Atlas Illustration Globe
Atlas Illustration Globe
FOR THE KNOWLEDGE
SEEKERS

Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA)

Feb 3, 2025

DATA

ENGINEERING

MARKETING

UX & UI

How merchants can fuel hyper-growth by utilising Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA).

Why Traditional Growth Strategies Are Failing in 2025


The eCommerce landscape is evolving faster than ever. Brands that rely on single-channel marketing strategies or siloed growth efforts are struggling to maintain profitability.

With rising customer acquisition costs (CAC), increased competition, and shifting consumer behaviours, brands need a holistic, data-driven approach to scale revenue sustainably.

At Atlas Studios, we believe Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA)—a methodology that aligns acquisition, retention, customer experience, and profitability into one seamless strategy is one of the solutions to problems faced by merchants in 2025.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

- Why traditional eCommerce growth strategies aren't as effective
- What Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA) is and how it works
- The exact strategies top brands use to maximise revenue
______________________________

Why eCommerce Brands Are Often Blind.


As a merchant, some of your KPIs for growth might be measured under the acquisition, retention or conversion buckets.
When analysed under a silo, you risk wasting budget and stalling growth.

Analysing numerous Shopify Plus merchants in APAC and NA, we can see clear trends between merchants who are experiencing YoY double and triple-digit growth vs brands who are stalling or, even worse, declining in growth.

The 4 Biggest Growth Mistakes eCommerce Brands Make:

Over-reliance on paid ads – CAC is up 40% YoY, making it unsustainable without consideration for retention.
Ignoring LTV optimization – Retention is 5x cheaper than acquisition.
Fragmented tech stacks – Leading to inefficiencies and poor user experiences.
Failure to personalize CX – 80% of consumers expect AI-powered personalization.

A potential solution? Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA).
______________________________

What is Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA)?

ICA aims to unify and measure all key growth buckets for merchants under a blended umbrella.
By looking at a unified acquisition, retention, conversion rate, user experience and tech stack strategy, merchants can navigate growth much more sustainably.

Whether it is planning paid media scaling strategies, roadmaps for website upgrades or continuous A/B testing, this approach ensures that you, as the merchant, have a clear view of the most effective lever to pull at any given time. Any subsequent decisions can be queried and planned into annual, quarterly and monthly roadmaps just as effectively for maximum impact.

What ICA aims to align:
- Acquisition & First-Party Data – Optimising Meta, Google, and TikTok ads while reducing CAC.
- Retention & LTV Optimization – Building high-ROI email & SMS flows that drive repeat purchases.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) & UX Design – Optimising customer experience for higher AOV and checkout rates.
- Tech Stack Efficiency – Leveraging Shopify Plus, CDPs, and AI-driven automation to scale effectively.
______________________________

Case Study: How ICA Helped a Fashion Brand Grow 35% in 90 Days

A leading fashion brand partnered with Atlas Studios to solve:
- Skyrocketing CAC on Meta ads
- Low customer retention & one-time buyers
- Poor website conversion rate (1.2%)

The ICA Solution:

Data-Driven Ad Optimisation – First-party data strategies lowered CAC by 28%.
Retention-Focused Email & SMSAdvanced Analytics fueled Klaviyo flows boosted repeat purchases by 30%.
CRO Enhancements – Checkout UX optimisations increased the conversion rate to 3.1%. (YoY growth)

Result: +35% revenue growth in 90 days.
______________________________

How to Implement ICA for Your Brand in 2025

Step 1: Identify Growth Gaps

Ask yourself:
- Is your CAC rising while ROAS is shrinking?
- Do you have a strong LTV & retention strategy?
- Do you feel your tech, marketing and creative teams are unified and share specific KPIs?
- Is your tech roadmap well thought out and future-proofed, or is it ad-hoc?

If not, ICA can be a crucial improvement to your eCommerce strategies.

Step 2: Optimise Your Growth Stack

Tech Stack: Shopify Plus, Klaviyo, Triple Whale and Google are some of our favourite tools.
Acquisition: Utilise AI-powered audience segmentation and Advanced Analytics and CDP Insights to level up your acquisition.
Retention: Personalised email & SMS automations. Go to the next level after implementing key flows and ensure to revise them regularly.
UX & CRO: Make zero-party and first-party data based decisions on key UX and CRO decisions. Implement quickly and avoid long design and development cycles. Rapid iteration is the aim of the game.

Step 3: Build the Right Team or Engage the Right Partners

Implementing ICA successfully requires deep expertise across eCommerce technology, acquisition and retention marketing, strategy and UX/UI.

If you have a team that particularly excels in any of these disciplines, it is critical to surround them with experts across the other disciplines. This can be achieved by building a team internally or approaching third-party providers for support where applicable.

______________________________

The Future of eCommerce Growth is Integrated

Brands that succeed in 2025 and beyond will be those that integrate acquisition, retention, tech and UX into one seamless strategy.

Implementing ICA successfully requires deep expertise in each of the disciplines above.
With our expert teams across engineering, UX, retention marketing and commerce strategy, Atlas Studios specialises in ICA-driven growth strategies for merchants between $2 - 25M ARR.

