Where the levers live
The gates tell you which number is failing. They do not tell you what to pull to fix it, and that is where most founders stall - because the instinct is to send the whole problem back to the ad account. But the numbers the gates run on are moved by levers spread right across the business, and performance marketing owns a real share of exactly one of them.
| The number | Levers that move it | Who owns it |
|---|---|---|
| First-order value | Price, bundles, post-purchase upsells, cart cross-sells, product mix, on-site AOV optimisation | Product, merchandising, web |
| Repeat-order value | Email and SMS flows, retargeting, product range | Retention/CRM, product |
| Contribution margin | COGS, inbound freight, shipping, payment fees, returns rate, basket size | Ops and supply chain, finance, CX |
| nCAC | Creative and content, conversion rate optimisation, channel and market expansion, knowing your customer | Performance marketing, creative, web |
| Orders per customer | Email and SMS flows, product and replenishment, customer experience | Retention/CRM, product |
| LTV window | Product roadmap, customer experience, brand | Product, CX, brand |
Whichever gate the calculator flags is where your lever is - and most of them sit outside the ad account, which is why a stuck brand rarely gets fixed by chasing CAC alone.
Enter your numbers once and every calculator on this site reads from them. Sign in and use them from your dashboard to save them to your brand and pick them up on any device. The doctrine behind this one lives in Finance & Unit Economics.