POAS
Gross profit divided by ad spend: ROAS corrected for margin, so it measures money kept, not revenue.
POAS, profit on ad spend, is gross profit divided by ad spend rather than revenue divided by ad spend. It is ROAS corrected for margin: instead of asking how much revenue an ad returned, it asks how much profit is left after the cost of the goods.
POAS matters most when your catalog spans very different margins. Two products at the same ROAS can earn wildly different profit, so optimizing to revenue-based ROAS keeps tilting toward high-revenue, low-margin sales. POAS re-aims the account at the money you actually keep. We only trust it once real cost data is flowing into the account, because a POAS built on guessed margins is just a worse ROAS with extra steps.
The same idea drives value-based bidding: feed the platform real values so it chases profit, not the cheapest conversion. To get there you need margin data flowing into the account, which rests on accurate conversion tracking.
Put the number to work: the break-even ROAS calculator turns your margins into the ROAS you need, and a free Due Diligence Audit checks whether the figures you see are the ones you are getting. Back to the glossary.