For independent product brands · Australia & New Zealand
Profitable marketing, handled.
Every dollar accounted for.
One true number every Friday, taken from your store's sales, not the ad platforms'. I'm Jo McKee. I run the ads, email and stockist marketing for independent product brands, so you don't have to. By 3pm each Friday you get your Friday number, what I changed and what happens next. Four minutes to read. No calls.
10.2026
Your Friday numberFriday 9 October 2026 · Week 41
$4.10
Every ad dollar came back as $4.10 in store sales, across the whole store.
Meta claims $6.20. Shown for reference only.
- What happened
- Sales were $11,240 from $2,740 of ads. The linen restock sold 38 units in two days.
- What I changed
- Paused two tired ads. Moved $40 a day to brand search. Sent "new season is in" to three stockists who'd gone quiet.
- What's next
- The restock lands Tuesday, so the email goes Wednesday morning.
- Needs you
- One yes or no, below. Everything else is handled.
What we did this week (8)
- Checked
- Matched Shopify sales against Meta, Google and Klaviyo for all 7 days. Meta over-claimed by 51%, Google by 9%. Your number uses Shopify only.
- Changed
- Paused two ads whose cost per sale had doubled since 28 Sept. Their budget went to the restock ad, now returning $5.30.
- Changed
- Moved $40 a day to brand search. People searching your name were landing on a competitor's ad.
- Sent the restock email Tuesday (41% opened, $1,380 in sales). Non-openers get it again Friday with a new subject line.
- Stockists
- Three stockists hadn't ordered in 90 days. Each got a "new season is in" note with the line sheet. One has replied.
- Watching
- Google Shopping costs rose 14% this week. If that holds through Monday, I'll trim the low-margin products from it.
- Next week
- Restock email Wednesday, two new ads from the shoot, and a check that the price change shows in Shopping.
- Your call
- Run a free-shipping offer over $150 next weekend? I'd expect about 6 extra orders at roughly $90 less margin. A yes or no is all I need.
Jo
Plate I · what arrives by 3pm
Your store's sales. Not Meta's claim.
"Needs you" is the line most clients read first.
An illustrative example. The brand is anonymised and the figures are made up for this page.
No. 01The rule we agree first
Your store's sales are the only number that counts.
Before I touch anything, we agree one rule in writing. My work is judged on what your store actually took, not on what Meta, Google or Klaviyo say they earned. Most marketers report the platforms' figures because they're bigger. I report the smaller, true one, and I live with it.
The measurement rule · agreed before day one
The number is your Shopify or WooCommerce net sales, divided by every dollar spent on ads, for the week.
- i.Store sales only: after refunds and discounts, before GST.
- ii.All ad spend counts, on every platform, including the ones that "didn't really work".
- iii.Platform claims are shown beside the number, labelled as claims, for reference only.
- iv.Same definition every week, so this week can be compared with last month and last year.
Agreed: ______ Jo
No. 02Why not just an AI app?
An app gives you more to run. I take it off your plate.
Good AI tools are everywhere now: Shopify Sidekick, Meta Advantage+, Klaviyo's AI, and all-in-one apps from about US$20 to US$200 a month. I use them too. The difference is who drives, who checks, and who answers for the result.
An AI marketing appMe, with an AI back office
More dashboards, more drafts, more output to review.
One number and one short update. The judgement about what to do is mine.
Optimises the platform's own metric: its ROAS, its attributed sales.
Answers to your store's sales, under the rule we agreed.
Needs you to drive it: prompts, settings, approvals, another login.
No prompts to learn. I'm the operator. You get the speed without the job.
Takes its own tracking at face value, and learns from it.
I check the tracking first, for the kind of thing apps miss: a lead event firing when a page loads, or a sale counted twice.
Starts from a template every brand gets.
I know your stockists by name, your restock dates and how your brand sounds.
Nobody signs the result.
One senior person, me, signs the number every Friday and answers for it.
Not anti-AI. If you enjoy running the tools yourself, an app may be all you need.
No. 03What's in it for you
Four minutes on a Friday. Nothing on a Monday.
3pm
Every Friday (AEST), your Friday number arrives. Phone-sized, four minutes to read.
0
Logins, meetings, prompts or Slack channels you have to keep up with.
1 day
The longest you'll wait for a written reply to any question.
Spend that doesn't sell gets cut. Spend that sells gets more. Your stockists get remembered. And you get your evenings back.
No. 04How you know it's real
Since 2017. Still here.
2017
Easy Exercising has been a client since the year I started.
2019
Cienna Designs, a fashion label selling direct and through stockists, since 2019.
3 in 10
The share of small businesses that keep a digital marketer for more than a year.†
† Research commissioned by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, reported July 2025.
From the case files · figures as reported at the time
- Easy ExercisingCost per lead down 61%, and lead to free trial conversion up from 17% to 26%.
- Cienna Designs$52,633 in sales in seven days from one influencer video.
