ACoS(ACoS)
Advertising
Advertising
ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale) is ad spend divided by the revenue those ads generate, as a percentage.
ACoS mirrors ROAS: 25% ACoS equals a ROAS of 4. The term comes from marketplace advertising (Amazon, bol) and is the standard there.
Set your break-even ACoS using gross margin. At 40% margin, 40% ACoS is your break-even — above that you lose money, unless you are deliberately buying new customers.
In practice
ACoS only counts ad-attributed revenue. If organic sales rise too, ACoS looks too high while the campaign is actually working.
Related terms
- TACoSTACoS is ad spend divided by total revenue — including sales that happened without ads.
- ROASROAS is revenue generated by your ads divided by what you spend on them. A ROAS of 4 means €4 revenue per euro spent.
- CPACPA is ad cost per conversion: total spend divided by conversions, such as enquiries or purchases.
- MarginMargin is what's left of a sale after direct costs. It's the number that decides how much you may spend on marketing.