Portfolio GMV
$0b+
Performance media · 8 and 9-figure consumer brands
The growth partner for operators who care about profit, not just ROAS.
We diagnose growth constraints, then we fix them. Account structure, creative, measurement. The three things that decide whether scale is real or imagined. Every position we hold is published openly.
Blue SenseBusiness Metrics
Last 30d
Profit ContributionLast 30 days
A$ 2.64M
vs A$ 2.19M
▲ 20.5%
30-day LTGP : CACAcquisition
2.74
vs 2.32
▲ 0.42
// Internal analytics platformSample data
Ad spend managed
$0M/yr
Portfolio brands
0
5-star Google reviews
0+
Videos published
0+
Trusted by
60 retail and eCommerce brands in the portfolio. $1.5B+ in GMV.
"The real key was the transparency. They feel like they're part of your organisation."
Rob CrombOwner · KOOKAÏ Australia
"One of the strongest performance agencies I've worked with. Depth of Meta platform expertise, creative strategy, and data-led approach genuinely sets them apart."
Helena RadočajVinomofo
"Fabulous as far as strategic focus and insights across the board. Highly recommend their team. Ibra has been instrumental in driving change in our business."
Fiona MacDonaldMy Happy Helpers
How we think
Most brands think they have a platform problem.
Usually it's something else.
A creative problem. A measurement problem. A margin problem. Or a structural problem in the account. We diagnose all three lenses before we touch a budget.
01 · Account structure
Designed to produce insight, not just spend money.
Test whether segmentation is useful versus excessive, whether budget is concentrated enough to produce a clear read, and whether the account can scale without breaking.
We askIs this built to produce insight, or just to spend?
02 · Creative
Concepts that move spend, not variations that don't.
Under modern Meta, creative does the targeting. Volume alone is not enough. Real growth comes from genuine conceptual diversity across persona, angle, offer and format.
We askDo we need a new concept or an iteration?
03 · Data integrity
Numbers that reconcile with the P&L.
Judge channels by acquisition MER, not blended. Reporting is meant to change decisions, not validate them.
We askDo these numbers survive contact with the P&L?
Free strategy session and audit
We answer one question before we work together.
Where is your next dollar actually going to produce profitable growth? Not an audit. A structured review of how paid media, data and unit economics interact. Used internally by founders, finance and marketing to make major decisions, whether we work together or not.
Book a call →/ How it works
A structured diagnostic built on our internal tooling.
Run by a senior strategist. Reviewed by senior leadership. Built on the same workflow we use with active clients.
01
Commercial context call
~30 mins
02
Independent analysis (Shopify · Meta · Google · TikTok)
3-5 days
03
Confidential recorded strategic walkthrough
30-90 mins
04
Direct discussion with an expert
60 mins
Insights
We publish every position we hold.
Long-form on YouTube. Tactical on the podcast. Sharp takes in writing. If we believe it, you can find it.
All
YouTube
Podcast
Writing
Audit Files
Short form
▶ YouTube · Featured
Watch
Creative Strategy
Meta Ads creative strategy in 2026: the full system
If every ad you launch is a minor variation of the same idea, the platform cannot tell you anything you do not already know. Here is how we structure concept-level testing.
◉ Podcast
52:48
Podcast
Why we don't call ourselves an agency
The positioning argument for why the "agency" label undersells the work, and how we frame the business instead.
✎ Writing · Measurement
The case against MER as a primary KPI for acquisition
Blended MER hides whether new-customer economics are healthy. Returning customer revenue distorts the read. Why we separate them, and which number to actually use.
▣ Audit Files · Fashion
90% of spend in DPA, with no engine behind it to learn anything
Anonymised audit walkthrough. A fast-fashion account harvesting demand it never created, with no testing structure and the read inflated on top.
Latest from YouTube
Fresh off the channel. Updated weekly.
The long-form version of how we think: account structure, creative strategy, measurement and the unit economics behind every scaling call. New uploads most weeks.
Watch
How to Scale an eCommerce Brand Profitably in 2026: The Full System
Watch
How 8 and 9 Figure Brands Build Offers Without Discounting
Watch
How To Structure A Meta Ads Account At Every Spend Tier In 2026
Watch
Why Most Fashion Brands Are Running Paid Media Wrong
Watch
The #1 Bottleneck I See in 80% of eCommerce Audits
Real outcomes
Case studies.
Three engagements from the portfolio, in full. Every number was published with the client's permission and reported as it happened, not directionally.
