orders that aren't even profitable?
72
:Or are we driving orders that
have 5 profit or 1 profit
73
:on them, but our cap's 30?
74
:And so we're not actually driving any
incremental profit to the business
75
:because the bottom 20%, quartile of
orders are just negative cash flowing.
76
:you can track contribution
margin one at the product level.
77
:And that's what I would recommend to
most e com operators do is what I'd
78
:recommend most agencies do if you onboard
a new client, which is to have a basic
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:Excel sheet, have all of the products.
80
:And now this is going to be
really difficult if they have
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:60, 000 products, Let's assume
that they have 30 to 50 products.
82
:You can very easily pull all product
titles and then have associated cogs.
83
:pull out a basic price export out of
Shopify or whatever platform they're on.
84
:And then you can see what the
gross margin is per product.
85
:And that's going to be really
indicative of where you should be
86
:allocating budget, across campaigns.
87
:And that's why understanding
contribution margin across all of
88
:these levels is really important
in the actual campaign creation.
89
:Because I know one thing that Sol8 talks
about a little bit, I talk about it quite
90
:a bit, which is that anytime that you can
consolidate campaign structures, you're
91
:generally going to see better performance.
92
:Because you're going to have tighter
allocation of conversion data, which is
93
:going to enable better customer modeling.
94
:And so you'll see better performance,
but the issue there is that you give
95
:away all of this control to Google.
96
:And so you do still want a degree of
segmentation in your Google campaigns.
97
:You do still want a degree of
segmentation in your Facebook campaigns,
98
:but it has to be very strategical.
99
:Based on contribution margin in most
instances, which is, do we have products
100
:with 20 percent margins and then we
have products with 80 percent margins.
101
:Okay.
102
:We probably shouldn't be trading them the
same and we probably shouldn't be having
103
:a blanket target row as across them.
104
:in terms of implementation and all
that, so would you say that it's a
105
:good idea then to, let's say a client
has like a thousands and thousands of
106
:products, So they're just, breaking
down every single bit in a spreadsheet,
107
:they're going to look at it and
just, their head's going to blow up.
108
:Would you say like a good starting point
or something you've seen is like starting
109
:with for example, the top sellers and
then working your way down from there,
110
:or is there another way that you've seen
work best for clients that maybe have
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:passed that, a hundred product range?
112
:that's normally good start
is sold by top sellers.
113
:we have an automated, model, which is
going to be very difficult to build.
114
:So I'm not going to try to walk you
through how to build it, but what
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:it does is you could, if anyone's
technical in Google shades, they'll
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:be able to do this quite quickly.
117
:Which is you can take an order
export of all previous exports
118
:with product titles associated.
119
:And then you can do an equals
unique, pull in all unique titles
120
:into a separate sheet, and then
you can do an equals count.
121
:If title is in the order and you can
count how many orders are associated
122
:with each title, and then you can,
just do basic pivot tables and look
123
:at all the top selling products with
the associated gross margins that have
124
:already been tagged in there because
they're in the Shopify order export.
125
:And so you can actually
automate the whole thing.
126
:If you really want to get into the.
127
:technical details of it, but if you want
to be like start off basic, you have
128
:barely understood what I've ever been
talking about for the last five minutes.
129
:Just take the top five to 10 products,
get the gross margins on them, and then
130
:that's going to be a big indicator of
how you should be structuring campaigns
131
:across all platforms moving forward.
132
:Got it.
133
:No, that makes total sense.
134
:It's like one of those nice parts about
if you have all these products, you have
135
:tons of growth opportunities as you go
and develop it further down the line.
136
:So make the biggest impact first and
those top products makes total sense.
137
:and then as you grow from that,
then look for other opportunities.
138
:You might find that a product
that doesn't sell anything and
139
:hasn't sold, much at all, and
you've been using for a marketing.
140
:might actually be a really good
source of new customers and the
141
:contribution margin is great.
142
:So it makes a lot of sense having if
you can, like you're saying in that
143
:whole spreadsheet, organize it all.
144
:but if you just started out more
of a, smaller client, then makes
145
:a lot more sense to have it more.
146
:So from like the top down, what's
going to help us right away and
147
:then go from there for sure.