- Chelsey JeanMonthly revenue from about $15k to $102k in three months.
No. 05What's really holding you back
Your numbers don't agree, so every decision is a guess.
It isn't effort and it usually isn't the ads. It's that budget gets set on numbers that disagree by a third or more. At one brand I work with, Meta was claiming about 80% of all the store's sales. When the number is wrong, every decision after it is too, and the ad algorithm learns from the same wrong signal.
Plate II
Meta47
Shopify31
GA428
No. 06Who's to blame
The platforms mark their own homework.
Meta counts a sale if someone clicked an ad in the last seven days or saw one yesterday. Google counts the same sale too. Their AI tools are tuned to those same counts. Many agencies are sold on a call, report in a dashboard and get paid more when you spend more.
None of that is your fault. It's the model. I work outside it: one number from your store, one person accountable, and every week in writing.
No. 07Why now
Black Friday is 27 November.
The year's biggest spending week is about seven weeks away. 2026 has also brought Meta's new delivery system and a Shopify checkout update that quietly broke tracking for many stores. Order a Profit Check by Friday 30 October and the fixes can be live before Black Friday week.
No. 08Why me
A marketer who builds the systems.
I came to online marketing the long way: telecoms, international film distribution, then marine tourism here in the Whitsundays. After Cyclone Debbie wiped out a season in 2017, I taught myself to sell online. McKee Creative began that year.
I build what I use, including the AI back office that does the checking and drafting behind my client work. I used to run a team. I now work alone, by choice. The person who answers your email is the person who did the work.
No. 09How it works
Checked daily. Counted weekly. Signed by me.
- 01
Every day · the back office
The system I built with AI checks your store, ads and email, and flags anything odd for me to look at. Tags, pixels and duplicate events. Ad spend pace against stock on hand. Email flows on and sending. Stockist websites, weekly.
- 02
Every week · the number
Store net sales ÷ total ad spend across every platform: what each ad dollar actually returned. Platform claims sit beside it, for reference only. The rule we agreed, every week, compared with the last four weeks and last year.
- 03
Fridays, 3pm · your Friday number
The number, what happened, what I changed, what's next, and whether anything needs you. Checked and signed by me. Nothing reaches your customers unread. Reply to it like any email.
No. 10How to start
Start with a Profit Check.
Ninety days of your marketing, counted against your store's sales, with the leaks found and the fixes priced. Delivered in five business days. You buy at checkout and fill in a ten-minute form. There's no call.
Four questions, answered in writing
- 01What did your marketing really earn over the last 90 days, counted against your store's sales?
- 02Where is money leaking: ads that don't sell, tracking that teaches the algorithm wrong?
- 03Are the five email flows that matter switched on and earning?
- 04Which five fixes would make the most difference, ranked by dollars, each with a fixed price or DIY steps?
The Profit Check
$590 A$ inc GST
- Written report, about ten pages
- Twelve-minute captioned walkthrough
- Read-only access, nothing is changed
- Credited in full if you continue within 30 days
- Refund if I don't find three things worth fixing
Add-on · +A$190 Stockist Snapshot: up to 15 stockists checked for range, pricing against RRP, sold-outs and who's gone quiet.
After that, if you'd like me to keep going
Fixes
A$990 to A$2,490, fixed price
Tracking repair, email flow rebuild, wholesale reorder setup, scoped in writing first.
Wholesale Partnership
A$1,320 to A$1,650 a month
Stockist emails, reorder reminders, the weekly stockist report and your Friday number.
Full Partnership
A$4,900 a month
Ads, email, wholesale and your Friday number. Three brands at a time.
Partnerships start with a one-page written plan: scope, price and the first 30 days. Email me to ask for one.
No. 11What you have to lose
If I don't find three things worth fixing, you pay nothing.
You get a full refund and keep the report. Partnerships are month to month after the first three months, with 30 days' written notice and no exit fee. You own every account and login, always.
This is for you if
- You run an independent product brand in Australia or New Zealand turning over about A$300k to A$5M.
- You sell on Shopify or WooCommerce and spend A$2k to A$30k a month on ads.
- You have stockists, or would like more.
- You'd rather read for four minutes than run another tool.
It isn't, if
- You're pre-launch or dropshipping.
- You want daily calls or a Slack channel.
- You want a guaranteed return on ad spend (nobody honest can promise one).
- You'd like the platforms' numbers reported back as the truth.
Coda · a typical week
what it looks like from your side.
- Monday
- You don't open Ads Manager. The back office already has.
- Wednesday
- The restock email goes out to customers and stockists. You didn't write it.
- Friday 3.04pm
- Your phone buzzes between customers. "$4.10 back for every ad dollar, from store sales. Needs you: nothing this week." You read three more lines and put it away.
- Any day
- A question? Just reply. You'll have a written answer within one business day.
Profitable marketing, handled.
Every dollar accounted for.