Fashion · AU + US + UK + EUThe real key was the transparency. They feel like they're part of your organisation. You trust people on the other side who have a real interest in seeing your business succeed, not their own returns.
Rob CrombOwner, KOOKAÏ Australia
US growth
+650%
Google revenue
+360%
Meta revenue
+330%
Hear it from RobVideo testimonial
▶ Watch · Blue Illusion x BSD
Fashion · 90 days
Read the case study
Inside the engagementClient video
Fashion · 90 daysWe rebuilt the account around new-customer acquisition, not blended return. Concentrated the testing budget, fixed the structure, and let it do the work. Doubled new-customer growth and a 79% Meta lift followed inside the first 90 days.
NC growth
2x
Meta lift
+79%
Timeframe
90d
Wine DTCOne of the strongest performance agencies I've worked with. Depth of Meta platform expertise, creative strategy and data-led approach genuinely sets them apart.
Helena RadočajVinomofo
Metaconsolidation
-23%
New-customer CAC
Leadership
When you partner with us, you work with us.
Direct-to-expert. No account executive layers. Senior operators run your account, supported by the co-founders who built the methodology.
/ Co-founders
Co-founder · Director of Client Service
Sebastian Bensch
Owns client service across the agency, setting the standard every pod is held to and developing the leaders who run them. Background in scaling teams and developing the operators behind 7 to 9-figure brands.
Co-founder · Director of Product
Nathan Perdriau
Leads product, measurement and the in-house software stack. Writes and speaks publicly on incrementality, creative strategy and account structure.
/ Senior team · Day-to-day
Team Leader · Senior Performance Marketer
Daniel Perjesi
Leads a pod across Meta, Google and TikTok, spanning performance marketing and growth strategy. Has taken accounts to record-revenue months and built deep trusted-advisor relationships.
Team Leader · Senior Performance Marketer
Justin Bez
Leads a pod across Meta, Google and TikTok, spanning performance marketing and growth strategy. Specialises in scaling high-spend brands, heritage labels and fast-growth names, and launching into new markets.
Head of Strategy
Ibra Moamen
Owns growth strategy across the portfolio: the experimentation, incrementality testing and measurement rigour behind how accounts scale. Sets the technical standard the strategist team is trained to, with a focus on complex, omnichannel brands.
Creative Strategist · Senior Performance Marketer
Gabriella Olivier
Leads creative strategy across the portfolio, turning audience insight into the concepts and angles that drive profit. Distils what wins into frameworks the whole team can run, so creative performance compounds across accounts instead of being re-solved on each.
Head of Growth
Scott Wilkinson
Leads new business and partnerships: how the firm itself grows. Brings the same commercial lens to the firm's growth that the team brings to client accounts.
Common questions
The questions most brands ask first.
What does Blue Sense Digital do?
We run paid media for 8 and 9-figure eCommerce brands across Meta, Google, TikTok and Pinterest. The job is new-customer acquisition that holds up against the P&L, not platform-reported ROAS.
How do you measure whether paid media is working?
Our core metric is 30-day LTGP to CAC: gross profit from the first purchase divided by acquisition cost. We judge acquisition on acquisition MER, not blended, because returning-customer revenue distorts the read. Platform ROAS on its own is not enough.
What size brands do you work with?
Mostly consumer and retail brands at meaningful scale, often 8 and 9 figures, across fashion, beauty, CPG and supplements. As a rule, we only run audits for brands doing over $5 million a year in revenue. The common thread is that measurement and commercial decisioning genuinely matter to them.
Do you just manage ads, or fix measurement too?
Both, and usually the measurement first. Most brands that think they have a platform problem actually have a creative, margin, offer or tracking problem. We diagnose the real constraint before we touch budget.
How do we start?
With a free strategy session and audit. It is free, and most brands use the output internally to align founders, finance and marketing before making major decisions.
Start here
Find out where your next dollar actually produces growth.
The free strategy session and audit is fast and free. Most brands use the output internally to align founders, finance and marketing before making major decisions.
Book a call →Method
How we think about paid media.
This is the working version of our worldview. It is the same document our team uses to make decisions inside client accounts, written for operators who would rather understand the model than be sold to. Every position below is testable, falsifiable, and applied.
01 Diagnose the constraint
02 Three lenses, one P&L
03 Causality over credit
04 Concepts over variations
01 / Thesis
Most brands diagnose the wrong problem.
