Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
How much revenue you earn back for every dollar you spend on advertising.
Return on ad spend, or ROAS, is a simple ratio: the revenue a campaign generated divided by what you paid to run it. A ROAS of 4 means every $1 of ad spend brought back $4 in sales. It is the headline number most owners use to judge whether paid advertising is actually working.
What counts as a 'good' ROAS depends on your margins — a business with high costs needs a higher ROAS to truly profit than one selling something cheap to make. ROAS also usually counts only the immediate sale, so it can undercount channels that bring repeat buyers. Read it alongside your real profit margin and customer lifetime value, never on its own.
Why it matters
It is the fastest read on whether your ad budget is making money or burning it — and the signal that tells you when to scale a campaign up or shut it off.