Marketing efficiency ratio, or MER, measures the performance of your marketing spend. It’s one of the most important metrics marketers use to measure impact.
And while that might sound similar to return on ad spend, ROAS is slightly different in that it’s typically channel-specific and attribution-dependent.
Keep reading to learn how to calculate MER, improve marketing efficiency, and understand marketing efficiency examples.
What is MER? It’s a calculation used to determine how efficient (or effective) your marketing efforts are at a high-level, holistic view of your business.
Depending on the calculation you use, MER tells you what percentage of revenue is spent on ads — regardless of which platform drove the conversion.
Ideally, your MER should be a low percentage. When it is, you’re generating better results from your ad campaigns while spending less on marketing overall. This big-picture insight helps you evaluate if your marketing strategy is effective and when to make changes if it isn’t as successful as you’d like it to be.
Now that you know the MER definition, you’re ready to learn the MER formula.
To calculate MER, take your total marketing spend and divide it by your total revenue derived from marketing over the same timeframe.
At Triple Whale, the efficiency ratio formula looks like:
MER = Blended Ad Spend ÷ Order Revenue
The result will be a decimal number that you can use as a percentage.
As a reminder, that’s different from the ROAS formula, which involves dividing your revenue from ads by the cost of those ads.
For your MER calculation, you’ll include any and all expenditures related to marketing in your “total ad spend” bucket, such as:
There are a couple of ways you may see MER represented.
At Triple Whale, your MER is displayed as a percentage, so let's start here.
Say you’re an automotive company that has generated the following:
Your MER calculation would be:
100,000 ÷ 300,000 = .33 or simply 33%
Instead of saying “MER is 33%” most buyers mentally translate it to: “Ads are 33% of revenue."
MER in marketing can be used for several different purposes. Here are a few examples to show you how.
You can calculate (or view) your MER anytime to track how effective your paid media is.
Perhaps your brand spent $2,000 on marketing overall last month, and you made $8,000 in revenue from marketing. Your MER calculation would look like:
MER = $2,000 ÷ $8,000 = 0.25 (25%)
If you discover your MER is higher than your goal, you can keep doing what you’re doing. If it’s lower than your goal, you may decide to cut back on spending on the platforms you’re least confident in or launch new ads.
Let’s say you want to hit $100,000 in revenue next month. You know your mode average order value (AOV) is $200. With some simple math, you can use your mode AOV to come up with a target MER and then budget your marketing spend accordingly.
Here’s what that looks like:
You can also use MER to set a budget for your marketing spend if you have different data handy.
Let’s say your business is shooting for $10,000,000 in revenue this year. You typically have a MER of 20%. You can use these two numbers to figure out a reasonable budget for your paid media strategy:
Target MER is 20%:
Solve for spend:
Now you know you’ll need $2,000,000 for your total marketing spend to hit that revenue goal this year.
Much like a good ROAS, there is no one universally “good” MER for every business and brand. A lower MER is generally better, because it means you're spending less.
Ultimately, if you’re trying to answer the question “What is a good marketing efficiency ratio?” you’re going to have to adjust your benchmark based on your business’s industry, size, and goals.
In 2025, the median MER for our Triple Whale customers was 41%.
Continuing as a percentage, here is the median MER by industry among Triple Whale brands over the last 90 days:
While we are big MER fans at Triple Whale, this metric simply can’t do it all. In fact, MER doesn’t give you actionable insights at the campaign, ad set, or ad level.
Because you don’t take channel-specific metrics into account when calculating MER, your results are a little ambiguous. You’ll need simplified campaign structures and some other architectural nuances to gain more clarity. MER, unlike ROAS, doesn’t tell you anything about marketing attribution. So even if your MER calculation results in a number you’re happy with, that number won’t help you decide which channels to invest more in or scale back on.
MER in marketing also doesn’t take into account the long-term value of your customers through customer retention and loyalty. Instead, it’s a measure of current or immediate revenue generation that doesn't help you forecast future success.
It’s also calculated without thinking about external factors like market conditions or seasonality, which might skew your perception of your MER results.
The only real way to understand the effect of your paid media is incrementality testing. Triple Whale and our Triple Pixel can help you gain this deeper insight.
Triple Whale defines MER differently from the traditional marketing formula.
It's very similar to blended ROAS, which uses the following formula:
Blended ROAS = Order Revenue ÷ Blended Ad Spend
MER and ROAS are also similar but different, so let’s get really clear on the differences.
When you’re comparing MER vs. ROAS, the first thing to remember is ROAS is channel-specific and attribution-dependent. MER, on the other hand, is a big-picture, holistic view of your marketing performance. ROAS is platform-reported. MER includes all revenue, regardless of attribution.
That means ROAS is more valuable if you want to know how, say, your Instagram ads in particular are performing. MER is more valuable if you’re looking for insight pertaining to the overall performance of your marketing efforts.
ROAS also only takes into consideration the cost of your ads. But MER factors in any and all expenses related to marketing, such as salaries and software subscriptions.
Because of the limitations mentioned above, you can gain some helpful context for your MER by considering it alongside other metrics, like the following:
What is MER in marketing? It’s a holistic measure of how effective your marketing efforts are. You calculate it by dividing your total revenue by your total marketing spend, which can help you when it comes to tracking, forecasting, and budgeting.
Your MER doesn’t tell you anything about which platforms, channels, or campaigns are most successful. That’s why it’s important to consider MER in the context of other marketing metrics such as your ROAS and LTV. And if that sounds a little overwhelming, we’ve got you: The Triple Whale data platform surfaces the insights you need to make informed decisions that benefit your brand and your bottom line. Book a demo today!
Marketing efficiency ratio, or MER, measures the performance of your marketing spend. It’s one of the most important metrics marketers use to measure impact.
