Originally published in Retail Insider, September 28, 2026.

Every retail founder knows the stalemate. Margins are thin, acquisition costs are high, retention is stuck, and the numbers barely move no matter which agency or dashboard vendor is in the chair. In a new Retail Insider article, Tim Shea, Founder and CEO of Latticework Insights, argues that the way out is the one the Oakland A’s found: stop chasing the numbers everyone watches and find the overlooked, high-leverage ones.

In baseball that number was on-base percentage. In retail, the article says, it is what a customer is worth over time against what it cost to acquire them, and the small set of techniques that make that number usable.

The article lays out the five disciplines that turn a retail brand into an Elite Retail Brand:

  1. Solving data sprawl. Marketing data in Meta, Google and TikTok; orders in Shopify, Amazon and Target; customers in Salesforce, Klaviyo and Twilio; financials in NetSuite, QuickBooks and Excel. Each system explains a slice; a data model is what explains the whole.
  2. Getting to LTV:CAC. The ratio, and the three techniques behind it: LTV cohorts by acquisition date, CAC payback, and predictive LTV with models such as Buy Till You Die.
  3. SMART analytics. Speed, Margin, Attribution, Retention, Tiers: five customer dimensions that surface the metrics with the most leverage.
  4. Return on analytics spend. Brands hold ad agencies to a multiple on every dollar; elite brands ask the same of their analytics teams.
  5. A healthy data culture. Common definitions of success, experimentation as the norm, and the willingness to change a campaign or a budget when the evidence says so.

“The next breakthrough for your retail brand is hiding somewhere in your current dashboards,” the article concludes. “Find the insight, rally your team, and change the game.”

Read the full article at Retail Insider. Tim’s follow-up on why the LTV to CAC ratio is retail’s on-base percentage is on LinkedIn.