Lab // Topic / 12 articles
Paid Media MathGuides, worked examples and a calculator for this topic.
Paid media math turns ad platform numbers into budget decisions. It covers ROAS and break-even ROAS, carryover effects from adstock, and saturation curves that show where an extra dollar stops paying back. This pillar gives you the formulas and worked US examples to plan spend with confidence.
What is a good ROAS for your business?
A good ROAS is any figure comfortably above your break-even ROAS, which equals one divided by your gross margin.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
Break-even ROAS explained with examples
Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which a campaign earns no profit and no loss after product costs.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
What is adstock and why does it matter for ad budgets?
Adstock is the carryover effect of advertising: spend in one week keeps influencing sales in later weeks, fading at a steady rate.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
How to find your optimal ad spend with a saturation curve
Your optimal ad spend is the level at which one more dollar returns exactly one dollar of revenue, or of profit if you model profit.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
How to lower your cost per click without losing conversions
You lower cost per click by raising your click-through rate and ad relevance, since auctions reward ads that users find useful.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
Ad creative fatigue: how to spot it and when to refresh
Ad creative fatigue shows up as a steady fall in click-through rate and a rise in cost per result while spend stays flat.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
How to allocate a marketing budget across channels with risk in mind
Allocate budget by treating channels like a portfolio: estimate each channel's expected ROAS and its volatility, check how closely the channels move together, then choose the split that gives the best expected return for the risk you accept.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
Share of voice and market share: how much spend it takes to grow
Share of voice is your spend as a share of total category spend.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
How tax on ad invoices changes your real ad budget
When an ad platform adds tax to your invoice, the real cost is the budget times one plus the tax rate, unless you can claim the tax back.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
GST and HST on Google and Meta ads for Canadian advertisers
Tax on ads changes your real cost per click and your ROAS.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
Setting a marketing budget for a Canadian small business
Many small businesses set a marketing budget between 7 and 12 percent of revenue, with growth-stage companies spending more.
- Paid Media Math / 1 min read
GST on Google and Meta ads in India: how it changes your ROAS
Advertisers in India usually pay 18 percent GST on Google and Meta ad invoices, and GST-registered businesses can often claim it as input credit.
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