Abir Syed is an accountant turned marketer turned chief monetary officer. He says ecommerce advertising and marketing success largely depends upon artistic quantity, and few retailers have exhausted any channel, a lot much less Meta.
Abir is co-founder of UpCounting, an accounting and fractional CFO agency in Montréal, Canada. In our current dialog, he shared widespread monetary errors of retailers, key metrics to watch, and, sure, how one can develop advert income on Meta.
The whole audio of our dialog is embedded under. The transcript is edited for readability and size.
Eric Bandholz: Who’re you and what do you do?
Abir Syed: I’m the co-founder of UpCounting, an accounting and fractional chief monetary officer agency targeted on ecommerce. We deal with the whole lot from fundamental bookkeeping and transactional work to high-level wants, similar to due diligence, back-office implementations, money movement forecasting, and monetary modeling.
I’m additionally a licensed public accountant and beforehand ran each an ecommerce model and a advertising and marketing company. Most finance professionals lack hands-on expertise in promoting or buyer acquisition, however I’ve lived these challenges, and that background considerably shapes how I counsel founders.
Advertising and marketing is normally an ecommerce model’s most vital expense; understanding it is crucial for offering significant monetary steering. So we construction our reporting, dashboards, and forecasting across the realities of ecommerce operations — not simply accounting accuracy however actionable insights tied to contribution margin, buyer conduct, advertising and marketing efficiency, and development technique.
Bandholz: What’s the commonest monetary mistake founders make?
Syed: I see three main points repeatedly. First, many founders monitor the improper numbers. They monitor income or take a look at revenue as soon as a month, however hardly ever study contribution margin or money movement. Contribution margin is usually ignored completely, resulting in main blind spots. High-line income means little with out understanding the economics beneath.
Second, operators usually misunderstand what’s required to allow development. I’m steadily requested to evaluation struggling advert accounts. A recurring problem is underinvesting in creativity. Founders attempt to drive development by pushing return on advert spend tougher, fairly than enhancing the artistic basis required to scale spend whereas sustaining wholesome acquisition prices.
Third, omnichannel manufacturers steadily fail to separate channel efficiency. I see revenue and loss statements with a single value of products offered line combining, say, Shopify, Amazon, and wholesale. Mixing the whole lot prevents founders from seeing how every channel is actually performing. Wholesale, for example, operates on a really completely different money cycle.
Bandholz: How usually ought to operators evaluation their financials?
Syed: It depends upon the enterprise’s dimension, complexity, and development objectives.
Most operators ought to evaluation key historic metrics weekly — money movement, bills, and something uncommon shifting via the enterprise. A weekly cadence helps establish issues early.
Extra detailed reporting, similar to margin and channel breakdowns, is normally finest reviewed month-to-month. That interval offers cleaner information and sufficient distance to identify developments fairly than reacting to noise.
Probably the most missed piece is forecasting. Few manufacturers construct forward-looking monetary fashions as a result of it’s troublesome, but important for aggressive development. Forecasting helps you perceive the implications of scaling. Conservative operators can get away with out it, however manufacturers pushing onerous want projections. Too many founders develop shortly with no plan, no modeling, and no readability on future money wants.
Bandholz: How do you determine if a advertising and marketing channel is maxed out?
Syed: It’s troublesome to know with complete certainty, however most often, manufacturers haven’t really saturated a channel, particularly Meta. There’s normally much more room accessible than groups understand.
I usually examine comparable manufacturers in the identical class. One would possibly spend $200,000 a month on Meta whereas additionally allocating assets to podcasts, TikTok, associates, and different channels. One other in the identical area would possibly spend $200,000 a day on Meta. They usually have comparable merchandise, audiences, and model high quality. The distinction is artistic quantity. The bigger spender produces an infinite quantity of contemporary artistic, whereas the opposite is successfully utilizing a method from years in the past.
Most manufacturers haven’t come near saturating Meta. They’re merely underfunding artistic technique.
Rising artistic quantity opens new viewers pockets and helps discover extra successful advertisements. If the artistic that obtained you to $200,000 in month-to-month gross sales has plateaued, it’s essential to improve output to climb additional. The extra the artistic quantity, the upper the income. The tempo depends upon profitability, reinvestment capability, artistic high quality, and a little bit of luck.
Working with a media-buying company that additionally produces artistic can value upwards of $7,000 per 30 days, ideally beneath 10% of advert spend. Smaller manufacturers could quickly spend as a lot as 30%.
Bandholz: How ought to manufacturers funds for bookkeeping?
Syed: Smaller manufacturers face a minimal value for competent bookkeeping. Hiring in-house hardly ever is smart till the corporate may be very massive. A Shopify-only model doing $1–5 million yearly ought to count on to spend $2,000-$3,000 per 30 days. Cheaper choices exist, however the trade-off is usually decrease accuracy and weaker communication.
The problem is that many founders can not discern whether or not monetary information is clear. It’s much like hiring an web safety professional whenever you lack technical data — you would possibly overlook main points till one thing breaks. We now have onboarded many purchasers who tried cheaper choices, solely to seek out their information was persistently incorrect.
To scale aggressively or make data-driven selections, you want correct, well timed financials and steering on deciphering them.
As soon as a model surpasses roughly $5 million in annual gross sales, bookkeeping for a number of gross sales channels usually prices $5,000 to $8,000 per 30 days.
Bandholz: The place can individuals help you, rent you, comply with you?
Abir: Our website is UpCounting.com. I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X.
