Article

Why ROAS Is a Terrible Ecommerce Metric + 3 That Actually Matter

Common Thread Collective Free Intermediate

Taylor Holiday's agency is the most quoted voice in DTC for reframing ROAS around profit, useful pushback against chasing a vanity multiple.

  • ROAS alone says nothing about profitability since it ignores margin, fixed costs and true incrementality.
  • Contribution margin, MER and CAC payback are the numbers that actually tell you if the business is making money.
  • Post iOS14, the industry stopped trusting platform-reported ROAS at face value, which is why blended metrics took over.
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The question it answers

  1. What ROAS should I realistically expect from Meta ads for my D2C brand?

Read with it

  1. An Indian agency playbook that puts numbers on the UGC-first approach: a 70/30 prospecting-retargeting split and 10-15 UGC... Sociolabs Article How D2C Brands in India Can Achieve 3x-4x ROAS with Meta Ads Sociolabs
  2. Zooms out to the profitability-over-growth shift defining Indian D2C, the mindset you need to evaluate whether a hot channel... Forbes India Article India's D2C Journey: After Rapid Scale-Up, Why It's Now All About Discipline Forbes India
  3. Resets unrealistic expectations with real 2025 benchmark data by vertical, useful for checking your ROAS against your actual... Triple Whale Article What Is a Good ROAS? 2025 Industry Benchmarks and Strategies Triple Whale
  4. Razorpay processes payments for thousands of Indian D2C brands, and this piece gives category wise CAC benchmarks in rupees,... Razorpay Learn Article Customer Acquisition Cost: A D2C Guide to Profitability Razorpay Learn
  5. Walks through the exact formula a founder needs to compute their own break-even number before comparing it to anyone else's... Triple Whale Article Breakeven ROAS: Definition, Formula & Why It's Essential Triple Whale
  6. Straight from Meta: the ground truth on how the number a founder stares at every day is computed, and where it can be soft. Meta Business Help Center Article Purchases ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) Meta
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