Why it matters
Clicks, impressions and followers say nothing about whether the spend paid for itself; ROAS answers that single question. It matters more, not less, when you advertise outside your home market: currency movement, payment fees, delivery costs and refund rates all sit between the reported ROAS and the profit that reaches your bank account, so the same multiple can be healthy in one market and loss-making in another.
How it works and how it is measured
- Formula: ROAS = revenue from advertising ÷ ad spend. Revenue four times the spend is a ROAS of 4x.
- What it includes: only the money paid to the platform. Agency fees, cost of goods, discounts and refunds are excluded — those belong in ROI.
- Attribution: connect revenue to the right campaign through conversion tracking, UTM parameters and a source field in the CRM, not through guesswork.
- Set the target from margin: a high-margin service can be profitable at a low ROAS, while low-margin retail can lose money at a high one. There is no universal "good" number.
- Per-market targets: when entering Central Asia, recalculate the threshold for each market — pricing, payment methods and fulfilment costs differ enough to move the break-even point.
Frequently asked questions
How is ROAS different from ROI?
ROAS counts only media spend and reports revenue. ROI counts every cost — product, team, agency — and reports profit. A campaign can show a strong ROAS while ROI is negative, which is why the two are read together.
We sell B2B services with long sales cycles. Is ROAS still useful?
It is, but only if the CRM closes the loop: the enquiry must carry its source, and the signed contract value must be written back to that record. Otherwise you are measuring enquiries, not revenue.
Does cutting budget improve ROAS?
Often it does, because the least efficient spend disappears first — but total profit can fall at the same time. Profit is the goal; ROAS is the instrument that reports on it.