Ad Spend
What advertising cost you this period — the bill every efficiency ratio is measured against.
What it means
Ad Spend is what your advertising cost in the selected period, as a currency total. It's the bill, not a ratio and not a result: no sale has to be credited to a euro for it to appear here. What sits inside the total depends on the page you're on. On Amazon Summary, Ads Analytics and SKU Performance it's Amazon ad spend alone. On Summary, Marketing and Shopify Profit it's every connected ad channel added together — and on Summary, Amazon joins that total when Include Amazon is switched on.
The brand mark beside the card's name is how you tell which one you're reading: Amazon's mark on the Amazon-only figure, the blended-channel mark on the cross-channel total.
Show the math
Formula and a worked example
Total advertising cost is what the connected ad platforms charged over the period. Meta labels its own figure Spend and Google Ads labels its own Cost; this is those channel figures added up.
The Summary card with Amazon included describes itself as Meta + Google + Amazon spend. With Amazon off — and on Marketing and Shopify Profit — Amazon is out of the total.
Worked example. In March, Meta charges €12,000 and Google charges €6,000. On Marketing, Ad Spend = 12,000 + 6,000 = €18,000. Amazon charged another €4,000 that month, so the same March read on Summary with Include Amazon on is 12,000 + 6,000 + 4,000 = €22,000. Two figures under one label, €4,000 apart, and neither is wrong.
Nothing here is attributed, which is why it's the input to MERMERWhole-business marketing efficiency across every channel.Under 30% is healthy and ROAS rather than a verdict on its own. A euro lands in this total the day a platform charges it, whether or not it ever produced an order.
It answers the question
What did advertising cost this period, and on whose definition? Every ad ratio on the screen is this figure divided into something or something divided by it, so when one of them moves without explanation, this is the line to check first.
Why it matters
It's the number underneath the rest of the ad page. MERMERWhole-business marketing efficiency across every channel.Under 30% is healthy divides it by Total SalesTotal SalesYour true top line and the anchor for every efficiency metric., ROAS divides Total Sales by it, CPA divides it by orders, and ACOS divides the Amazon figure by ad-attributed sales. One change here quietly moves four cards nobody touched.
It's also the only ad number you set directly. Conversion, revenue and attribution are things you influence; this one is a field in a budget. That makes it the fastest thing on the page to change and the easiest to change too hard — spend removed buys efficiency by shrinking, and for about a month that looks identical to efficiency earned.
What good looks like
There's no published band for Ad Spend, and there shouldn't be. It's a currency total, and €18,000 a month is reckless for one store and timid for another. The app grades ratios rather than amounts for exactly that reason, so nothing here will ever tell you your spend is too high.
Three checks stand in for a band. Direction: spend should grow more slowly than Total Sales, and any period where it doesn't should be a decision you can name. Ratio: read it as MER, which is this number as a share of sales and does carry a band — graded excellent at 30% and poor at 45%. Completeness: this covers connected ad channels only, so an agency retainer or an affiliate commission is invisible here. True Ad SpendTrue Ad SpendAd Spend including the custom expenses ad spend configurations is where those land, and if the two figures match, nothing has been marked as Ad Spend on Cost Settings.
How to improve it
| Lever | What you do | Expect | How long | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Stop the spend with nothing behind it | Sort campaigns by spend, look across at the sales column, and pause the rows carrying spend and no orders over two full weeks | Spend down, orders roughly held | 1–2 weeks | Some of that money was doing early work no last-click column shows. Watch new customers as well as total orders, or you'll cut discovery and call it waste. |
| Fast Move budget to the channel carrying the period | Compare each channel's spend against the sales in the same period, then reset the daily budgets | The same total spend against a better return | 1–2 weeks | Concentrating budget makes the whole business depend on one platform's pricing. The month that platform gets expensive, there's nowhere left to move to. |
| Slow Set the budget from the ratio, not from last month | Decide the MER you're willing to run at, then let the sales forecast size the spend | Spend that tracks sales instead of habit | 1 quarter | A budget that follows revenue cuts hardest in slow months, which is when new customers are most expensive to find. It amplifies both directions. |
| Slow Grow the channels that never send an invoice | Email and SMS capture, referrals, repeat purchase — sales that arrive without a media bill | Total Sales rises while Ad Spend holds flat | 1–2 quarters | Nothing lands for weeks, and the work moves onto your own team's time, which never appears in this line at all. |
Every lever costs something somewhere. The last column is the one to read twice.
Read it with
A spend figure on its own is neither good nor bad. Next to what it brought in, it becomes a decision.
Growth you didn't buy
Sales rose on a smaller bill. Usually one channel that was never earning, switched off. Wait for a second month before calling it a method rather than a month.
Bought growth
Both up is the normal shape. The question is which grew faster: if spend did, this period cost you more per euro of sales than the last one.
Pulled back
You spent less and sold less. A deliberate trim and a demand problem look identical here — the order they moved in is what separates them.
Paying more for less
The bill grew while revenue fell. Every day it runs at this shape, the period's ratio gets harder to pull back before month end.
MER is this number as a share of Total Sales, so the pair separates spending more from spending worse. Spend up with MER flat means you found more of the same thing at the same price — the only version of scaling that holds. Spend up with MER rising means each extra euro bought less than the one before it. The currency total alone never says which of the two you're in.
This figure is what the ad platforms billed. True Ad Spend adds the marketing you paid for by invoice — a retainer, a creator fee, an affiliate rate. The gap between them is the part of your marketing budget that no platform is optimising, and if there's no gap at all, that's a missing entry on Cost Settings rather than a clean month.
Common misreads
It isn't. Amazon Summary, Ads Analytics and SKU Performance show Amazon spend alone; Summary, Marketing and Shopify Profit show the connected channels together, and Summary adds Amazon when Include Amazon is on. Check the brand mark on the card before comparing two screens.
Lower spend improves every ratio built on it and removes the sales it was buying at the same time. Read it beside Total Sales. A retreat and a genuine efficiency gain look the same in this line, and only the sales line tells them apart.
It's the connected ad channels. An agency retainer, a tool subscription or an influencer fee never reaches this line unless someone entered it on Cost Settings and marked it as Ad Spend. True Ad Spend is the total that includes them.
Also called
Media spend · advertising cost · ad investment · Spend on Meta pages · Cost on Google Ads pages
See yoursYour Amazon Ad Spend by campaign and by product. The blended figure across every connected channel sits on Marketing and Summary.
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