The default story is that the platform stopped working. The reality is usually somewhere else: creative is too similar to differentiate, measurement is crediting the wrong levers, margins cannot absorb the spend ladder, the offer is not strong enough, or the account is built to hoard signal rather than learn from it. The first move on any engagement is finding the real constraint, then sequencing the work to remove it. Everything else is noise.
It is rarely
A platform problem.
Meta and Google work. They are noisy, biased, and credit themselves generously, but they work. If platform performance moves and the business does not, the problem is upstream.
It is usually
A diagnosis problem.
The wrong constraint gets a confident answer. Spend goes up, creative goes up, segmentation goes up. The number does not move. Then "Meta is broken" enters the conversation.
The fix is
Order of operations.
Diagnose first, sequence second, spend third. Almost every decline we have inherited was a diagnosis that never happened, dressed as activity that did.
02 / Three lenses
Three lenses on every account we run.
The same three diagnostics, every engagement, in the same order. Each lens has its own failure modes. Each one breaks differently. Each one needs a different fix.
Lens 01 · Technical account structure
Designed to produce insight, not just spend money.
Test whether segmentation is useful or excessive. Whether budget is concentrated enough to produce a readable signal. Whether the account is built so the system can actually decide what is working.
We askIs this built to produce insight, or just to spend?
Lens 02 · Creative velocity & diversity
Concepts that move spend, not variations that don't.
Under modern Meta, creative does the targeting. Volume alone is not enough. Real growth comes from genuine conceptual diversity across persona, angle, offer and format. Variations of one of those four are not concepts.
We askDo we need a new concept or an iteration?
Lens 03 · Data integrity & assurance
Numbers that reconcile with the P&L.
Judge channels by acquisition MER, not blended. Use incrementality, not attribution, as the upper bound. Reporting is meant to change decisions, not validate them.
We askDo these numbers survive contact with the P&L?
03 / The measurement standard
30-day LTGP : CAC is the operating metric.
Gross profit from the first purchase within 30 days divided by customer acquisition cost. It reconciles with the P&L, it cuts through platform credit games, and it gives a clear read on whether acquisition is healthy in absolute terms, not just better than last week.
Range / Below 1
< 1.0
Losing money on acquisition
First-order economics are negative. Spend is borrowing against an LTV assumption that may not arrive. Usually a margin or offer problem, not a media problem.
Range / Weak
1.0 – 2.0
Inefficient or under-pressure
Marginally profitable on first order, but constrained. Either pricing, creative, or account structure is leaving room. Investigate the constraint before scaling spend.
Range / Healthy
2.0 – 3.0
Strong and scalable
The right place for most acquisition-led brands. Profitable on first order with room to invest in growth. The goal is to stay here while spend climbs.
Range / Above 3
> 3.0
Potentially under-scaled
Acquisition is over-efficient, which usually means money is being left on the table. The brand could absorb more spend without breaking the economics.
/ Principle
Acquisition MER > blended MER
Returning customer revenue distorts the read on whether acquisition is doing its job. Separate them at the source, judge each on its own.
/ Principle
7-day click as default
1-day view attribution inflates Meta credit by 20–40% in most accounts. Use it as a sanity check, not as the optimisation signal.
/ Principle
Causality > credit
Geo-lift and in-platform incrementality tests bound what the platform can legitimately claim. Where it disagrees with reality, reality wins.
04 / The creative standard
Concepts move spend. Variations don't.
A concept is a combination of four variables: persona, angle, offer, format. Change one of those and you have a new concept. Change the headline or the colour of a button and you have an iteration. Most accounts are testing iterations and calling it creative testing. The delta in performance lives at the concept level, not below it.
Variable 01 / Persona
Who
Who you are talking to
The customer segment you are addressing. Founder vs operator. New buyer vs returning. Frustrated vs aspirational. Each persona forces a different angle, offer, and format combination.
Variable 02 / Angle
Why
The argument you are making
The reason this product, for this person, at this time. Pain point. Mechanism. Status. Identity. The angle is what you are actually trying to convince someone of, before you ask them to buy.
Variable 03 / Offer
What
The commercial proposition
What they get and on what terms. Bundle, discount, trial, financing, risk reversal. The offer is the variable most brands under-invest in, and the one that most often unlocks new spend ceilings.
Variable 04 / Format
How
The container the argument lives in
Talking head, UGC, listicle, static, animation, brand film. Format is a concept variable, not a production decision. Different formats serve different angles. Testing format diversity is testing concept diversity.
