8+ years growing brands on KPIs, now with AI
Grow Your Shopify Plus Revenue
MER-anchored performance marketing built for enterprise Shopify Plus operators scaling past $10M.
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The Challenge
Marketing a Shopify Plus Store Is a Different Problem Than Marketing a Shopify Store
At the Plus tier, the platform gives you more rope: Checkout UI Extensions, Shopify Functions, Flow automations, native B2B, Markets for international expansion. The operators who grow fastest are the ones who know exactly which of those levers to pull, in which order, tied to a paid media strategy that reports on MER rather than the channel-reported ROAS that stopped being reliable after iOS 14.
Your CFO checks MER against the 30-day average every morning. Your media buyer is in Triple Whale tuning channel ROAS by creative. The attribution stack sitting between those two views (whether that's Triple Whale reconciled in a spreadsheet or Northbeam for a more complex multi-touch mix) is where most Plus brands are flying partially blind. Platform ROAS and the bank account tell different stories, and the gap widens every time you add a channel.
Layer in the operational reality: BFCM isn't a four-day event at the Plus level, it's a 90-day prep window. Stores that start 90 days out outperform stores that start 30 days out by two to three times in revenue. Launchpad needs to be configured, checkout extensions need to be load-tested, and your Flow automations for VIP tagging and fraud routing need to be running cleanly before the traffic hits, not during it.
Meanwhile, if your store migrated from Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or WooCommerce in the last 18 months, there's a real chance your Meta pixel events, GTM container, and GA4 event IDs were never fully re-installed. A broken pixel can drop reported ROAS 60% or more before anyone notices. The store looks fine. The numbers look wrong. The budget gets cut. The actual problem is invisible.
This is the marketing environment Shopify Plus operators actually live in. Generic agency playbooks (built for $500k Shopify stores running a single Meta campaign) don't translate here.
The Opportunity
The Brands Winning at the Plus Level Are Pulling Levers Most Agencies Don't Know Exist
Shopify Plus gives you infrastructure that most of your competitors (and most agencies) aren't using to its full potential. The brands compounding fastest right now are the ones treating checkout extensibility as a conversion optimization surface, not just a compliance checkbox.
Checkout UI Extensions let you place custom upsell blocks, trust badges, and custom fields directly inside the checkout flow, upgrade-safe, without touching deprecated checkout.liquid. A well-placed post-purchase offer built as a UI extension, tested against a clean control, can lift AOV by double digits without touching your product catalog or your ad spend.
Shopify Functions replace the old Scripts layer, and they run natively inside Shopify's infrastructure, which means they execute instantly at peak traffic without the latency risk of an external app server. The operators who migrated their discount logic, tiered pricing, and payment method routing to Functions before the June 30, 2026 Scripts shutdown are running cleaner, faster checkouts. The ones who didn't have broken logic they may not have fully diagnosed yet.
On the acquisition side, the opportunity is in closing the MER gap. Most Plus brands are running paid media that optimizes toward channel ROAS, a number that overstates performance on Meta and understates it on channels with longer attribution windows. Brands that shift their optimization target to contribution margin by channel, reported weekly against new-customer LTV cohorts, consistently find budget that was misallocated and redeploy it toward channels that actually move the bank account.
For brands with a B2B or wholesale channel, the native Shopify B2B layer (company-scoped catalogs, payment terms, PO number fields, ACH through Shopify Payments, partial payments for custom or made-to-order work) is a revenue surface that most Plus operators have stood up but few have paired with a deliberate acquisition and retention marketing strategy. That's a gap worth closing.
And for brands ready to expand internationally, Shopify Markets handles 130+ currencies, multi-language, duties and taxes at checkout, localized domains, and international SEO from a single store. The brands that have structured their Markets architecture correctly (single store with submarkets rather than proliferating expansion stores) are scaling into new geographies without the content sync overhead that kills operational velocity.
