Your ad campaigns can have incredible performance metrics and still be completely unprofitable for the business. The ROI, ROMI, and ROAS metrics help you assess how well your spending on online marketing activities, including email campaigns, is paying off.

In this article, we explain what each metric measures, how to calculate them, and what results are considered normal.

What are ROI, ROMI, and ROAS, and why calculate them

While CTR, CR, and other metrics show how effective an ad campaign is, ROI, ROMI, and ROAS show how profitable it is. They help businesses understand which ads bring in the most profit, which break even, and which are draining the budget. These metrics help marketers allocate the marketing budget more effectively and use it more rationally.

Although all three formulas are used to calculate return on investment, they each have their own differences.

ROI (return on investment) — the ratio between revenue and investment in the business. This takes into account all expenses: equipment, office rent, salaries, and more.

This metric is also known as investment profitability.

ROMI (return on marketing investment) — the difference between the revenue from advertising activities and the cost of running them. This metric is narrower and shows specifically how well advertising pays off.

In online marketing, ROI and ROMI can be used interchangeably, since they share the same underlying idea — calculating overall profitability.

ROAS (return on ad spend) — helps determine how effective a specific ad is. For example, how much money an email campaign generated versus a messenger campaign.

How to calculate ROI

A metric that shows how much money a business earned for every ruble invested in it. That includes marketing, production, employees — everything.

ExampleYou run a marketing agency with a team of 30 people. Every month you spend ₽1,950,000 on staff salaries. 10 of them work in an office you rent for ₽60,000. The other 20 work remotely, but you cover internet costs of ₽10,000 for that part of the team. You also spend ₽80,000 on all the necessary software and ₽500,000 on marketing. Total monthly expenses = ₽2,600,000. The agency's monthly revenue = ₽6,000,000.Calculation = (6,000,000 – 2,600,000) / 2,600,000 × 100ROI = 130%

Normal ranges:

  • ROI above 100% — the investment pays off.
  • ROI below 100% — it doesn't pay off.
  • ROI exactly 100% — you didn't earn anything, but you broke even.

How to calculate ROMI

ROMI shows how well your promotion worked and how much money the business earned thanks to all its ad campaigns.

ExampleThe same marketing agency. Say the company launched three ad campaigns: — Two articles on PromoStranitsy — spent ₽50,000, earned ₽145,000.— An email campaign to a list of 20,000 subscribers — spent ₽6,000, earned ₽75,000.— Targeted ads on VK — spent ₽50,000, earned ₽70,000.Marketing expenses = ₽106,000. Revenue from ad campaigns = ₽290,000.Calculation = (290,000 – 106,000) / 106,000 × 100ROMI = 173%

ROMI ranges are the same as for ROI:

  • Above 100% — the investment pays off.
  • Below 100% — it doesn't pay off.
  • Exactly 100% — you didn't earn anything, but you broke even.

In this example, marketing ROI is above 173%, and since it's far above 100%, marketing isn't just paying off — it's bringing the company solid profit.

How to calculate ROAS

While ROMI shows the overall payoff of advertising, ROAS shows which specific ad brought in more money.

ExampleThe agency ran three ad campaigns in total — let's calculate the ROAS for each. — Two articles on PromoStranitsy — spent ₽50,000, earned ₽145,000. Calculation = (145,000 / 50,000) × 100 ROAS = 290%— An email campaign to a list of 20,000 subscribers — spent ₽6,000, earned ₽75,000.Calculation = (75,000 / 6,000) × 100ROAS = 1,250%— Targeted ads on VK — spent ₽50,000, earned ₽70,000.Calculation = (50,000 / 70,000) × 100 ROAS = 72%

The metric showed that the VK ads flopped, while PromoStranitsy and email campaigns delivered great results. That means the VK spend can be cut from the budget going forward, and those funds redirected to scaling the other two channels.

Interesting fact Research shows that email campaigns pay off best of all online marketing channels. International marketers have noted that every $1 spent on this type of advertising brings in $36 in return. Use email campaigns, build your emails with Letteros, and grow your company's profit.

In conclusion

Every business needs to track not only ad performance metrics but also profitability. If you don't calculate at least ROMI and ROAS every month or quarter, you might not notice your marketing budget quietly slipping away — even if CTR, CR, and other metrics look great. Return-on-investment metrics help shape future campaigns and make them better and more effective.