05 / The account standard
Concentration over segmentation.
Most accounts are over-segmented to the point where nothing is readable. Split budget across too many ad sets on Meta, or too many campaigns and asset groups on Google, and every call is made on noise, with too few conversions behind any one of them to tell signal from variance. This is not about chasing a learning phase. It is about giving each platform's system enough concentration to allocate budget well, and giving you enough signal to draw clean conclusions about what is actually working.
Principle
Signal per decision
The point of the account is to teach the system, and us, what works. Excess segmentation buys precision that the data cannot support. Consolidate until each meaningful decision has enough signal behind it to be confident.
Principle
Let the system allocate, then fence it
Meta, Google & TikTok all distribute budget better than manual management once they have volume, but they will spend into brand and existing demand and credit-grab if you let them. Concentrate spend, but fence the automation: separate brand from non-brand, new customers from existing, and read true incremental acquisition.
Principle
Hyper-segment only with a reason
There are cases where segmentation is justified. Geo, language, product line with materially different economics, audience with a different commercial value. These are decisions, not defaults. Most are defaults.
06 / Operating principles
How we think about every decision we make on your account.
Four mental models that sit underneath the lenses, the metrics, and the frameworks. We come back to these whenever the work gets noisy.
/ Mental model 01
- The bottleneck changes with stage. What gets a brand from $5M to $20M is not what gets it from $50M to $100M. The constraint moves. The advice has to move with it.
- Generic advice is almost always wrong by the time you apply it. The question is which constraint you are at, not what the playbook says.
/ Mental model 02
- Most teams misdiagnose the problem. A platform problem is usually a creative, measurement, margin, or structural problem in disguise.
- Time spent on the wrong problem is the most expensive line item in the business. Diagnose hard.
/ Mental model 03
- Good strategy must reconcile with the P&L. If the ad account looks good but the business is not improving, something is wrong. Find the disconnect, not a justification.
- Vanity metrics are confessions disguised as wins. We do not celebrate them.
/ Mental model 04
- Better data should lead to better decisions. Reporting that does not change behaviour is overhead. The test for any dashboard is whether the next decision changes because of it.
- If the number does not move the meeting, it should not be in the meeting.
If this matches how you think
Run the same diagnostic on your own account.
The free strategy session and audit applies this method to your account. Used by founders, finance, and marketing to make better decisions whether we work together or not.
Book a call →Capabilities
Five disciplines. One commercial outcome.
We do not segment our work by platform or by tactic. We work by the lever that actually moves profit. The five disciplines operate as one engagement, run on tooling we built in-house.
Capability 01
eCommerce strategy.
Most brands diagnose the wrong problem. The result is a platform fix for what is actually a margin, measurement, or product problem. We start by finding the real growth constraint, then we sequence the work to remove it.
- Identify the current growth constraint, stage-aware. What gets a brand from $5M to $20M is not what gets it from $50M to $100M.
- Map paid media against unit economics so spend decisions hit the P&L, not just the ad account.
- Reconcile platform reporting with commercial reality. If the dashboard looks good but the business is not improving, something is wrong.
- Build the roadmap by impact, not by activity. Biggest risk, biggest missed opportunity, fastest win, strategic fix.
/ What we deliver
The strategy stack
Growth diagnostic
Per engagement
90-day roadmap
Quarterly
Constraint review
Monthly
Executive commercial review
Monthly
Board-ready reporting
On request
Watch · YouTube
The #1 Bottleneck I See in 80% of eCommerce Audits
/ What we deliver
The creative stack
Concept briefs (persona × angle × offer × format)
Weekly
Concept-level test plan
Monthly
Creative velocity targets
Per channel
Format diversification roadmap
Quarterly
Post-test creative review
Weekly
Watch · YouTube
Meta Ads Creative Strategy in 2026: The Full System
Capability 02
Creative strategy.
Most creative testing produces no learning because the variations are too similar to differentiate. We build a concept-level testing structure so each test changes a meaningful variable, and the account compounds insight over time, not just spend.
- Define every concept across four variables: persona, angle, offer, format. Variations of one of those is iteration, not a new concept.
- Set a creative velocity target tied to the spend you are running, not arbitrary volume.
- Diversify format aggressively. Static, UGC, talking head, listicle, animation, brand. Format is a concept variable.
- Kill ad-level optimisation theatre. The decision is which concept to put more spend behind, not which thumbnail won.
Capability 03
Finance & forecasting.
