How Does Your Brand Stack Up? Introducing the Strategic Growth Grade Scorecard

Everyone wants to know how they’re doing. Whether it’s founders, marketing leads, or investors — we’re all asking the same question …

Are we growing the right way?

At Common Thread Collective, we’ve developed a framework to answer that question with clarity: The Strategic Growth Grade Scorecard, a diagnostic tool built to evaluate the financial health and strategic momentum of your ecommerce business.

What is the Strategic Growth Grade?

It’s a scoring system made up of seven core financial and strategic metrics, each graded to give your brand a total score. Your grade reflects not just profitability, but the sustainability and efficiency of your growth engine … especially in today’s volatile market.

1. 60-Day LTV Growth

Here’s how you find your brand’s 60-Day LTV Growth:

Why it matters:

Can you recover ad spend quickly?

Brands with high short-term LTVs can scale faster and invest with more confidence.

• A+ Score: >30% growth in LTV after 60 days
• Middle: 15–30%
• Fail: <15%

2. 12-Month LTV Growth

Here’s the formula:

Why it matters:

Understand how much long-term value your brand creates from each customer cohort.

Important for strategic planning and knowing your ceiling.

• A+ Score: >100% increase in LTV over 12 months
• Middle: 50–100%
• Fail: <50%

3. OPEX as a % of Revenue

Here’s your OPEX % formula:

Why it matters:

Your ability to invest in growth depends on your operating leverage.

Fixed costs too high? You're stuck. Stay lean to stay nimble.

• A+ Score: <15%
• Middle: 15–25%
• Fail: >25%

4. Cost of Delivery %

Here’s how you find your brand’s Cost of Delivery:

Why it matters:

Gross margin is your growth fuel. This metric includes product, shipping, fulfillment, and fees.

• A+ Score: <20%
• Middle: 20–30%
• Fail: >30%

5. FOV to nCAC (First Order Value to New CAC)

Here’s the formula for finding your brand’s ratio of Average First Order Value to Average New Customer Acquisition Costs:

Why it matters:

The clearest signal of your media buying efficiency. Are you break-even on Day 1?

• A+ Score: >0 (profitable on first order)
• Middle: Break-even
• Fail: Negative

6. New Customer Revenue Growth (TTM YoY)

Here’s how you find YoY TTM New Customer Revenue Growth:

Why it matters:

Most brands are struggling to grow net new customers.

This measures if your acquisition efforts are expanding your base year over year.

• A+ Score: >10% YoY growth
• Middle: Flat
• Fail: Decline

7. IMR: Incremental Marginal Return

We calculate IMR using:

Why it matters:

This is the most important new addition — a media measurement metric that compares the true rate of return on ad dollars across channels.

Benchmarks are:

• Meta Acquisition: 1.2x factor (IMR >25% = A+)
• Google Non-Brand: 0.75x factor
• Google Brand: 0.3x factor

A 15%+ IMR is considered the minimum viable return based on current capital costs.

What Makes IMR So Powerful?

It’s the first truly comparable metric across channels. Just like you evaluate your investment portfolio, IMR shows you where your next best dollar belongs … apples to apples.

And with the ability to adjust for 30-day and 60-day LTV windows, it gives brands a realistic understanding of performance based on cash flow cycles.

If Meta has a 20% IMR and Google Brand has 14%, guess what? Meta deserves your next dollar.

Why We Built This (And How Brands Should Use It)

As ecommerce operators, we found that even high-performing brands often lacked clarity on why they were succeeding … or what was limiting their next phase of growth.

We built this scorecard to solve that problem by:

• Creating a clear diagnostic tool for brand health
• Helping founders and marketers prioritize where to focus
• Making media investment decisions based on contribution margin, not just ROAS

You should use the Scorecard to:

• Run quarterly brand health audits
• Guide strategic planning sessions
• Evaluate your cost structure before scaling spend
• Understand where your growth is sustainable and where it’s not

Whether you're doing $2M, $5M, or $15M per year, the scorecard helps you shift from reactive growth to strategic execution.

Ready to Grade Your Growth?

Stop guessing. Start measuring what matters.

Want help diagnosing your brand’s grade and unlocking your next level of growth?

Reach out to the team at Common Thread Collective … we’ve helped hundreds of ecommerce brands grow with clarity and confidence.

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