Margin over ROAS
Return on ad spend can look excellent while a product loses money on every unit. We work from cost of goods up, so the number we report is the number that reaches your bank.
About us
We were the client before we were the agency
Sentinel Digital is run by people who have sold on Amazon with their own money at stake. That is the whole reason the reporting looks the way it does.
Why this exists
Before Sentinel, our founders ran marketplace brands. Both of them sat through the same kind of monthly agency call: a deck with return on ad spend on the front page, a lot of green arrows, and no answer to the only question that mattered, which was whether the business made money last month.
The gap was never a lack of data. Amazon gives sellers an enormous amount of it. The gap was that nobody was joining the advertising numbers to the fee statements to the cost of goods, so nothing anyone reported could be checked against a bank balance.
So we built the reporting we wanted as clients first, and the agency around it second. Every account we run starts by rebuilding profit per ASIN with advertising and Amazon’s fees allocated properly. It is unglamorous work and it changes the conversation every single time.
What that means day to day
You get a named strategist, a shared Slack channel, and a 25 minute call on Tuesday that ends in a decision. You get a written note when something changes, including when the thing that changed was our idea and it did not work.
You do not get a percentage of ad spend arrangement, a twelve month lock in after the first quarter, or a monthly deck nobody reads. We are a small team by design and we turn work away when the calendar is full.
Four things we will not move on
A flat fee, always
Charging a percentage of ad spend pays an agency to spend more of your money. We are on a flat monthly fee, which occasionally means recommending you spend less.
Say it before you ask
If a test failed, it goes in Tuesday’s note before you have to find it yourself. We have shut down our own campaigns at eight thousand dollars rather than let them run to protect a story.
Small enough to answer
We take on a limited number of accounts because the model depends on the strategist actually knowing your catalogue. When we are full we say so and suggest someone else.
Who you actually work with
Four people touch a typical account. All of them are on the same Slack channel as you, and all of them report through your strategist rather than around them.
Your strategist
One person who owns the account, sits on your weekly call, and writes the note that goes with the numbers. They have run a marketplace P&L themselves, which is the only qualification we insist on.
Watches Margin, spend, rank
Advertising and DSP
The people in the console every day. Bids, negatives, placements, and the Amazon Marketing Cloud queries behind the audiences. They report to your strategist, not to a separate department.
Watches ACoS, TACoS, ROAS
Creative
Photographers, designers, and copywriters who brief from search terms and return comments rather than a mood board. Every asset they ship gets measured on conversion rate.
Watches Conversion, returns
Retail media
Walmart, Target, Instacart, and the curated marketplaces. They are also the ones who tell you when a channel is not worth the effort, which happens more often than you would think.
Watches Channel mix, share
Things we do not do
- Take a percentage of your ad spend
- Guarantee a rank position or a revenue number
- Work with two brands competing in the same subcategory
- Sell you retail media before Amazon is profitable
- Send a deck instead of an answer
Come and check whether we are right about your account
The first call is 30 minutes and we will tell you on it whether we think we can help. Roughly a third of the time the answer is no.