An ad account looks good in isolation only when the P&L is ignored. We bring unit economics into the same room as the media plan so spend decisions reflect what the business can actually absorb, and what it should be aiming for.
- 30-day LTGP : CAC as the operating metric. Less than 1 loses money, 2 to 3 is healthy, above 3 is usually under-scaled.
- Acquisition MER, not blended, when judging whether paid is doing its job. Returning customer revenue distorts the read.
- First-order profitability surfaced as the constraint, separately from cohort or LTV-based justifications.
- Scenario modelling on spend ladders, contribution margin, payback periods. The forecast is a decision tool, not a report.
/ What we deliver
The finance stack
LTGP : CAC model (30d, 60d, 90d)
Per brand
Acquisition MER & blended MER reconciliation
Weekly
First-order P&L by channel
Monthly
Spend ladder forecast
Quarterly
Contribution-margin scenario model
Pre-Q1, Pre-BFCM
Watch · YouTube
Everything You Need to Know About Finance in eCommerce
/ What we deliver
The media stack
Account structure rebuild (Meta · Google · TikTok)
Engagement start
Attribution settings & signal architecture
Per channel
Incrementality testing program
Quarterly
Daily & weekly buying cadence
Always-on
Cross-channel spend allocation
Monthly
Watch · YouTube
How To Structure Meta For High Creative Volume
// Platforms we run on
Meta Ads
Google Ads
TikTok Ads
Capability 04
Media buying.
Account structure decides what the system can learn. We concentrate budget so the system can allocate it well and so performance stays readable, optimise to signals that reflect causality, and run incrementality tests so spend reflects what is actually moving the business, not what the platform credits itself.
- Concentration over segmentation, across Meta and Google. Budget split across too many ad sets or campaigns is never readable, and the system cannot allocate it well.
- 7-day click as the default attribution window. 1-day view inflates Meta credit by 20–40% in most accounts.
- Geo-lift, holdout, and in-platform incrementality testing as the upper bound on attribution claims.
- Cross-channel spend allocation by acquisition contribution, not platform ROAS in isolation.
Capability 05
Measurement that reconciles with reality.
Most accounts optimise off what the platform credits itself, which is not the same as what actually moved the business. Geo-holdout experimentation, causal impact modelling, and our proprietary commuting zone approach close the gap between credited revenue and real lift. For omni-channel brands, we extend the same discipline into retail sales and foot traffic.
- Geo-holdout experimentation. Run holdout markets to isolate the true incremental contribution of paid media. Statistical power sized for confident decisions, not directional reads.
- Causal impact analysis. Bayesian counterfactual modelling on spend-on / spend-off events. The upper bound on what platform attribution can legitimately claim.
- Proprietary commuting zone approach for the Australian market. Geo segmentation built on commuting catchments rather than state lines. Cleaner reads in a country with high cross-state media spillover.
- Omni-channel measurement. Bridge paid media spend to retail sales and foot traffic so brands with physical stores read the full revenue impact, not just the dot-com slice.
/ What we deliver
The measurement stack
Geo-holdout study
Per market · Quarterly
Causal impact model
Always-on
Commuting zone audience map (AU)
Per brand
Omni-channel attribution model
Paid → online + retail
Annual incrementality calibration
Yearly
Capability 06 · Built in-house
The tooling behind every decision.
We do not run accounts off platform dashboards alone. We built our own analytics platform so geo-lift incrementality, causal impact, and accurate financial forecasting are part of the operating cadence, not a quarterly project. Reporting refreshes hourly across finance, customer, platform, and business-level metrics, so the team and the client are always working off the same number.
01 / Incrementality
Geo-lift testing & causal impact
Run holdout and geo-lift tests as the upper bound on attribution claims. We size the cells, model the causal impact, and report what spend actually drove what revenue.
02 / Forecasting
P&L-aware financial forecasting
Forecast revenue, contribution margin, and payback at the spend ladder we are recommending. Used to align finance, founders, and marketing on the same number.
03 / Reporting
Hourly and daily reporting, end to end
Finance metrics, customer metrics, platform metrics, business metrics. All refreshed continuously, all reconciled, all in one place. No spreadsheets, no exports.
04 / Comparability
Compare against your own benchmarks
BSD Index gives you ranges from across the client base by vertical and spend band, so you can see whether your metric is healthy in absolute terms or just better than last week.
// Internal analytics platform · Built and maintained in-house
See how it applies
Find the constraint in your own account.