148
:And then there's also at the order level.
149
:So you can look at the product level and
that's Really helpful in terms of what
150
:products you should be prioritizing.
151
:cause as we said, if you have an agency
that isn't looking at margin at a product
152
:level, they might see a product performing
really well, and then go and push it.
153
:And in fact, I could almost guarantee
this is the case for probably
154
:clients that you manage right now.
155
:Clients that sold out, clients at other
agencies, which is brands that stock Nike
156
:or brands that stock like Adidas shoes.
157
:They will always have a ROAS, but the
distributor margin on those products, and
158
:like I know this because I've seen behind
what they sell for, it's about 18 to 22%.
159
:And so you're actually barely
profitable even at a 10 ROAS if you
160
:take into consideration shipping
costs and any kind of free shipping
161
:thresholds that are within your offer.
162
:So right away, an agency that's
not looking at gross margin or
163
:isn't looking at these things, Is
going, okay, that's a good product.
164
:Push it, let's push more spend to it.
165
:And you're just pushing a product
that has terrible gross margins.
166
:Isn't driving any profit.
167
:And then at the end of the quarter
or at the end of the year, when the
168
:Ecom operator gets their P and L,
they look at it and they go, what?
169
:Revenue's up 70 percent for
profits to say, profits down
170
:how is this even possible?
171
:And it's because they didn't have that
extra degree of nuance of looking at how
172
:much contribution profit was actually
being pushed an individual product level.
173
:That was a spiral away from
talking about orders though.
174
:And you can also do an order export
you can just look at contribution
175
:profit at an individual order level.
176
:The softwares that do this store hero
does this really good job at this.
177
:And so you can definitely look into store
hero or any other SaaS solution, but it's
178
:a simple equation, which is you take your
gross sales, you might as well discounts.
179
:You then minus off COGS, and then
you minus off an assumed 3 percent
180
:transaction fee, and then you minus off
an assumed shipping and fulfillment fee.
181
:You could pretty much get an average
based on your, historical 90 day data.
182
:And then you have profit contribution
at an individual order level.
183
:And then you can do a pivot table,
sort by lowest contribution profit,
184
:and you'll start to discover things
like, wow, we're selling this
185
:product, but it costs 16 to ship it.
186
:And the cogs are pretty high.
187
:We're getting 1 profit.
188
:And then you can go into your
Google campaign and go, how much
189
:are we spending on this product?
190
:And you'll go and look and
you'll see the CPA is 19.
191
:And you can go, we're just losing 18
on this product, trying to sell it.
192
:This is not a profitable order.
193
:or you might find that
people are combining.
194
:individual products in a way where
they're getting a discount, and
195
:it's ruining your margins again.
196
:Or you might find that when people hit a
free shipping threshold, once again, it
197
:erodes your margins again, and you start
having all these unprofitable orders.
198
:At the end of the day, what's the
point of fulfilling an order if
199
:there's no contribution profit on it?
200
:And so that's another really good analysis
that you can start to pull together.
201
:even if you were just to look at
yesterday's orders, or maybe two days
202
:worth of orders, you don't have to go
and look at historical three year order
203
:data, you could do this on much smaller,
More simplified time horizons so that
204
:you can get a better idea of identifying
where the inefficiencies are within
205
:the business and then Working on that.
206
:So what I'm hearing from all this, is be
careful of sales because you might find
207
:that, Oh yeah, our overall sales are up.
208
:But then you look at, like you were
saying, you're well, contribution
209
:margin is just not profitable.
210
:It's not worth it.
211
:I could see all the CFOs that are
just like, Oh my God, finally, someone
212
:that's like speaking my language.
213
:It's not just about rows.
214
:It's about actual like net profit sales.
215
:because I see that a lot in accounts
too, where, they'll run a sale and
216
:I'm like, Oh, we're doing great.
217
:NCAC is a lot better.
218
:Everything looks great profit.
219
:And then you go into the actual net
profit and you're like, wait a minute.
220
:Something's off.
221
:What happened?
222
:Oh, this product that, should
have been moved, didn't move.
223
:And they actually did a sale on this
other product that didn't have as
224
:big of a margin trying to move it.