If you would like to have a no-obligation chat to discover how ICA can benefit your business, reach out to our commerce team below.

Book a Strategy Call →

Why Traditional Growth Strategies Are Failing in 2025


The eCommerce landscape is evolving faster than ever. Brands that rely on single-channel marketing strategies or siloed growth efforts are struggling to maintain profitability.

With rising customer acquisition costs (CAC), increased competition, and shifting consumer behaviours, brands need a holistic, data-driven approach to scale revenue sustainably.

At Atlas Studios, we believe Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA)—a methodology that aligns acquisition, retention, customer experience, and profitability into one seamless strategy is one of the solutions to problems faced by merchants in 2025.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

- Why traditional eCommerce growth strategies aren't as effective
- What Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA) is and how it works
- The exact strategies top brands use to maximise revenue
______________________________

Why eCommerce Brands Are Often Blind.


As a merchant, some of your KPIs for growth might be measured under the acquisition, retention or conversion buckets.
When analysed under a silo, you risk wasting budget and stalling growth.

Analysing numerous Shopify Plus merchants in APAC and NA, we can see clear trends between merchants who are experiencing YoY double and triple-digit growth vs brands who are stalling or, even worse, declining in growth.

The 4 Biggest Growth Mistakes eCommerce Brands Make:

Over-reliance on paid ads – CAC is up 40% YoY, making it unsustainable without consideration for retention.
Ignoring LTV optimization – Retention is 5x cheaper than acquisition.
Fragmented tech stacks – Leading to inefficiencies and poor user experiences.
Failure to personalize CX – 80% of consumers expect AI-powered personalization.

A potential solution? Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA).
______________________________

What is Integrated Commerce Architecture (ICA)?

ICA aims to unify and measure all key growth buckets for merchants under a blended umbrella.
By looking at a unified acquisition, retention, conversion rate, user experience and tech stack strategy, merchants can navigate growth much more sustainably.

Whether it is planning paid media scaling strategies, roadmaps for website upgrades or continuous A/B testing, this approach ensures that you, as the merchant, have a clear view of the most effective lever to pull at any given time. Any subsequent decisions can be queried and planned into annual, quarterly and monthly roadmaps just as effectively for maximum impact.

What ICA aims to align:
- Acquisition & First-Party Data – Optimising Meta, Google, and TikTok ads while reducing CAC.
- Retention & LTV Optimization – Building high-ROI email & SMS flows that drive repeat purchases.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) & UX Design – Optimising customer experience for higher AOV and checkout rates.
- Tech Stack Efficiency – Leveraging Shopify Plus, CDPs, and AI-driven automation to scale effectively.
______________________________

Case Study: How ICA Helped a Fashion Brand Grow 35% in 90 Days

A leading fashion brand partnered with Atlas Studios to solve:
- Skyrocketing CAC on Meta ads
- Low customer retention & one-time buyers
- Poor website conversion rate (1.2%)

The ICA Solution:

Data-Driven Ad Optimisation – First-party data strategies lowered CAC by 28%.
Retention-Focused Email & SMSAdvanced Analytics fueled Klaviyo flows boosted repeat purchases by 30%.
CRO Enhancements – Checkout UX optimisations increased the conversion rate to 3.1%. (YoY growth)

Result: +35% revenue growth in 90 days.
______________________________

How to Implement ICA for Your Brand in 2025

Step 1: Identify Growth Gaps

Ask yourself:
- Is your CAC rising while ROAS is shrinking?
- Do you have a strong LTV & retention strategy?
- Do you feel your tech, marketing and creative teams are unified and share specific KPIs?
- Is your tech roadmap well thought out and future-proofed, or is it ad-hoc?

If not, ICA can be a crucial improvement to your eCommerce strategies.

Step 2: Optimise Your Growth Stack

Tech Stack: Shopify Plus, Klaviyo, Triple Whale and Google are some of our favourite tools.
Acquisition: Utilise AI-powered audience segmentation and Advanced Analytics and CDP Insights to level up your acquisition.
Retention: Personalised email & SMS automations. Go to the next level after implementing key flows and ensure to revise them regularly.
UX & CRO: Make zero-party and first-party data based decisions on key UX and CRO decisions. Implement quickly and avoid long design and development cycles. Rapid iteration is the aim of the game.

Step 3: Build the Right Team or Engage the Right Partners

Implementing ICA successfully requires deep expertise across eCommerce technology, acquisition and retention marketing, strategy and UX/UI.

If you have a team that particularly excels in any of these disciplines, it is critical to surround them with experts across the other disciplines. This can be achieved by building a team internally or approaching third-party providers for support where applicable.

______________________________

The Future of eCommerce Growth is Integrated

Brands that succeed in 2025 and beyond will be those that integrate acquisition, retention, tech and UX into one seamless strategy.

Implementing ICA successfully requires deep expertise in each of the disciplines above.
With our expert teams across engineering, UX, retention marketing and commerce strategy, Atlas Studios specialises in ICA-driven growth strategies for merchants between $2 - 25M ARR.

If you would like to have a no-obligation chat to discover how ICA can benefit your business, reach out to our commerce team below.

Book a Strategy Call →