Glossary/True ROAS
What is true roas?
True ROAS measures advertising return after accounting for real business costs such as COGS, marketplace fees, seller vouchers, platform-funded discounts, shipping subsidies, and the ad spend itself. Platform ROAS usually measures attributed revenue divided by ad spend, but it may not reflect actual profit.
01/Formula
Formula
True ROAS = (Attributed revenue − COGS − marketplace fees − vouchers − shipping − discounts) / Ad spend
Example
A Shopee campaign reports ROAS of 4.0 (฿40,000 revenue on ฿10,000 ad spend). Deduct ฿18,000 COGS, ฿4,000 platform fees, ฿3,000 vouchers, ฿1,500 fulfillment. True ROAS = (40,000 − 26,500) / 10,000 = 1.35 — barely break-even.
02/Why it matters
The trap, in one paragraph.
A 4.0 platform ROAS feels profitable. A 1.35 true ROAS is barely break-even. Sellers who optimize against platform ROAS scale campaigns that are quietly destroying margin. Sellers who optimize against true ROAS scale only what actually grows profit.
03/In DataGlass
How True ROAS is used in DataGlass.
DataGlass reconstructs every ad-attributed order down to the SKU, deducts COGS, marketplace fees, vouchers, and fulfillment, and surfaces true ROAS per campaign, ad group, and keyword. Every recommendation to scale or kill a campaign is judged against this number, never platform ROAS in isolation.
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