225
:And so then it caused a lot of
other issues in the actual business.
226
:makes a lot of sense that contribution
margin and net profit is, The be
227
:all end all for a lot of different
angles when it comes to marketing.
228
:it's just hard to essentially, tell
the algorithm to optimize for it.
229
:You have to be aware of the actual
financial side of the business too.
230
:which for, marketers like me
that are more on the creative
231
:side of things, it's a headache.
232
:And so having tools that allow you to do
that, like you're talking about just in
233
:spreadsheets, simplify the process a lot.
234
:And especially if.
235
:you have a business owner that,
can't afford a CFO or, wants to make
236
:this a lot easier in the process
of just saying, okay, I need to
237
:get 80 percent accurate with this.
238
:you could totally do that in a
spreadsheet, like we're talking about.
239
:that's a huge value, bomb for people just
because it's, I still have clients that
240
:will be looking at end up numbers and I'm
trying to slowly pull them away from it.
241
:And it's going from okay,
we're not looking at ROAS.
242
:We're looking at, global,
like what's your MIR?
243
:What's your, It's okay, now let's
look at your overall profitability.
244
:It's like slowly trying to
pull them away from that.
245
:for the case of just, helping them
understand like net profit is the
246
:be all end all for everything.
247
:even LTV, you can't fully rely on.
248
:So that's an added benefit of
looking at contribution margin
249
:is it will take out discounting.
250
:And so if you're running discounting,
it will appear within the
251
:contribution margin that you're
reporting on a day to day basis.
252
:I also visualize this for clients it's
hard to conceptualize this if you're not
253
:in the weeds of finance, but what this
shows, and there's a lot of numbers on the
254
:screen, but the premise of it is that as
you increase discounting from 5 to 40%,
255
:your breakeven ROAS goes up significantly.
256
:And so if you're running a 20 percent
discount, you no longer need a 1.
257
:8 ROAS to be breaking even, you need a 2.
258
:But more importantly, if you have a
target contribution profit per order,
259
:your target ROAS goes up exponentially.
260
:And you can see that in the graph here,
because you're approaching an asthmatope,
261
:which is the target contribution, and
so you don't have much to work with.
262
:And so it squeezes so quickly, so much
faster than anyone typically thinks.
263
:Which is that, Oh, we'll
do a 20 percent discount.
264
:And yeah, okay.
265
:We need a little bit of a better
ROAS, but it's no, you now need like
266
:ROAS because you've cut your profit,
which was on the top end in half.
267
:If you're operating on,
let's say 30%, gross margin.
268
:So I thought that was a really good way
to visualize for clients that as you
269
:start to escalate in discounting, you need
your units per transaction to increase.
270
:So you need your average order
value to inflate as well.
271
:you can't just be discounting and
expecting that a higher ROAS is going
272
:to drive more profit because it won't.
273
:So I guess going further down that
pathway for clients that have a good
274
:LTV, so what would you say is the
impact of contribution margin and
275
:the relationship of that with and
how do you look at it in that sense?
276
:this is the thing about LTV is.
277
:I think people hear LTV and then
they think they know what it is
278
:or they can conceptualize how it
applies into campaigns and that's
279
:what I really don't like about it.
280
:I made a LinkedIn post about this a
couple of weeks ago and it's because
281
:everyone comments this on all my
posts I put up which is I'll put up a
282
:post about something technical about
contribution margin, on first order
283
:or the importance of first order
profitability and someone will come in
284
:with Yeah, but what about the LTV and
I'm like that's it's so the reason why
285
:I have an issue with it is to number one
There's a time decay associated with LTV.
286
:And so when we're talking about
LTV, what are we talking about?
287
:We're talking about 30 day.
288
:We're talking about 90 day.
289
:Are we talking about lifetime LTV?
290
:So since the inception of the company What
is the lifetime value being since then?
291
:Because as you start to go out in
time you start to increase number one
292
:your risk and number two your cost of
capital You Because if you're going
293
:to be acquiring customers and hoping
for profits to unlock over a very long
294
:time period, there's a huge cost of
capital in just pulling that forward.
295
:and then the second reason I don't
like it is because it's revenue based.
