Why Chasing ROAS Is Making You Less Profitable (And What to Track Instead)

One pattern I keep seeing in ecommerce:

ROAS looks healthy.

The business still feels tighter than expected.

That usually means the team is measuring success at the ad level,

while the real business is absorbing a much wider cost stack underneath:
COGS, shipping, payment fees, returns, discounting, platform costs, inventory friction.

That’s why I think attribution and profit visibility need to be treated as two different things.

Attribution helps explain where conversions came from.

Profit visibility helps explain what was actually left.

That sounds like a small distinction.

It really isn’t.

It changes scaling decisions, pricing decisions, and how confidently a founder can act.

A lot of people don’t need more reporting.

They need fewer blind spots.

Read more: https://okiela.io/blog/why-chasing-roas-is-making-you-less-profitable

#ProductHunt #Ecommerce #Shopify #SaaS #Profitability