Ecommerce Playbook artwork

How We Diagnose Every Ecommerce Problem (The Hierarchy of Metrics)

Ecommerce Playbook · April 14, 2026 · 31 min

Summary

Tony Chopp, walks through the Hierarchy of Metrics — the framework our Prophit Engineers use to diagnose problems and take action for 170+ ecommerce brands.In this episode, Tony and Richard break down a real brand example in Statlas, showing how you go from a contribution margin miss all the way down to a specific campaign adjustment in Google Ads.The hierarchy:Business-level metrics (revenue, contribution margin, ad spend)Customer-level metrics (new vs. returning, paid vs. organic)Channel-level metrics (Google, Meta, email — iROAS by channel)Campaign-level actions (bids, budgets, new creative)Key takeaways:Your ROAS target should be backed into through incrementality math and unit economics — not vibes"4 is not necessarily better than 3" — if 3 is the right number based on your COGS and incrementality, targeting 4 leaves volume on the tableOver-efficiency is a symptom of underspend, not a badge of honorGood data in = good decisions out. The system is only as strong as your cost data, audience segmentation, and incrementality testingShow Notes:See how their guarantees work at https://redstag.com/Explore the Prophit Engine: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/prophit-engineThe Ecommerce Playbook mailbag is open — email us at podcast@commonthreadco.com to ask us any questions you might have

Related episodes

Listen