The free strategy session and audit is a structured diagnostic across the six capabilities. Used by founders, finance, and marketing to make better decisions, whether we work together or not.
Book a call →Content
Every position we hold, published openly.
Long-form on YouTube. Tactical on the podcast. Sharp takes in writing. Audit walkthroughs anonymised. If we believe it about paid media, eCommerce finance, or creative strategy, you can find it here.
400+ YouTube videos
1,200+ Instagram reels
60+ Podcast episodes
6 Written essays
YouTube · Long-form
Notes from the channel. 400+ videos.
Tactical and strategic content on paid media, creative, measurement, and scaling eCommerce. The same thinking we apply to client work.
Watch
How to Scale an eCommerce Brand Profitably in 2026: The Full System
Watch
How 8 and 9 Figure Brands Build Offers Without Discounting
Watch
How To Structure A Meta Ads Account At Every Spend Tier In 2026
Watch
Why Most Fashion Brands Are Running Paid Media Wrong
Watch
The #1 Bottleneck I See in 80% of eCommerce Audits
Watch
Meta Ads Creative Strategy in 2026: The Full System
Watch
Everything You Need to Know About Finance in eCommerce
Watch
The Most Important Metric for Creative Fatigue
Watch
How To Make Your Meta Ads Scale
Instagram · Short-form
1,200+ reels on the commercial side of paid media.
Daily short-form on measurement, creative testing, scaling decisions, and the things most operators get wrong.
▶ 62.1k views
Let's tier the metrics that actually matter for eComm.
▶ 57k views
A 20% discount is not a 20% problem.
▶ 40.7k views
Ranking ways to prevent abandon checkout.
▶ 38.5k views
Saw an AI ad recently that's reportedly done close to a quarter million in revenue.
▶ 21.8k views
Ranking creative formats
▶ 19.2k views
Bad media buyer starter pack.
Podcast
Operator-level conversations on building, scaling, and selling.
Long-form interviews and internal team episodes on what is actually happening inside high-scale DTC and retail businesses. Hosted by Scott Wilkinson.
New01
Why we don't call ourselves an agency
Scott on the positioning argument for why the "agency" label undersells the work, and how BSD frames the business instead.
52:48
New02
How to use AI in creative without killing trust
Practical guardrails for using AI in ad creative without eroding brand credibility or audience trust signals.
31:23
New03
Using customer data to guide paid media (with Aaron Luxmoore)
Aaron Luxmoore on feeding first-party customer data into paid media decisions instead of optimising on platform signals.
27:54
New04
Why we killed percentage of spend
The reasoning for moving off the percentage-of-spend pricing model and what we replaced it with.
35:36
New05
ChatGPT ads are coming. Should you care?
Whether ChatGPT-native ads are a real channel for eCommerce or noise operators can ignore for now.
33:45
S03E03
Why ads kill retention profit
How over-running paid spend against existing customers destroys retention contribution margin and distorts MER.
26:03
Writing
Essays on the commercial side of paid media.
Sharp takes, frameworks, and arguments. Written to be useful inside operator-led teams.
Measurement
The case against MER as a primary KPI for acquisition
Blended MER hides whether new-customer economics are healthy. Returning customer revenue distorts the read. Why we separate them, and which number to actually use.
Creative
Stop testing variations. Start testing concepts.
Why most creative testing produces no learning, and what a real concept-level test looks like in a real Meta account.
Account Structure
Concentration is the most underrated lever in paid media
Most accounts are over-segmented to the point where nothing is readable. Here is the math, and here is the fix.
Unit Economics
30-day LTGP : CAC, explained for operators
The single commercial metric we judge acquisition against. What it actually means, the ranges, and how to use it to make better spend decisions.
Measurement
Stop optimising to platform ROAS. Here is what to optimise to instead.
Platform ROAS is a credit metric, not a profit metric. How to swap the optimisation target without losing scale.
Strategy
The bottleneck changes with stage
What gets a brand from $5M to $20M is not what gets it from $50M to $100M. A short framework for spotting the next constraint.
Audit Files
Anonymised audit walkthroughs from real client accounts.
The same diagnostic structure we apply to every engagement, with client names removed and metrics directionally preserved. Read as much for the method as for the findings.
Activewear~$600k/mo
Platform ROAS said 4.9x. The P&L said 1.6.
An activewear brand's 30-day LTGP:CAC had slid from 1.78 to 1.42 with recent months under 1.0, while a near-5x reported ROAS masked a lift test that came back at 0.72 incremental.
