Kill the ROAS Crutch: Build a Profit Stack

Nov 14, 2025

Mark Deruyter, a seasoned digital marketing leader with experience at Columbia Sportswear and Guitar Center, discusses the pitfalls of relying on ROAS as a key metric. He emphasizes the need to measure MER, CAC, and LTV for true profitability insights. Mark highlights how AI can revolutionize customer retention by predicting churn and automating outreach. He advocates for collaboration in marketing teams and underscores the importance of first-party data over platform dashboards, advocating for technology that offers speed and impact.

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INSIGHT

Real-Time Data Rewrote The Role

Faster, real-time data has reshaped the marketer's job into a daily, cross-team activity focused on instant decisions.
Performance marketers now must collaborate closely with brand and ops to act on rapid signals rather than working in silos.

ADVICE

Double Down On Brand Authenticity

Invest in brand and authenticity because simple value props like free shipping are now table stakes.
Use brand storytelling to break through market noise and connect with consumers.

ANECDOTE

Doubling Growth By Backing Winning ASINs

On Amazon, Mark ignored efficiency signals and reallocated budget to the top 20% of ASINs that drove growth.
That focus doubled the business across the portfolio within about a year.

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For years, ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) was the go-to metric for performance marketers. It was simple, clear, and instantly gratifying — the higher, the better. But as Mark Deruyter points out in our latest episode of The MarTech Matrix, that once-reliable metric has quietly become one of the most misleading KPIs in modern marketing.

We cover:

The Problem with ROAS
The Better Stack: MER, CAC, and LTV
Measuring What Matters
How AI Is Changing the Game
Speed, Fit, and Impact: A New Way to Buy Tech

Takeaways

ROAS is overrated. It relies on platform data and third-party cookies, which makes it unreliable in today’s privacy-first world. It measures spend efficiency, not profitability, and can create a false sense of success.
Shift to MER, CAC, and LTV.
Trust first-party data. Platform dashboards are directional only. Real insight comes from CRM and transaction data that connect spend directly to sales and retention.
Retention is AI’s next frontier. AI can now identify inactive customers, predict churn, and trigger personalized outreach automatically. Retention automation is becoming the biggest growth lever for established brands.
The modern marketer’s must-have skills:
Buy technology based on speed, fit, and impact. If a tool can’t be implemented and delivering results within 30 days, it’s probably not the right one. Focus on solutions that make your team faster and smarter, not bloated with features.
Collaboration beats silos. The best marketing teams align brand, creative, and performance to connect storytelling with measurable growth.
Bottom line: Move beyond vanity metrics. Build a profit stack grounded in first-party data, AI, and metrics that matter — MER, CAC, and LTV. The future belongs to marketers who measure what actually drives profit, not just performance.

Chapters

01:27 How the marketer’s job changed (real-time, cross-team)

06:30 Brand’s rising importance & authenticity

09:02 Gut vs data (keep the art, validate the inputs)

12:36 Tools that accelerate marketplace performance (Stackline, Helium 10)

14:21 First-party truth over platform dashboards

15:32 Overrated metrics: ROAS → shift to MER, CAC, LTV

17:46 How to think about LTV at earlier-stage brands

21:32 Buying tech: 30-day implementation mindset; time-to-value

24:31 What vendors miss (research, economics, CFO proof)

30:42 AI’s impact: compress data → creative → execution

32:07 Acquisition vs retention (why retention wins next)

35:10 Future skills: data fluency, AI literacy, brand authenticity

38:23 Underrated channels: Affiliate & SEO (and AEO)

40:53 BFCM tip: have backup copy/creative variants ready