Start at the money.
The top of an ad account is where the platform puts the numbers that make you feel good. This sheet starts at the other end and walks backwards: what came back, what it cost, which creative earned it, what the page did with the click.
In this order, every time.
Work out break-even before you open anything
Divide one by your gross margin: that is how many dollars must come back per dollar spent. Without it, every number is compared to zero.
Find what came back per dollar, for the whole account
Ignore the platform’s name for it and find the ratio. It is the only opening question.
Compare the return to break-even, not to zero
A return that looks healthy loses money at a thin margin and looks modest at a fat one. Your margin decides, not the chart.
Find the cost to win one customer
The ratio hides volume. A beautiful return on a handful of orders is a rounding error with a graph attached.
Set that cost against a year of the customer, not one order
A customer who comes back four times justifies far more spend than the first order suggests. One who never returns justifies less.
Sort the creative by spend, highest first
Only the pieces carrying the budget have enough data to mean anything. Sort by performance and the platform shows you a lucky ad that cost very little.
Read the top few and stop
Anything under a few hundred dollars of spend is a rumour, not a result. Do not let it into the verdict.
Check how much of the spend one piece carries
One ad carrying most of the budget is not a creative strategy. It is a countdown.
Write down what the winners share
Usually the first two seconds, not the offer. That line is the brief for the next round.
Compare arrivals with checkouts
This is where most accounts are actually broken and the last place people look. More budget buys more visits to a leaking bucket.
Ask where the sale actually closes
On some businesses it closes in an inbox or on the phone, not on the page. Page conversions there show a broken account and a healthy business.
Ignore impressions, reach, engagement rate and raw clicks
They rise with spend and cannot fall while the budget holds, which is exactly why they lead the screen.
Write the verdict in one line
Fails at the cost step: the offer or the margin, and no creative will save it. Fails at the page step: the page. Knowing which is most of the work.
What we do with it · the same read, on your account, on the first call · the number you need and the date, in the contract · ad spend stays in your own account, always
driftedmarketing.com/tools · free, no email required
No deck. No discovery theatre. One metric, one date, in the contract.