15. Thomas Gleeson: From ROAS land to real profitability with Storehero co-founder

What is really a good contribution margin? And how should e-com businesses improve their forecasting this quarter? What are the four most important metrics to track for e-com businesses? All of this and more in this episode, where Peter Beckman sits down with Thomas Gleeson, co-founder of Storehero. Thomas shares his unique journey from running Facebook ads for his mom’s webshop in rural Ireland, to building profit dashboard StoreHero. Before even having a word for it, he was tracking contribution margin. And when he later founded Storehero, he wanted to help brands cut through vanity metrics like ROAS and focus on true profitability. Together, they deep dive into the importance of contribution margin (and why to move on from ROAS land), why media buyers are really your biggest investors, and how marketers can win by thinking more like finance people. Tune in to this episode of Treyd Secrets to get practical benchmarks, and the founders’ framework that sets your e-com business up for success.  Highlights: 01:30 – From family webshop to StoreHero: Thomas’s origin story 03:40 – Why contribution margin beats ROAS as your North Star 07:08 – The “hidden investor” in your P&L: ad buyers and agencies 10:40 – Benchmark for a healthy contribution margin 13:50 – Why the best marketers today think like finance people 15:20 – Why contribution margin impacts every part of operations, from supply to cash flow 22:10 – Using forecasting backwards: setting profit goals before ad budgets 43:10 – How to plan for the make it or break it quarter 47:40 – The four key metrics to include in the founders dashboard 48:50 – The most common decision that e-com brands should rethink in September 49:20 – How to improve your forecasting this quarter 50:05 – Thomas Gleeson’s number one trade secret Produced by More Than Words