What Most Get Wrong
What Most Shopify Plus Brands (and Their Agencies) Get Wrong
Optimizing to channel ROAS instead of MER
Meta says 4.2x. Google says 6.1x. The CFO's spreadsheet says the business is growing 8% and margins are compressing. Channel-reported ROAS post-iOS 14 is a directional signal, not a source of truth. Brands that optimize their budget allocation to platform-reported numbers (rather than blended MER anchored to contribution margin) routinely misallocate five and six figures of monthly spend before the discrepancy surfaces.
Treating BFCM as a 30-day problem
At the Plus level, the brands that outperform in Q4 start 90 days out, not 30. Launchpad configurations, checkout extension load testing, Flow automation audits, creative production for the full promotional calendar, and email segmentation for LTV cohorts all need to be in place before October. Agencies that hand you a BFCM plan in late October are handing you a plan for a store half your size.
Ignoring the pixel and attribution stack after a platform migration
Migrations from Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or WooCommerce to Shopify Plus consistently produce the same failure mode: Meta pixel events fire incorrectly, GA4 event IDs are mapped to the wrong triggers, and GTM containers are carrying dead tags from the old platform. The store looks healthy. The attribution data is wrong. Budget gets reallocated based on bad signals, and it can take months before anyone traces the performance dip to a broken Web Pixel rather than a creative or audience problem.
Running B2B and DTC on the same Flow workflows
Shopify Flow is powerful, but B2B automation patterns are fundamentally different from DTC patterns. A Flow that auto-tags VIP customers based on order value makes sense for DTC. Applied to a B2B buyer on net-30 payment terms placing a quarterly bulk order, the same trigger misfires: tagging the wrong accounts, sending the wrong sequences, and creating noise in the data that makes LTV cohort analysis unreliable across both channels.
Hiring a generalist agency that doesn't speak the Plus stack
An agency that has never configured a Checkout UI Extension, never migrated Shopify Scripts to Functions, and has never built a media strategy anchored to MER rather than platform ROAS will give you a generic paid media playbook dressed up with Shopify logos. The specific levers that move growth at the Plus tier (checkout conversion, B2B channel acquisition, international Markets architecture, contribution-margin-by-channel reporting) require an operator-level understanding of the platform, not a surface-level familiarity with it.
Why Now
The Window for Shopify Plus Operators Who Move First Is Open Right Now
The Checkout Extensibility migration is complete: checkout.liquid is gone, Shopify Scripts shut down June 30, 2026. Every Plus store is now on the same upgrade-safe architecture. The operators who have already rebuilt their checkout logic in Functions and deployed UI Extensions as conversion surfaces are pulling ahead. The ones still diagnosing what broke in the migration are running a slower checkout and a less optimized funnel at the same ad spend.
On the media side, the brands compounding fastest right now are the ones that have closed the attribution gap, not by adding another platform to the stack, but by establishing MER as the governing metric and building contribution-margin reporting by channel. That clarity lets them shift budget with confidence rather than optimizing toward numbers that don't reconcile with the bank account. Most Plus brands haven't done this yet. The ones that have are making better allocation decisions every week.
AI is creating a specific, measurable edge in creative production and testing velocity. A Plus brand running one creative concept per week on Meta is outpaced by a brand testing five angles per week with AI-assisted production, finding the message that drives new-customer acquisition faster, at a lower CAC, before Q4. That gap compounds. By BFCM, the brand with six months of weekly creative learnings is running a fundamentally different playbook than the brand that tested monthly.
The competitive window is real because most Plus brands are still running agencies that were built for the pre-extensibility, pre-iOS-14 environment. The infrastructure has changed. The attribution environment has changed. The agencies that haven't adapted are running playbooks that fit a platform and a media landscape that no longer exists. Moving to a partner who operates natively in the current environment (Functions, MER, AI-assisted creative, contribution-margin reporting) is an advantage that shows up in the numbers within a quarter.
The Mechanism
Where AI Creates Real Edge for Shopify Plus Operators
Real productivity, not AI theater. Here's where it actually moves a number for shopify plus enterprise brands.
