How to calculate and improve your Meta Ads ROAS: attribution windows, Advantage Campaign Budget, audience optimization and creative refresh strategies.
Before going into detail about how to calculate your Meta Ads ROAS, you want to make sure you are working with accurate data.
If you are a retailer with an ecommerce store, you will be able to collect a large amount of data on the performance of your campaigns, as well as unlock new targeting and campaign options if you have installed the Meta Pixel to improve tracking.
If you are not yet using the Meta Pixel, I strongly recommend that you enable and implement it on your website as soon as possible. Setting up the pixel is straightforward and implementation can be done in several ways — from using Google Tag Manager to integration options available on most major ecommerce platforms.
Once your Meta Pixel is implemented and working correctly, you will be able to track purchases from your Meta Ads campaigns directly in Meta Ads Manager.
You can then easily calculate your Meta Ads ROAS using the formula:
ROAS = Revenue from your Meta Ads campaigns / Spend on your Meta Ads campaigns.
For example, if you have spent €100 on Meta ads and generated €500 in revenue (purchase value) from those ads, your ROAS is 5:1, or 500% — meaning you are earning €5 for every €1 spent.
Keep in mind that your ROAS is different from ROI (return on investment), which also takes into account other costs associated with your campaigns. These could include agency management fees and/or the cost of producing the creative assets needed for the campaign.
The default attribution window in Meta Ads is 7-day click and 1-day view. This means that Meta will attribute a conversion to your ad if the user made a purchase within 7 days of clicking, or within 1 day of viewing the ad without clicking.
You can customise this window in your ad set settings. If you want to measure a stricter ROAS, you can reduce it to 1-day click and 1-day view.
You can also break down the data in Ads Manager to see which conversions have click attribution and which have view attribution, which helps you set differentiated ROAS targets based on the type of interaction.
When it comes to benchmarking a good Meta Ads ROAS, there are several factors at play.
As a general rule, I try to work with a Meta Ads ROAS target of 500% or 5:1 for the paid social campaigns I manage for my clients. But this is just a starting figure.
In some cases, where acquiring new customers and LTV (lifetime value) are more important than immediate profit, it makes sense to work with a lower ROAS target.
We have also run campaigns where careful optimisation and a higher average order value produced a benchmark Meta Ads ROAS consistently above 15:1, with some campaigns exceeding 50:1.
When benchmarking your own ROAS targets, it is important to consider the following:
Before starting any advertising campaign on Meta, it is key to know the market you are trying to reach.
Meta offers the Meta Pixel, a snippet of code that you can implement on your website to identify users who visit it. If you don’t have programming knowledge, don’t worry — the required snippet can easily be added via Google Tag Manager or through integrations available on most ecommerce platforms.
Once this code has been added to your site, Meta will automatically identify and tag users based on the actions they took. From there it is easy to create custom audiences of people who showed interest by visiting your homepage or exit pages.
When it comes to improving ROAS, make sure you are using audience segments that are most likely to convert.
This could be, for example, running dynamic ads served to cart abandoners — these typically deliver a very high ROAS. Another option is to experiment with Advantage+ Lookalike audiences of VIP customers, or people who have converted in the last 30 days.
One of the best practices when scaling budgets is to focus on broad audiences, as this helps explore diverse groups and generate greater returns by reaching new users. This includes using Advantage+ Lookalike with broader percentages (5%) instead of 1% for greater volume. Using product/category-specific Lookalikes, combined and rolling Lookalikes. Targeting an entire country rather than specific cities. Keeping targeting as open as possible.
Your first option is to use Meta’s Advantage Campaign Budget (ACB). By enabling it at the campaign level, it allows you to leverage Meta’s artificial intelligence to manage and optimise your budget across each of the ads in the campaign.
With this option, you choose a daily budget or a total budget over a set period of time, and Meta handles the allocation.
On your end, you will need to pause the lowest-performing ads (or ad sets) — by monitoring ROI, ROAS and other KPIs — and increase your budget incrementally.
Be careful not to scale it too aggressively, as this can destabilise the algorithm and significantly increase your costs (CPC, CPA, etc.).
The ideal approach is a 20%–30% increase every 3 days, after ad sets exit their learning phase.
There is a rule worth remembering. You need 50 conversions per week, per ad set, for Meta’s algorithm to optimise an ad set effectively.
The relevance of this rule here is that you need to minimise the number of ad sets per campaign, especially if you have a small budget.
Otherwise, you won’t spend enough money per ad set to hit the 50-conversion threshold. This is especially true if you have opted for manual cost optimisation in your campaign.
A little novelty and creativity always does good in advertising. You can start by analysing the competition, looking for graphic trends that are performing well, diversifying your images and rethinking the tone of your campaign.
Three levers are at your disposal:
Format: images, carousels, videos, collections… there are many different formats for your ads. Have you tried them all? If you only produce static content, perhaps it is time to experiment with video, for example.
Copy: within a Meta ad, there is usually very little text. That is why it is so important that it is perfect and fits your message and objective perfectly. This is an opportunity to try new formulas, new tones and to evolve your editorial line.
Design: this is the visual identity of your images, carousels and videos. It is what will make a strong first impression and potentially attract future customers to your site or landing page. Be original and innovative, try new approaches and stand out from the crowd.
If you are not getting results from the steps above, it may be time to communicate a different offer or approach. Each piece of content can be developed to address a specific issue. By changing how you promote your brand and product, you are giving yourself the opportunity for a fresh start.
To do this, list the arguments that matter: why would people buy your offer? Is it a matter of price? Quality? Experience? Advice? Fast delivery? Variety? Trend? Each argument gives you the opportunity to create tailored campaigns with different objectives, content and tones. If you don’t know how to answer those questions, I recommend reading your reviews and even asking your customers directly — they will help you, and I assure you their answers will be very valuable.
Integrating Meta as an advertising lever is a demanding process in terms of time and management. That is why it is important to regularly question your strategic plan and your objectives.
And if despite all these tips and best practices your ROAS keeps falling, take a break. Step away from Meta momentarily and explore new horizons. It is the diversity of your advertising mix that will create the value for a successful return!
30 minutes to review your situation and tell you exactly what I would change. No pitch, no sales proposal.