How Sunbowl Systems Saves Hours on Manual Reporting with ThoughtMetric
Alex Fusco
February 04, 2026
About Sunbowl Systems
Founded in 2001, Sunbowl Systems supports growing e-commerce brands as they move from early traction to scalable growth, providing senior-level strategy and design expertise without the cost of a full-time executive.
Sunbowl’s approach is built on measurable progress. They partner with clients to define clear goals, create a strategic roadmap, execute work in focused cycles, and deliver transparent reporting backed by data-driven guidance. This structure helps teams stay aligned, maintain momentum, and clearly measure ROI as they scale.
Before Using ThoughtMetric
“Before ThoughtMetric, our monthly client reporting process was entirely manual. We run a Shopify development agency managing about a dozen e-commerce clients, and each month we needed to pull together marketing attribution data across multiple platforms — Google Ads, Meta, email, organic — to show clients where their sales were actually coming from. The data was scattered across different ad platforms, each with its own dashboard and its own way of counting conversions. We had no unified view of attribution, so we were essentially stitching together reports by hand every month. The specific frustration was that we couldn't confidently answer the most basic question our clients ask: ‘Where are my customers coming from and is my ad spend working?’ Every platform was taking credit for the same sale.”
This manual process made reporting time-consuming and unreliable, especially as the number of clients and channels continued to grow.
Selecting the Right Attribution Platform: Why ThoughtMetric Stood Out
“A few things stood out. First, it was built specifically for e-commerce, which is our entire world. We didn't need a generic enterprise attribution tool — we needed something that understood Shopify's data model natively. Second, the API access was a big deal for us. We're a technical agency that builds automation, and we knew from the start that we wanted to pull attribution data programmatically into our own reporting systems rather than logging into yet another dashboard. ThoughtMetric's API gave us endpoints for performance data, channel-level attribution, customer LTV, and new vs. returning customer breakdowns — exactly the metrics we report on. Third, the support for multiple attribution models meant we could show clients different perspectives on how their marketing was performing rather than being locked into one model.”
Together, these capabilities aligned closely with how Sunbowl already worked, and how they wanted to scale their reporting infrastructure.
ThoughtMetric’s Most Helpful Features
“The API is the feature we use most heavily. We built a TypeScript connector that pulls performance data, channel-level attribution, customer LTV, and new vs. returning customer metrics for all our clients automatically. That data flows into Google Sheets and Looker Studio reports, and we've also integrated it directly into our client-facing Shopify embedded app called Bucky — so our clients can see their marketing attribution sources right alongside their LTV, CAC, LTV/CAC ratio, and sales data without leaving their Shopify admin. The multiple attribution model support is also really valuable. Being able to show a client their data via different models in the same report gives them a much more nuanced understanding of their marketing funnel.”
This flexibility allowed Sunbowl to meet client needs, whether they want high-level insights or deeper funnel analysis.
Key Wins
Sunbowl Systems highlighted two major wins:
1. Saving time on manually reporting
“The biggest win is that we went from a completely manual, hours-long data gathering process each month…That time savings alone has been significant for a lean agency.”
By eliminating manual reporting, Sunbowl was able to reclaim hours each month and focus more energy on strategy, execution, and client impact rather than manual reporting.
2. The clear data from ThoughtMetric answers the most important questions regarding performance.
“The quality of our client conversations improved. When a client asks ‘should I increase my Google Ads budget’ we can now point to actual attributed revenue by channel, show them their CAC relative to LTV, and compare attribution models — instead of relying on whatever Google's own reporting says.”
This shift turned subjective budget discussions into data-backed decisions, giving both Sunbowl and their clients greater confidence in how and where to invest marketing spend.
Learn How ThoughtMetric Works
Sunbowl Systems uses ThoughtMetric to streamline reporting and give clients clear, data-backed answers about what is driving revenue.
If you are spending hours stitching together reports or struggling to confidently explain where sales are coming from, ThoughtMetric gives you a reliable view of performance.
Book a demo to see how ThoughtMetric can simplify attribution and improve reporting across your business.
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