Creative
What AI does: AI-assisted production generates five to eight distinct creative angles per week (different hooks, different value propositions, different formats) rather than one or two produced through a traditional workflow. Each angle is structured to isolate a testable variable so winning signals accumulate faster.
The result: A Plus brand running weekly creative tests rather than monthly tests builds six months of compounding performance learnings before BFCM. New-customer CAC drops as the winning angle is identified faster and scaled before competitors find it.
Why it matters here: At the Plus tier, paid social creative is the primary lever for new-customer acquisition. Meta and TikTok reward creative velocity; the algorithm needs volume to find the audience that converts. Brands testing one concept per month are ceding that advantage to brands testing weekly.
Analytics
What AI does: AI-assisted attribution reconciliation sits between Triple Whale's channel-level ROAS and the CFO's MER view, flagging discrepancies, catching misfiring pixel events (the post-migration failure mode that drops reported ROAS 60% or more), and producing a weekly contribution-margin-by-channel report that both the media buyer and the finance team can read from the same number.
The result: Budget allocation decisions are made against actual contribution margin rather than platform-reported ROAS. Misallocated spend (routinely five to six figures per month at the Plus tier) gets identified and redeployed toward channels that move the bank account.
Why it matters here: The MER definition trap is real: Triple Whale reports MER as a cost ratio (spend divided by revenue); most CFOs use the inverse (revenue divided by spend). A brand at 25% Triple Whale MER is the same brand at 4x MER everywhere else. AI-assisted reconciliation catches these definitional gaps before they produce a budget decision based on a misread number.
Conversion Optimization
What AI does: AI-assisted audit of the checkout flow (Checkout UI Extension placement, upsell block positioning, trust signal placement, form field friction) combined with continuous monitoring of checkout completion rates by device, market, and customer segment. For B2B buyers, the audit includes payment terms display, PO number field placement, and volume pricing tier presentation.
The result: Checkout conversion improvements of double-digit percentage points are achievable through systematic UI Extension testing, without touching ad spend. A 10% lift in checkout conversion at $5M annual revenue is $500k in recovered revenue from the same traffic.
Why it matters here: Checkout UI Extensions replaced checkout.liquid precisely because they enable modular, upgrade-safe conversion testing. Plus operators who treat the checkout as a fixed surface rather than a testable conversion funnel are leaving the most valuable real estate on the platform underutilized.
What AI does: AI-assisted Klaviyo flow architecture: segmentation by LTV cohort, purchase frequency, and acquisition channel, with send-time optimization and subject line testing at volume. For Plus brands with B2B buyers, separate flow tracks with payment-terms reminders, reorder triggers based on average order cadence, and VIP account escalation sequences built in Flow and triggered into Klaviyo.
The result: Email and SMS contribution to revenue (the metric Klaviyo operators track weekly) increases as flows are tuned to LTV cohorts rather than broad behavioral segments. Brands that separate B2B and DTC retention tracks stop sending wholesale buyers consumer promotional sequences that erode the relationship.
Why it matters here: At the Plus tier, email is a retention and LTV lever, not a promotional broadcast channel. The brands compounding LTV fastest are the ones running cohort-specific flows: different sequences for a customer acquired through Meta on a first-purchase discount versus a customer acquired through organic search at full price. AI makes that segmentation operationally feasible at scale.
Digital Ads
What AI does: MER-anchored paid media strategy across Meta, Google, and TikTok, with budget allocation decisions made weekly against contribution margin by channel rather than platform-reported ROAS. AI-assisted bid strategy monitoring flags when Google PMax is cannibalizing branded search or when Meta's delivery algorithm has shifted spend toward a lower-LTV audience segment without a corresponding creative change.
The result: Paid media spend is allocated toward channels and creative combinations that move blended MER, not toward channels that report the highest ROAS in their own attribution window. For a Plus brand at $10M+ in revenue, closing a 15% MER gap through better allocation is a seven-figure annual impact.