296
:It's telling you how much revenue
you're getting from a customer over
297
:its lifetime, but if you look at the
unit economics of any brand, and you
298
:break down first time versus returning
customers, and once again, you can do
299
:this in Excel sheets just out of the
back end of Shopify, you'll almost always
300
:see returning customers are getting
like average of 30 percent discounts.
301
:And the reason being is that the brand is
just sending emails with 20 percent off
302
:codes, 30 percent off codes, 40 percent
off codes to try to get people back.
303
:And so these customers profit
contribution is so minimal.
304
:And then factor it on top of all of that
is that most advertisers are spending
305
:20 percent of their budget on existing
customers and they don't even know it
306
:because they're running Pmax and Advantage
And so now you also have a CAC associated
307
:with getting these customers back.
308
:And so you run all the math
and it's easy math to run.
309
:You can go a hundred dollar
average order value, LTV is 200.
310
:we've doubled the profitability of the
customer, but really let's say that
311
:we're taking 30 percent discounts.
312
:Okay.
313
:So now it's really only like 70, 170
in revenue, maybe 160 in revenue.
314
:and then you take into consideration
that there's maybe a 10 CAC there and
315
:you're like, okay, it's only like 150 and
now it's a completely different story.
316
:Because if you were looking at, okay,
we double the profit of a customer over
317
:time, and you were using that to KPI and
benchmark the entire business, but you
318
:look into the details and you actually,
these returning customers aren't driving
319
:any profit or very minimal profit.
320
:We're in a very different position.
321
:We shouldn't be scaling acquisition.
322
:We should be fixing acquisition
first and potentially we should be
323
:changing our retention strategy.
324
:So we're not discounting.
325
:So heavily as well.
326
:it makes sense.
327
:I think the idea of in that graph you
showed earlier, it was a really good
328
:representation of that is start with
a very small discount, see who bites,
329
:take them out of the list, your email
list, wherever the case may be, and
330
:then go to the next process and see how
far you can push it until you hit that
331
:actual point of diminishing returns.
332
:Whether it's 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%,
who knows, based on your business.
333
:that's where you'll find
the most profit from it.
334
:And I've actually, talked to clients in
the past about that and it saved them
335
:a lot of money and actually allowed us
to increase our volume on just going
336
:after new customers because they didn't
realize that their LTV was actually
337
:eating into their net profits like crazy.
338
:so something just like that can
really change a business from.
339
:Both the financial side
and the marketing side.
340
:whenever, we hear CFOs, it's
okay, like I got to try to
341
:explain to them what's going on.
342
:But then they're also coming
at it from their angle.
343
:It's yes, I know what you're saying,
but I'm also trying to explain to you,
344
:what's going to actually make us money.
345
:And so it's up to both sides to understand
like what the algorithm, but also,
346
:okay, from the, actual acquisition side
of it, is it actual benefit or not?
347
:It might look better for us, but we
don't know if that's actually true.
348
:I think that gives a really
good understanding of
349
:contribution margin though.
350
:we went through contribution margin went
through a few different ways that you can.
351
:look for inefficiencies, order,
product level, and then LTV.
352
:it's not what you, not what
it seems on the front end.
353
:So making sure that you are also
tracking contribution margin
354
:across the lifetime of customers.
355
:Perfect.
356
:I love the insight.
357
:we don't really get much of this
from just the space in general.
358
:It's too focused on in
app and what's going on.
359
:if people want to learn more
about you and, get more insights,
360
:where can they find you?
361
:the first thing is the YouTube channel, so
I'll give the link to you, you can scroll,
362
:look at the below, it's Bluesense Digital.
363
:The second is the podcast, it's more
longer format if you want to hear
364
:me talking for an hour and a half
straight to some people in Australia.
365
:it's Blues Brothers Podcast.
366
:And then LinkedIn is the
easiest way to message me.
367
:If you want to ask any questions
about any of this CFO jargon
368
:that I like to talk about.
369
:That would definitely be
me as well, but awesome.
370
:thanks for coming on.
371
:And like I said, we'll probably,
have you on more just to give some
372
:more insight for us all and I guess
demystified the CFO side of things.
373
:Thanks again, Nathan.