← Glossary
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Return on ad spend is the revenue produced by advertising divided by its cost, usually expressed as a ratio.
Why it matters
It connects advertising to money rather than to activity, which is the only comparison that settles a budget argument.
What people get wrong
Reporting platform ROAS as though it were business ROAS. The platform knows what it recorded, not what you invoiced, and for service businesses with offline closes the two can differ enormously. It is also revenue, not margin - a 4x return on a job with a 20% margin is a loss.