Why it matters here: Shopify Plus operators at scale are running three or more paid channels simultaneously, each with its own attribution model, each overclaiming credit for the same conversion. Without a governing MER metric and a weekly reconciliation process, budget follows the most optimistic number rather than the most accurate one.
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The Strategy
The Marketing Strategy That Actually Works for a Shopify Plus Brand at Scale
The strategy for a Shopify Plus brand at $10M+ looks different from the strategy for a $1M Shopify store, and it should. The channel mix, the attribution approach, the creative cadence, the retention architecture, all of it changes when the platform is Plus, the org has a finance team checking MER daily, and BFCM is a 90-day operational event rather than a four-day sale.
Start with the attribution foundation. Before any paid media budget moves, the pixel stack needs to be clean: Web Pixels installed correctly in the Checkout Extensibility environment, GA4 event IDs mapped to the right triggers, Triple Whale or Northbeam configured to produce a MER number that reconciles with the bank account. If the store migrated from another platform in the last 18 months, this is an audit, not an assumption. A broken pixel producing inflated ROAS numbers is the most expensive invisible problem a Plus brand can have.
Paid media strategy is built around MER as the governing metric, with channel ROAS used to tune dials rather than set strategy. Meta and TikTok handle new-customer acquisition: creative-led prospecting with weekly testing cadence, retargeting built around LTV cohorts rather than broad behavioral audiences. Google handles high-intent branded and category search, with PMax campaigns monitored weekly to prevent cannibalization of branded terms. Budget allocation shifts weekly based on contribution margin by channel, not platform-reported ROAS.
Checkout is a conversion surface, not a fixed template. Checkout UI Extensions are deployed to test upsell blocks, trust signals, and custom fields, each extension upgrade-safe, each testable against a clean control. For B2B buyers, the checkout experience is configured separately: payment terms displayed at checkout, PO number field present, volume pricing tiers visible at the variant level. These are not the same checkout and should not be the same configuration.
Retention is built in Klaviyo, segmented by LTV cohort and acquisition channel. The DTC retention track and the B2B retention track run on separate Flow triggers and separate Klaviyo sequences. Email and SMS contribution to revenue is tracked weekly. Recharge or Skio subscription flows are integrated with the LTV reporting so the media team knows which acquisition channels are producing subscribers versus one-time buyers.
BFCM prep starts 90 days out. Launchpad configurations are built and tested in a development environment before they're scheduled. Checkout extensions are load-tested against Plus's 7,000-checkout-per-minute infrastructure. Creative for the full promotional calendar is in production by October. Email segments for the BFCM sequence are built and validated against the LTV cohort data, not against a broad list.
The one number that governs this
The governing metric is MER: total revenue divided by total marketing spend, reported weekly against the 30-day average. Channel ROAS is used to tune allocation, not to set strategy. Contribution margin by channel is reported alongside MER so the finance team and the media team are reading from the same number.
How We Help
How Sagum Executes This for Your Shopify Plus Brand
We start where the money is leaking, not where it's easiest to start. For most Plus brands that means an attribution audit before a single ad dollar moves, because optimizing spend against broken pixel data produces confident decisions based on wrong numbers. From there, we build the paid media strategy, the creative testing engine, the checkout conversion layer, and the retention architecture in the sequence that compounds fastest for your specific stage and channel mix. Every engagement is built around your MER target and your contribution margin, not a generic ROAS benchmark.
Attribution Audit and MER Foundation
Web Pixel audit in the Checkout Extensibility environment, GA4 event ID mapping, Triple Whale or Northbeam configuration, and establishment of a weekly MER reconciliation process that both the media team and the finance team read from the same number, before any paid media budget is reallocated.
Paid Media: Meta, Google, TikTok
MER-anchored paid media strategy across all three platforms, with weekly budget allocation decisions driven by contribution margin by channel. Creative-led prospecting on Meta and TikTok with weekly testing cadence. Google Search and Shopping for high-intent branded and category queries, with PMax monitoring to prevent branded cannibalization.
