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ROAS: Return on ad spend

Revenue attributed to ads divided by ad spend. A campaign scoreboard, not a company P&L. Read it with MER and margin.

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What it is

Return on ad spend is how much revenue the platform credits back for each dollar (or yen, or rupiah) of ad spend. It is only as true as the attribution window and the conversion value. A 4× ROAS on last-click branded search is not the same as a 4× ROAS on prospecting TikTok.

Why it is worth tracking

ROAS is the number finance asks for and media teams game. Operators use it to rank campaigns, then sanity-check with MER, margin, and new-customer share so they do not starve prospecting to feed a branded ROAS that would have happened anyway.

How to read it

A single number is not a brief. These splits are what change the work.

  • ROAS high, new-customer share low

    You are harvesting demand, not creating it. Protect the number, but do not cut the campaigns that look worse and actually grow the base.

  • ROAS low, conversion rate and AOV fine

    You may be under-attributed, or CPMs jumped. Check MER and platform mix before you kill the campaign.

  • ROAS target hit, margin missed

    Revenue ROAS ignores discount and COGS. The Operator should be steering on contribution, not vanity ROAS.

What the Operator does

Diagnose, act, then draft. The stats pick the job. Brand voice stays locked.

  • Diagnose

    The Operator splits ROAS by campaign intent (prospecting vs retargeting vs brand), market, and platform. It flags when a target is being hit by starving growth campaigns.

  • Act

    Reallocate toward campaigns that clear ROAS with the right customer mix. Pause true losers at meaningful spend. Resist shifting everything into brand terms just to paint the dashboard green.

  • Draft

    Draft creative that lifts revenue quality: offers that protect margin, ads for new customers, and landing copy that raises AOV. When retargeting ROAS is fine but prospecting is not, the drafts go to the cold-audience hook, not another reminder ad.

Example brief

“TikTok ROAS in Thailand is 1.3× vs 3.1× on Meta retargeting. New customers mostly come from TikTok. Write 10 prospecting hooks and 5 PDP-style landing blocks for the same SKU set. Do not copy the retargeting “back in stock” line. Tone: social-native, not catalogue.”

Paste a brief like this into a Basis Operator. Connected account context and brand rules apply automatically.

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