What ROI should you expect?

A new analysis of WARC’s database outlines the returns on investment (ROI) marketers can expect from successful advertising campaigns: the median profit ROI is 2.26:1 (every dollar invested brings an additional $2.26 of net profit having excluded the cost of the campaign in the calculation).

Why it matters

Profit-based ROI (also known as ROMI or payback) can be a useful measure because it allows you to compare the efficiency of different campaigns with different budgets. It also allows you to compare the return from your campaign with the returns from alternative investments. However, as an industry, marketing has misused ROI, mistaking it for a goal instead of a measure of efficiency.

Takeaways

• Low-budget campaigns have the highest average ROI ratios, as they need to deliver a much lower absolute return to generate a stronger ROI ratio.
• Among global successful campaigns, the median revenue ROI is 4.00:1. Interestingly, this is a similar figure to the average revenue ROI from UK cases that weren’t submitted to an award (£3.80), according to recent research from Magic Numbers.

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