A realistic ROAS for paid ads is the one that clears your break-even point after costs and still leaves profit, and for most small businesses that usually means targeting roughly 2x to 6x as campaigns mature, depending on your margins and how well you track revenue.
ROAS (return on ad spend) is revenue divided by ad spend, so a “good” number changes fast when your pricing, gross margin, close rate, and repeat business change. If you sell products online and capture purchase value in your ad platform, ROAS is a clean north star. If you’re a local Orlando service business (dentist, law firm, pest control, HVAC, roofing), ROAS is often an estimate because the real money happens after a call, a form, or an appointment. In those cases, we treat ROAS as a business math problem, not a vanity score, and we pair it with cost per lead and cost per booked job so you can see what you’re buying.
Break-even ROAS (the number you must hit to not lose money)
Your fastest way to set a realistic target is to start with gross margin. If you only keep 33% of each dollar after direct costs, you need about 3x ROAS just to break even on ad spend. If you keep 50%, you need about 2x.
| Gross margin on the sale | Break-even ROAS | Common “healthy” ROAS range | Why it lands there |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20% | 5.0x | 6.0x to 10.0x | Thin margins need a lot of revenue per ad dollar. |
| 25% | 4.0x | 5.0x to 8.0x | Most resellers and low-markup products live here. |
| 33% | 3.0x | 4.0x to 7.0x | Room for ad costs, ops, and some profit. |
| 40% | 2.5x | 3.0x to 6.0x | Often realistic for many local service offers. |
| 50% | 2.0x | 2.5x to 5.0x | Higher margin means you can win at lower ROAS. |
| 60%+ | 1.7x or less | 2.0x to 4.0x | Memberships, high-LTV services, and strong upsells can work here. |
Two quick cautions: (1) ROAS does not automatically include payroll, rent, refunds, or overhead, so a “profitable ROAS” for your business can be higher than break-even. (2) If your tracking misses phone sales or in-office closes, your reported ROAS can look worse than reality, which is why proper conversion setup matters as much as bids and keywords. If you want help turning your margins and close rates into a target you can manage weekly, our PPC management service is built around lead quality and booked revenue, not just clicks.
What’s realistic by business type
These ranges assume you’re past the first learning period and your tracking is at least decent:
- E-commerce with clean purchase tracking: many healthy accounts sit around 2x to 6x ROAS, with higher possible when you have strong repeat purchases or bundles.
- Lead gen where you can pass closed-won revenue back (CRM or offline conversions): 3x to 8x can be realistic because the ad platform learns which leads turn into revenue.
- Lead gen where you only track leads (calls/forms) and not sales: ROAS is often misleading, so we judge success by cost per qualified lead and cost per booked job, then back into an implied ROAS using your average job value and close rate.
In Orlando and Central Florida, seasonality can swing results for home services (heat, storms, termite and mosquito seasons), and competition can spike for legal and dental keywords. That’s another reason we set targets with a range instead of one magic number.
How we set a ROAS target that actually fits your business
- Start with gross margin and break-even ROAS. Use the table above so you know the floor.
- Pick the real goal metric. If you’re service-based, your “win” is usually cost per booked job or cost per new patient, not a dashboard ROAS.
- Fix tracking gaps. Call tracking, form tracking, and revenue from your CRM close the loop, especially for clinics and firms.
- Improve the page people land on. A better landing page often raises conversion rate faster than raising budget, and that lifts ROAS without chasing cheaper clicks. If your page is dated or slow, our web design service focuses on the booking and contact flow that paid traffic needs.
If you’re trying to sanity-check your numbers, a simple starting point is: aim to beat break-even ROAS by a comfortable margin, then watch lead quality and booked revenue for 4 to 8 weeks before you judge the campaign. If you want to tighten up measurement across channels, our guides on SEO metrics to track and using Google Search Console and Google Analytics translate well to paid ads tracking too, since the same conversion basics apply.