And while that might sound similar to return on ad spend, ROAS is slightly different in that it’s typically channel-specific and attribution-dependent.
Keep reading to learn how to calculate MER, improve marketing efficiency, and understand marketing efficiency examples.
What is MER? It’s a calculation used to determine how efficient (or effective) your marketing efforts are at a high-level, holistic view of your business.
Depending on the calculation you use, MER tells you what percentage of revenue is spent on ads — regardless of which platform drove the conversion.
Ideally, your MER should be a low percentage. When it is, you’re generating better results from your ad campaigns while spending less on marketing overall. This big-picture insight helps you evaluate if your marketing strategy is effective and when to make changes if it isn’t as successful as you’d like it to be.
Now that you know the MER definition, you’re ready to learn the MER formula.
To calculate MER, take your total marketing spend and divide it by your total revenue derived from marketing over the same timeframe.
At Triple Whale, the efficiency ratio formula looks like:
MER = Blended Ad Spend ÷ Order Revenue
The result will be a decimal number that you can use as a percentage.
As a reminder, that’s different from the ROAS formula, which involves dividing your revenue from ads by the cost of those ads.
For your MER calculation, you’ll include any and all expenditures related to marketing in your “total ad spend” bucket, such as:
There are a couple of ways you may see MER represented.
At Triple Whale, your MER is displayed as a percentage, so let's start here.
Say you’re an automotive company that has generated the following:
Your MER calculation would be:
100,000 ÷ 300,000 = .33 or simply 33%
Instead of saying “MER is 33%” most buyers mentally translate it to: “Ads are 33% of revenue."
MER in marketing can be used for several different purposes. Here are a few examples to show you how.
You can calculate (or view) your MER anytime to track how effective your paid media is.
Perhaps your brand spent $2,000 on marketing overall last month, and you made $8,000 in revenue from marketing. Your MER calculation would look like:
MER = $2,000 ÷ $8,000 = 0.25 (25%)
If you discover your MER is higher than your goal, you can keep doing what you’re doing. If it’s lower than your goal, you may decide to cut back on spending on the platforms you’re least confident in or launch new ads.
Let’s say you want to hit $100,000 in revenue next month. You know your mode average order value (AOV) is $200. With some simple math, you can use your mode AOV to come up with a target MER and then budget your marketing spend accordingly.
Here’s what that looks like:
You can also use MER to set a budget for your marketing spend if you have different data handy.
Let’s say your business is shooting for $10,000,000 in revenue this year. You typically have a MER of 20%. You can use these two numbers to figure out a reasonable budget for your paid media strategy:
Target MER is 20%:
Solve for spend:
Now you know you’ll need $2,000,000 for your total marketing spend to hit that revenue goal this year.
Much like a good ROAS, there is no one universally “good” MER for every business and brand. A lower MER is generally better, because it means you're spending less.
Ultimately, if you’re trying to answer the question “What is a good marketing efficiency ratio?” you’re going to have to adjust your benchmark based on your business’s industry, size, and goals.
In 2025, the median MER for our Triple Whale customers was 41%.
Continuing as a percentage, here is the median MER by industry among Triple Whale brands over the last 90 days:
While we are big MER fans at Triple Whale, this metric simply can’t do it all. In fact, MER doesn’t give you actionable insights at the campaign, ad set, or ad level.
Because you don’t take channel-specific metrics into account when calculating MER, your results are a little ambiguous. You’ll need simplified campaign structures and some other architectural nuances to gain more clarity. MER, unlike ROAS, doesn’t tell you anything about marketing attribution. So even if your MER calculation results in a number you’re happy with, that number won’t help you decide which channels to invest more in or scale back on.
MER in marketing also doesn’t take into account the long-term value of your customers through customer retention and loyalty. Instead, it’s a measure of current or immediate revenue generation that doesn't help you forecast future success.
It’s also calculated without thinking about external factors like market conditions or seasonality, which might skew your perception of your MER results.
The only real way to understand the effect of your paid media is incrementality testing. Triple Whale and our Triple Pixel can help you gain this deeper insight.
Triple Whale defines MER differently from the traditional marketing formula.
It's very similar to blended ROAS, which uses the following formula:
Blended ROAS = Order Revenue ÷ Blended Ad Spend
MER and ROAS are also similar but different, so let’s get really clear on the differences.
When you’re comparing MER vs. ROAS, the first thing to remember is ROAS is channel-specific and attribution-dependent. MER, on the other hand, is a big-picture, holistic view of your marketing performance. ROAS is platform-reported. MER includes all revenue, regardless of attribution.
That means ROAS is more valuable if you want to know how, say, your Instagram ads in particular are performing. MER is more valuable if you’re looking for insight pertaining to the overall performance of your marketing efforts.
ROAS also only takes into consideration the cost of your ads. But MER factors in any and all expenses related to marketing, such as salaries and software subscriptions.
Because of the limitations mentioned above, you can gain some helpful context for your MER by considering it alongside other metrics, like the following:
What is MER in marketing? It’s a holistic measure of how effective your marketing efforts are. You calculate it by dividing your total revenue by your total marketing spend, which can help you when it comes to tracking, forecasting, and budgeting.
Your MER doesn’t tell you anything about which platforms, channels, or campaigns are most successful. That’s why it’s important to consider MER in the context of other marketing metrics such as your ROAS and LTV. And if that sounds a little overwhelming, we’ve got you: The Triple Whale data platform surfaces the insights you need to make informed decisions that benefit your brand and your bottom line. Book a demo today!
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Body Copy: The following benchmarks compare advertising metrics from April 1-17 to the previous period. Considering President Trump first unveiled his tariffs on April 2, the timing corresponds with potential changes in advertising behavior among ecommerce brands (though it isn’t necessarily correlated).
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