My two favorite marketing metrics

Today I want to share my two favorite marketing metrics: MER and ROAS.

Why? Because together, they let you measure both paid and organic efforts. Let me explain.

Let's break down sales this way:

Total sales = Sales from paid efforts + Sales from organic efforts.

Now lets see how we measure each part of the equation:

Total sales: we measure by MER (Marketing Efficiency Rate)

MER: Total sales ÷ total spend

→ This measures the overall health of your marketing efforts.

Sales from paid efforts: we measure by ROAS (Return on Ad Spent)

ROAS: Total sales from paid ads ÷ total spend

→ This measures your sales from your paid efforts. In other words, it tells you if your paid efforts are efficient.

Then, how do we measure sales from organic efforts? here it goes!

Essentially, ROAS is a subset of MER. So when you look at both, you can get insight into how your organic efforts are performing.

Here’s an example: Last month, my MER was 3.4 and my ROAS was 3.06,

What can I learn?

Because ROAS is about 90% of MER, I can conclude that most of my sales came from paid media.

Does that mean organic isn’t working? Not at all!

It’s an opportunity to dig deeper, look at your customer journey, check your return rate, and spark a team discussion.

Remember, MER and ROAS are not exactly apples to apples so this isn’t an exact science, but it does give a good sense of how your organic efforts are doing.

💡 TAG tip: Track MER and ROAS monthly. Compare them month-over-month, and also create a yearly view broken down by month. That way you'll be able to have a pretty good pulse check on your organic efforts.

Here’s an example from one of my clients: As you can see MER and ROAS are pretty close. And indeed, this is a new brand and currently most of the sales are coming from paid efforts. 

---

👋 I’m Anat Yaniv, founder of TAG Marketing

🎯 A marketing expert and a data strategist

🪴 I reveal exactly where your sales are coming from

✍️ Get marketing tips that actually move the needle, sign up here

Book a call

---

Fractional CMO ️⚫️ Paid media ️⚫️ Creative operations ️⚫️ Reports and analytics

Services