Read file →
Fashion~$1m/mo
90% of spend in DPA, nothing to learn from
A fast-fashion brand ran almost all of its budget in catalogue ads with no testing engine, LTGP:CAC compressed under 1, and spend concentrated in the top 1% of ads.
Read file →
Skincare~$160k/mo
A 2.1 ROAS that was really a 1.2
1-day view attribution was masking a near break-even acquisition account and steering budget into the weakest region.
Read file →
Fashion~$150k/mo
A 12.5 ROAS that was actually a 1.68
Meta reported a 12.5 ROAS while true acquisition MER sat at 1.68, half the budget bled to existing customers, and first-order economics were below breakeven.
Read file →
Fashion accessories~$75k/mo
29 campaigns, none of them learning
A fashion accessories brand fragmented a modest Google budget across 29 campaigns and let a target-ROAS setting throttle the new-customer volume it needed most.
Read file →
B2B equipment~$80k/mo
Half the Meta budget was buying customers it already had
A B2B equipment retailer ran 10.8 reported ROAS against 6.6 incremental, with over half of Meta spend hitting existing customers and cold prospecting losing money.
Read file →
Outdoor~$150k/mo
A feed misconfiguration was the biggest lever in the account
A fast-growing outdoor brand was serving home-currency product feeds into every offshore market, suppressing Shopping before any geo expansion could work.
Read file →
CPG~$900k/mo
A strong account whose biggest risk was saturation, not waste
Profitable on first purchase with tight measurement, but spending US-scale dollars into a small market with testing underweighted and frequency climbing past six.
Read file →
Apply the thinking
Want this kind of thinking in your account?
The free strategy session and audit applies the same diagnostic to your account. Used by founders and CFOs to make better decisions whether we work together or not.
Book a call →Results
Outcomes that reconcile with the P&L.
Every case study below is published with the client's name and the actual outcome. We report on what changed in the business, not what changed in the dashboard. Selected case studies from the 60 brands in the portfolio.
$1.5B+ Portfolio GMV
$100M/yr Ad spend managed
60 Portfolio brands
80+ 5-star reviews
Active partners
Selected work
Case studies, in full.
Four engagements from the portfolio. Every number was published with the client's permission and reported as it happened, not directionally.
Fashion · AU + US + UK + EUThe real key was the transparency. They feel like they're part of your organisation. You trust people on the other side who have a real interest in seeing your business succeed, not their own returns.
Rob CrombOwner, KOOKAÏ Australia
US growth
+650%
Google revenue
+360%
Meta revenue
+330%
Hear it from RobVideo testimonial
▶ Watch · Blue Illusion x BSD
Fashion · 90 days
Read the case study
Inside the engagementClient video
Fashion · 90 daysWe rebuilt the account around new-customer acquisition, not blended return. Concentrated the testing budget, fixed the structure, and let it do the work. Doubled new-customer growth and a 79% Meta lift followed inside the first 90 days.
NC growth
2x
Meta lift
+79%
Timeframe
90d
Wine DTCOne of the strongest performance agencies I've worked with. Depth of Meta platform expertise, creative strategy and data-led approach genuinely sets them apart.
Helena RadočajVinomofo
Metaconsolidation
-23%
New-customer CAC
Not Another Detox Tea
Profit-led
-40%
New-customer CAC
Not Another Detox TeaWellness CPG
We pointed the account at contribution profit, not credited revenue. CAC fell 40% and the saved margin dropped straight to the bottom line, capped by a record end-of-financial-year.
CAC
-40%
Profit lift
4.5x
Timeframe
60d
Your next outcome
Find out where your brand could add this kind of growth.
The free strategy session and audit walks the same diagnostic across your account that we used on every case study above. Used by founders and CFOs to make better decisions whether we work together or not.
Book a call →Careers
Operators who want to influence the P&L, not just the ad account.
We hire commercially-minded people who want exposure to high-scale DTC and retail brands, real ownership of outcomes, and the technical depth to make decisions that actually move the business. Global remote, APAC-friendly hours.
$10–100M+
Brand exposure
$100M+
Ad spend insights
4-week
Training program
Global
Remote · APAC hours
Vision · Mission · Values
Why we are building this.
Produce the best financial outcomes in consumer brand paid media, and prove it in public. Attract, develop, and empower exceptional people who align with our values and crave a meaningful challenge.
Value 01
Extreme Ownership
We assume complete responsibility for nearby outcomes. The work is not done until the client outcome is real, the dashboard reconciles with the P&L, and the next constraint is identified.
