marketing
ROAS - Return on Ad Spend
Revenue generated per dollar of ad spend on a specific channel or campaign.
Formula
ROAS = Revenue / Ad Spend
ROAS answers: for every dollar I put into this ad, how many dollars of revenue came back? A ROAS of 4 means $4 of revenue for every $1 spent.
ROAS is channel-specific and campaign-specific. Your Meta ROAS and your Google ROAS are different numbers and should be tracked separately. Blending them hides which channel is actually working.
ROAS is a revenue metric, not a profit metric. A ROAS of 4 sounds good but if your COGS and shipping eat 70% of revenue, you are losing money on every sale. That is why contribution margin and MER matter more for profitability decisions.
New-customer ROAS is a separate and usually harder metric than blended ROAS. Returning customers who would have bought anyway inflate blended ROAS. Some brands track only new-customer ROAS for their acquisition campaigns to avoid this flattery.
Is a 4x ROAS good?
It depends on your margin, not just the number. A ROAS of 4 means $4 of revenue for every $1 spent, but ROAS is a revenue metric, not a profit metric. If your COGS and shipping eat 70% of revenue, a 4x ROAS can still lose money on every sale. Contribution margin and break-even ROAS tell you whether a given ROAS is actually profitable.
Why is my Meta ROAS different from my Google ROAS?
ROAS is channel-specific and campaign-specific by design. Your Meta ROAS and your Google ROAS are different numbers and should be tracked separately, since blending them hides which channel is actually working.
What is the difference between blended ROAS and new-customer ROAS?
Blended ROAS includes returning customers who often buy again regardless of the ad, which inflates the number. New-customer ROAS counts only first-time buyers, so it is almost always lower than blended ROAS. That is not a problem, it is the more accurate cost of acquiring a new customer from paid channels.
See ROAS live in your store.
Vibel tracks ROAS across every channel and surfaces it alongside contribution margin, LTV and every other metric that matters.
Get started free