AI-Assisted Creative Production and Testing
Five to eight distinct creative angles per week, each structured to isolate a testable variable. Winning signals accumulate weekly rather than monthly, compounding into a BFCM creative library built on six months of performance data rather than a brief written in October.
Checkout Conversion Optimization
Checkout UI Extension deployment and testing (upsell blocks, trust signals, custom fields) upgrade-safe and testable against clean controls. Separate checkout configuration audit for B2B buyers: payment terms, PO number field, volume pricing tier presentation at the variant level.
Email and SMS Retention Architecture
Klaviyo flow architecture segmented by LTV cohort and acquisition channel, with separate DTC and B2B retention tracks triggered from Flow. Weekly email and SMS contribution-to-revenue reporting integrated with LTV cohort data so acquisition and retention strategy inform each other.
BFCM Readiness Program
90-day BFCM prep starting in August: Launchpad configuration and testing, checkout extension load testing, full promotional creative calendar in production by October, email segments built and validated against LTV cohort data before the first send.
Analytics and Contribution Margin Reporting
Weekly MER report against the 30-day average, contribution margin by channel, new-customer CAC vs. LTV by acquisition cohort, and repeat purchase rate by segment, structured so the media buyer and the CFO are reading from the same dashboard, not two different tools producing two different stories.
Who's Behind This
Who we are, and what makes us different
Sagum is a performance marketing agency founded in January 2017 in St. George, Utah. We've spent 8+ years growing real brands and being judged on KPIs, not vanity metrics.
We deliberately limit how many clients we take so each one gets senior attention. We treat your numbers like our own, we never run generic playbooks, and your strategy is built for your business, because shouldn't your brand's marketing be custom to your brand?
Sagum.ai is our AI arm: the same proven operators now build AI into the work wherever it creates real edge, not as theater, but as leverage applied with discipline.
- 8+ years growing brands on performance KPIs, not vanity metrics
- Limited client roster, with senior attention on every account
- An extension of your team; your success is tied to ours
- Custom strategy per brand, never a generic playbook
- AI built in where it moves a number; judgment over hype
“Sagum is a performance marketing agency that's spent 8+ years growing brands by treating their numbers like our own. We take on few clients, never run generic playbooks, and now build AI into the work wherever it creates real edge, not hype. Your strategy is built for your business, and our success is tied to yours.”
“After six years, Sagum is our most important partner: trusted, communicative, and caring about our business as if it's their own.”
Proof
15:1 ROAS on a longer purchase-consideration cycle
Create Room / Original Scrapbox
Challenge
Create Room (Original Scrapbox) sells high-consideration, high-ticket DTC products, the kind of purchase where a buyer researches for weeks before converting. Standard paid media playbooks built for impulse-purchase ecommerce misfire on a longer consideration cycle: they optimize for clicks and early-funnel engagement rather than the downstream conversion event that actually matters. The brand needed a media strategy that could hold efficiency across a multi-touch, multi-week buyer journey without abandoning the MER discipline a business at their scale requires.
What we did
Sagum rebuilt the paid media strategy around the actual purchase-consideration cycle, structuring prospecting, mid-funnel nurture, and retargeting sequences to match how buyers actually move from awareness to purchase, with budget allocation governed by blended ROAS rather than any single channel's reported number.
Result
The result was a sustained 15:1 ROAS across all ad spend (held consistently, not as a peak) demonstrating that a disciplined, consideration-cycle-aware media strategy can maintain enterprise-level efficiency even on a product category where most agencies would sacrifice margin for volume. Full details at sagum.com/case-studies/.
Your Shopify Plus Store Has Levers Most Agencies Don't Know Exist. Let's Pull the Right Ones.
No obligation. We'll come prepared with a specific read on your current MER, attribution stack, and the highest-leverage growth gaps for your stage, built around your numbers, not a generic audit template.
Sagum · January 2017 · St. George, Utah · 8+ years