Value 02
Incessant Curiosity
We work with humility towards excellence, as students and educators. We test our positions in public, change them when the data demands it, and prefer being correct to being consistent.
Value 03
Passion & Heart
We care about creating extraordinary interactions with clients and teammates. Standards are high. Care is higher. People who make this place better are the ones we build the company around.
Life at BSD
Annual retreat. Last trip, Cape Town.
Once a year the whole team flies out together. Strategy, but also the city tour, the winery day, the cooking challenge, the safari. The work matters and so do the people doing it.
// Annual global team retreat · Funded by the company · Spouses welcome on selected days
The team
The people you would work alongside.
The full Blue Sense team across strategy, media buying, creative and growth.
Sebastian Bensch
Co-founder · Director of Client Service
Nathan Perdriau
Co-founder · Director of Product
Ibra Moamen
Head of Strategy
Scott Wilkinson
Head of Growth
Daniel Perjesi
Team Leader · Senior Performance Marketer
Justin Bez
Team Leader · Senior Performance Marketer
Gabriella Olivier
Creative Strategist · Senior Performance Marketer
Megan van Oosten
Performance Marketer
Lily
Performance Marketer
Marios
Senior Performance Marketer
Charbel Hani
Performance Marketer
Olivia Annan
Performance Marketer
Zoya Hocking
Performance Marketer
Antonio
Performance Marketer
Domen Starina
Performance Marketer
Jack O'Reilly
Growth Performance Marketer
Ramon Coetzee
Senior Graphic Designer
Luan Bosch
Performance Marketer
Naeem Adonis
Performance Marketer
Todor
Performance Marketer
Trixie
Ad Ops Specialist
Gita
Performance Marketer
Jacob
Performance Marketer
Shaun
Growth Performance Marketer
Jerome
Ad Operations Specialist
Joshua Clough
Senior Graphic Designer
Glorie
Video Editor & Designer
Open roles
Currently hiring for.
Five live roles. All full-time. All global remote with APAC-friendly working hours. Apply links go to the role brief or application form.
Growth Strategist (Performance Marketer)
A P&L-level growth operator role, not a channel-isolated media buyer. Forecasting, FP&A and data science exposure across high-scale DTC and retail brands. You run growth strategy, not just an ad account.
Apply for this role →Creative Strategist
A commercially-minded creative role focused on producing concepts that move spend, not assets that fill a calendar. You build the creative brief, drive concept-level testing, and own the creative engine inside high-scale brands.
Apply for this role →Ad Video Editor
A commercially-minded video editor focused on growth-driving creative, not portfolio reels. You take strong concepts and turn them into ads that test well, scale well, and survive the algorithm.
Apply for this role →Ad Graphic Designer
A designer who treats creative as a scalable revenue engine, not a brand exercise. You produce static, motion, and offer-led concepts that perform at the spend levels we run.
Apply for this role →Ad Operations Specialist
The operational backbone of how the agency executes at scale. You own the systems, the QA, the launch cadence, and the documentation that lets strategists and creatives move fast without breaking accounts.
Apply for this role →Benefits
What you would be walking into.
Training, working life, impact, career. The four areas we built the company around. None of this is theoretical. Every benefit below applies on day one.
/ Training
- 4-week training program
- Weekly technical upskilling with Head of Strategy
- Hands-on exposure to $10M–$100M+ eCommerce brands
- Ongoing weekly seminars covering all things eCommerce
/ Working life
- Additional paid time off and flexible working arrangements
- Global remote working with APAC-friendly hours
- Annual global team-building retreat (last trip: Cape Town)
- Social competitions and team activities
/ Impact
- Influence the P&L, not just the ad account
- Work directly with operators to deliver real outcomes
- Contribute to the technical and professional development of others
- Add to the thinking behind one of Australia's fastest-growing DTC partners
/ Career
- Work inside an award-winning performance marketing firm
- Access $100M+ ad spend insights and proprietary tooling
- Financial benefits in line with your skillset and performance
- Build relationships with world-class operators and strategists
Apply
If none of the open roles fit but you think we should still be talking, tell us.
We hire ahead of growth where the person is right. If you are a commercially-minded operator who wants real exposure to the P&L, send us a note.
Email hire@bluesensedigital.com.au →Free strategy session and audit
Pick a time that works for you.
We have your details. Choose a slot below and we will confirm by email within one business day. $5M+ brands only.