Orders rise after a campaign, but cash grows more slowly. Comparing ad spend with revenue alone can hide the problem. Here is a bounded check for one SKU.
1. Fix the comparison
Choose one SKU, marketplace, account and comparable before/after periods. Record actual price, discount, cost of goods, commission, logistics and confirmed variable costs. Do not mix product variants or channels.
2. Calculate contribution before ads
Illustrative figures: a RUB 2,000 sale minus RUB 700 cost of goods, RUB 300 commission, RUB 180 logistics and RUB 70 other variable costs leaves RUB 750. This is not net company profit: taxes, fixed costs and returns are not yet included.
3. Allocate advertising transparently
If ads cost RUB 15,000 and there were 30 confirmed sales, a simple allocation is RUB 500 per order, leaving RUB 250 after ads. It does not prove that ads caused all 30 sales; some might have happened organically. Mark incomplete attribution as uncertain.
4. Test incremental contribution
If sales increased from 20 to 30 under otherwise unchanged assumptions, ten extra sales contribute RUB 7,500 before ads. Against RUB 15,000 of spend, that is a RUB 7,500 shortfall. This is a diagnostic, not causal proof: demand, seasonality, price and availability may have changed.
5. Recheck later adjustments
Returns, commission corrections and delayed ad charges can change the result. If spend cannot be linked confidently to a SKU, show an allocation rule and result range instead of false precision.
ProfitVena brings sales, advertising, commissions, logistics, cost of goods and other expenses into a shared model for checking the path from revenue to product profit: ProfitVena. The result depends on connected sources, data freshness and configured costs. The tool does not establish which sales were caused by advertising.
The technical part is updated in ProfitVena. ProfitVena is part of the Wicsora ecosystem: Wicsora.
Do you judge ads by revenue, ad cost share, or profit after all costs?
Related: the previous guide in this series.
