Ad tech glossary

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

Technical definition

A marketing metric that measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.

The ADLINGO translation

Revenue divided by ad spend. A ROAS of 4.0 means four dollars of revenue for every dollar spent. The metric is useful as an efficiency signal within a channel. It breaks down as a profitability measure because it ignores cost of goods, margin, and everything else between revenue and profit. A campaign with strong ROAS can still lose money. Always know what ROAS threshold you actually need to hit margin targets, not just the number that looks good in the report.

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