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Marketing efficiency ratioTotal revenue as a multiple of total marketing spend — your whole-engine efficiency.
MER (marketing efficiency ratio) is total revenue divided by total marketing spend across all channels — the same figure as blended ROAS. It answers ‘for every dollar we put into marketing, how much revenue came back?’ across the business, not one campaign.
In practice
MER earns its keep as a trend, not a snapshot. One month tells you very little, because revenue and spend rarely move in the same week — budget you add today can show up as revenue three weeks later, especially on considered purchases. Watched over six months, MER tells you whether the engine is getting more or less efficient as you scale it.
It's also the number to reach for when channel reporting stops agreeing with reality. Because MER needs only two figures you can verify yourself — total revenue from your store, total spend from your bank — it sidesteps the attribution argument entirely. That makes it a sound top line for a board update, with per-channel detail underneath it.
Formula
MER = Total revenue ÷ Total marketing spend
Example: $120,000 ÷ $29,000 = 4.14× MER.
What a good result depends on
Judge MER against your break-even ROAS and its trend, not a universal target.
Common mistakes
- Expecting a single ‘good’ MER — it's margin-dependent.
- Confusing MER with per-channel ROAS.
Questions people ask
- What's a good MER?
- There isn't a universal one. It depends on your contribution margin and how much of your revenue is repeat business. Compare it to your break-even ROAS, and care more about the direction of travel than the absolute number.
- How is MER different from ROAS?
- Scope. ROAS is usually one campaign or channel, as that platform reports it. MER is the whole business: all revenue over all marketing spend, with each sale counted exactly once.
- Should MER include agency fees and salaries?
- That's your call, but be explicit about it. Including them measures true marketing efficiency; excluding them isolates media performance. Either works — switching between the two from month to month does not.