Affiliates and acquisition

ROAS: revenue per euro of ad spend

ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) is the revenue from acquired players divided by ad spend. In iGaming, revenue is taken as cohort NGR over a window: for example, ads cost €10,000, the players' 90-day NGR is €12,000, so ROAS is 120%.

Yevhen SychovOctober 2026

Formula and example

ROAS = NGR of acquired players over the window / ad spend x 100%For example, €10,000 went on ads. Cohort NGR is €2,400 after 7 days, €6,000 after 30 days and €12,000 after 90 days: ROAS is 24% at D7, 60% at D30 and 120% at D90.

A ROAS of 120% means every euro of ad spend returned €1.2 of NGR. A cohort is the players who came from a campaign within one week or month, and the window is counted from the registration date. Take revenue as NGR: deposits include money that players will withdraw. ROAS is the main metric in media buying, and for affiliates on CPA, the payouts to the affiliate count as the spend.

ROAS vs ROI

ROAS compares revenue with ad spend only. ROI measures profit: provider, payment and affiliate fees are also deducted from NGR, which gives the contribution margin.

ROI = (contribution margin minus ad spend) / ad spend x 100%For example, D90 ROAS is 120% and contribution margin is 80% of NGR: €9,600 against €10,000 of ad spend. ROI is minus 4%, so the campaign has not paid back yet.

At this share, break-even starts at a ROAS of 125%, not 100%. The point when contribution margin catches up with spend is the payback period.

How to measure

  • D7, D30 and D90 windows for each campaign and source. D7 gives an early signal, while D90 is closer to the real payback.
  • The curve of past cohorts: for example, if D90 ROAS is usually 5 times D7, a campaign with a D7 ROAS of 24% is on track for 120%. To break even with contribution margin at 80% of NGR, it needs a D7 of at least 25%.
  • One attribution model across all reports: a player is tied to a campaign by a single rule.

Common mistakes

  • ROAS on deposits. Deposits are several times larger than NGR, and any campaign looks paid back. Players will withdraw part of that money, and part will go on bonuses.
  • A window that is too short. Judging by D7, teams switch off campaigns that pay back by D90 and keep the ones where players deposited once and left.
  • A small cohort. One high roller gives a campaign a ROAS of 300% or, after a big win, a negative one. Look at ROAS without the top players too.
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