Advertising
ACOS and ROAS calculator
ACOS on its own tells you very little. It has to be read against the margin you make before ads, because that is what decides whether an advertised sale is worth having. This puts the two side by side and adds TACOS, which is the number that shows whether the account is actually getting healthier.
Last month, roughly
Everything you paid the platform.
The attributed revenue in your ads report.
Everything you sold, advertised or not. This is what turns ACOS into TACOS.
What is left after commission, shipping, GST and returns, but before any ad spend. The profit calculators work this out.
25.0%
ACOS on your advertised sales
4.00x
ROAS
13.3%
TACOS, against all sales
47%
Sales that came without ads
28.0%
Break even ACOS
3.57x
Break even ROAS
Your ads are paying for themselves. At 25.0% ACOS against a break even of 28.0%, every hundred rupees of ad spend is covered by the margin on the sales it brought in, with 3.0% of room left before it stops working.
What the month actually looks like
Margin on everything you sold, before ads
₹2,52,000
Ad spend
-₹1,20,000
What is left
₹1,32,000
TACOS is the number worth watching over time. ACOS only describes the sales ads touched, so it can look healthy while the account overall is going backwards. TACOS falling while sales rise is the shape you want, because it means organic demand is doing more of the work.
How this works
- ACOS is ad spend divided by the sales those ads are credited with. It only describes the part of the business ads touched.
- ROAS is the same relationship the other way up, so a two point five times ROAS and a forty percent ACOS are the same statement.
- TACOS is ad spend against all your sales, advertised or not. It is the one that tells you whether the account is growing or just buying growth.
- Break even ACOS is simply your margin before ads. Spend more than that on an advertised sale and the sale costs you money.
- The month summary applies your margin to everything you sold and then takes the whole ad bill out, which is the only view that shows if advertising is funded by the business or the other way round.
Questions sellers ask
What is a good ACOS?
There is no universal number, which is why anyone quoting one should be ignored. A good ACOS is comfortably below your margin before ads. If you make thirty percent, then twenty percent is healthy and thirty five percent is losing money, even though thirty five percent sounds respectable on its own.
What is the difference between ACOS and TACOS?
ACOS compares ad spend to sales that came from ads. TACOS compares ad spend to all your sales. If ACOS stays flat while TACOS falls, your organic sales are growing and the ads are doing their job of building rank. If TACOS climbs while sales stay flat, you are buying the same revenue at a higher price each month.
My ACOS is under break even but I still made no money. Why?
Usually because the unadvertised half of the business is carrying weaker margins, or because the break even figure you used is a gross margin rather than a margin after fees, shipping, GST and returns. Run a profit calculator with ad spend at zero and use the net margin it gives you here.
Should I ever run above break even ACOS deliberately?
Yes, but only with a reason and an end date. Launching a product that needs reviews and rank, clearing stock before a storage bill, or defending a listing during a sale event are all fair. Running above break even for months because the dashboard looks busy is not.
How do I actually bring ACOS down?
Almost always by removing spend rather than adding it. Most accounts carry a long tail of search terms that have spent for months and converted nothing. Pull the report, negate the ones with meaningful clicks and no orders, and the number usually moves before you have touched a single bid.