Marketing in the P&L: from a lead to the monthly result

Altynai runs advertising for an Almaty analytics reporting service for small retail chains. In one month, two of her channels spent 100,000 ₸ each: the first brought 100 leads, the second 40. She wants to move money into the first, since a lead there costs 1,000 ₸ against 2,500 ₸. The payments say otherwise: two new clients paid from the first channel and eight from the second. If Altynai takes only the cost per lead to the owner, Talgat, cheap enquiries will win budget away from cheap sales.

A client pays the service 60,000 ₸ a month, and preparing that client's report and supporting them costs 20,000 ₸. All prices and figures in this lesson are made up.

From an enquiry to a new customer

CPL is spend divided by the number of leads; CAC is spend divided by the number of new clients. Before you divide, agree on what you are counting. For Altynai, a lead is a unique enquiry from a company, and a client is a company that has paid for the first time. If a retail chain wrote on WhatsApp and also filled in the form, it is still one client. A returning client's payment stays out of the CAC denominator too: that client was acquired earlier.

B's leads cost more, but one in five reaches payment, against one in fifty for A. These figures cannot tell you why: it could be the offer, the audience, the page or how Zhanar's sales managers handled the enquiries. You look for the cause in the leads themselves and in the customer journey. The financial result needs different data: confirmed payments and the cost of serving each client.

Compare spend and payments by cohort: give the clients of one month the same time to pay. A chain that wrote on the last day of the month may pay in the next one. That is why cohort CAC and the financial result of a calendar month sometimes draw on different rows. Put the window and the source next to the figure, so nobody mistakes an unfinished cohort for the final result.

What remains from a sale

Of the 60,000 ₸ in revenue, 20,000 ₸ goes on delivery: the report and support for that client. These are variable costs; they grow with every new client. That leaves 40,000 ₸ of contribution, and it is from this that the service pays for advertising and everything else. The example has no discounts, refunds or indirect taxes. On a real project you agree the rules for them with the accountant, who at this service is Meruert.

Channel A's first payment did not earn back its acquisition cost. B has 220,000 ₸ left. That is still far from profit: salaries, rent and shared tools are not in the table, so the last row is only part of the company's result.

It is easy to deduct a discount twice. Suppose a client pays 54,000 ₸ instead of 60,000 ₸. Revenue in the calculation is then already 54,000 ₸, and with the same 20,000 ₸ of delivery, contribution is 34,000 ₸. There is no need to take the 6,000 ₸ discount off again: it is already accounted for in the price. The same goes for commissions; each one goes in a single expense row.

Build the monthly P&L

A P&L (profit and loss statement) shows income and expenses for a period. An ad account shows only the advertising, while the P&L shows every expense, so the outcome of the whole operation is visible only there. You can check the terms in the SBA glossary, and agree the rows of your own report with whoever runs the finances.

In the closed month the service served 180 companies, and all of them paid: ten new clients from the two channels and 170 returning ones. Each received the monthly package for 60,000 ₸. Contribution from all 180 goes into the monthly result, while advertising CAC still counts ten new clients.

The fixed 6,800,000 ₸ excludes advertising and delivery, which are already counted above. The example has no other expenses. A real P&L will include the company's remaining items, so do not call this 200,000 ₸ net profit.

Fully loaded CAC is what you get when you add to advertising the share of fixed expenses that went on acquisition. Suppose that out of the same 6,800,000 ₸, 400,000 ₸ of marketing work and 400,000 ₸ of sales work went on new clients. Fully loaded CAC for the cohort is then (200,000 + 400,000 + 400,000) / 10 = 100,000 ₸, against an advertising CAC of 20,000 ₸. At 40,000 ₸ of contribution per client a month, fully loaded CAC pays back in 2.5 months: 100,000 / 40,000. In the P&L that 800,000 ₸ already sits inside the fixed row, so it is not deducted a second time.

ROAS covers revenue and advertising only

Channel A's ROAS is 120,000 / 100,000 = 1.2. Revenue exceeds ad spend, yet after delivery the channel is 20,000 ₸ down. B's ROAS is 4.8, and its remainder is positive. ROAS and the remainder rank the channels in the same order here only because their price and contribution are the same. If one channel sold a package with costlier delivery, the same ROAS would leave it a smaller remainder.

A contribution of 40,000 out of 60,000 ₸ is two thirds of revenue. Covering the advertising alone needs a ROAS of 1.5: 100,000 / (40,000 / 60,000) = 150,000 ₸ in revenue. That threshold does not pay for salaries or rent. If a channel needs its own manager or expensive materials, add them to the calculation before you decide.

For ROMI, write down the formula and what counts as spend: (incremental contribution before marketing - marketing spend) / marketing spend, multiplied by 100 if you need a percentage. Spend includes every agreed campaign cost, preparation included, not just media placement. UTM tags and ad account attribution link a sale to a touchpoint, but they do not say how many sales the campaign added. You estimate that by comparing with a scenario without the campaign, as in budget defence.

Profit and cash in the account

In the closed month, services were delivered and paid for. In the next launch a client may pay a month later, while advertising and the contractor have to be paid now. The P&L then answers whether the service earned money, and the cash schedule answers whether it has enough cash to last until the payment arrives.

Prepayment needs care too. If a chain has paid for several months ahead, part of the work is still to come, and its cost has not gone away because the money is already in the account. The company's financial policy decides which periods revenue is recognised in. Your job is to bring the dates of orders, payments and delivery.

Do not book future payments as actuals in advance. Unit economics keeps forecast contribution apart from what has already been earned. Channel A may pay back later if its clients stay, but only the next payments will show that. Multiplying the first month by twelve is not a calculation.

Exercise: calculate without double deduction

Take your own product or a client's and list the price after discounts, variable costs, advertising, other acquisition costs and fixed expenses. Match paying customers by ID and split them into new and returning. Label the P&L period and the CAC window.

Now a problem on Talgat's service. Another campaign spent 150,000 ₸; three new clients paid for and received their first month at 60,000 ₸ each, and delivery costs 20,000 ₸ per client. What are the advertising CAC, the ROAS and the remainder before fixed expenses?

CAC is 150,000 / 3 = 50,000 ₸. Revenue is 180,000 ₸, so ROAS is 1.2. Delivery takes 60,000 ₸, leaving 120,000 ₸ of contribution, and after advertising the campaign is 30,000 ₸ down. If these chains renew the package, the cohort may turn positive. But this month's report includes only services delivered and payments received, under the method agreed with Meruert.

Video: the P&L

Compare the rows in the video with your own calculation and mark where the campaign's economics end and the whole company's result begins.