ROAS (return on ad spend)

What it is

The formula is simple: ROAS = revenue attributed to ads ÷ ad spend. A campaign that spends $20,000 and produces $80,000 of trackable revenue has a ROAS of 4.0, often written as 400%. The only requirement is that conversion values are sent back to the platform; a setup that counts conversions without values cannot compute ROAS.

ROAS depends on the attribution model. Last-click, data-driven and view-through models give different results for the same campaign; compare ROAS only against your own history measured the same way.

Why it matters

ROAS is not profit. It sits above product cost, shipping, fees and returns; a 3x ROAS is very profitable for a software business and a loss for an e-commerce store with a 30% gross margin. Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ gross margin; set the target from your own break-even, not from an industry average.

Two classic traps: high ROAS often means low volume, as brand terms and remarketing inflate the average. And raising the budget almost always lowers ROAS while total profit may still rise; judge scaling by incremental profit, not by the ratio.

How Tecrube uses it

You ask for ROAS by campaign, ad group, keyword or search term across Google Ads, Meta, Microsoft Advertising, TikTok and LinkedIn in plain English; in the same conversation you can move budget, change a tROAS target or pause a losing ad group.

Reads return instantly. Every change is shown as a preview first, applied only on your approval and written to the audit log.

Example

“My gross margin is 35%. List the campaigns below break-even ROAS over the last 30 days and propose cutting their budgets by 20%.” The assistant computes break-even at 2.86x, ranks the campaigns and submits the budget-cut preview for your approval.