Marketing intelligence
How to Track Blended ROAS and MER for UAE E-Commerce Brands
Define blended ROAS and MER consistently in AED, reconcile refunds and costs, and set targets from your own contribution margin.
Blended ROAS divides your store's total revenue by all paid media spend. MER divides revenue by all marketing costs, including agency fees, creative production and tools. Both are business-level ratios. They describe efficiency across channels, but neither proves that advertising caused all the revenue on top. Define both once, in AED, and report them next to the revenue and spend behind them.
Define the metric before comparing it
Teams use blended ROAS and MER inconsistently. Publish your numerator, denominator and time basis alongside the dashboard.
| Metric | Example definition | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Blended ROAS (revenue ÷ ad spend) | Defined store revenue / all paid media spend | Business-level comparison, including revenue that no platform claims |
| MER | Defined revenue / defined marketing costs | Broader efficiency measure when marketing costs include more than media |
| New-customer revenue ratio | Revenue from identified first-time customers / defined acquisition spend | Depends on reliable customer history and a documented spend definition |
Some organizations call revenue divided by media spend "MER". That's fine if the definition is written down. Just don't compare it directly with a ratio that includes agency, creative and software costs.
Build the revenue and cost inputs
- Choose a revenue basis: orders booked, delivered revenue, or settled revenue. Treat cancellations and refunds the same way every period.
- State whether VAT and shipping are included. Use the same treatment across stores and reporting periods.
- Collect spend from every paid account. Keep the original currency and convert to AED using a documented exchange-rate source and date rule.
- Reconcile orders and costs before dividing them. When the denominator is zero, show the ratio as unavailable rather than as infinity.
- Label recent periods provisional while returns, settlements or late reporting can still change them.
If your revenue comes from Salla or Zid, reconcile the order data first. Our guides to Salla to BigQuery and Zid to BigQuery show how to keep cancellations and refunds from inflating revenue.
A worked example
Illustrative figures: a store has AED 120,000 in sales after its reporting adjustments, AED 30,000 in paid media, and AED 10,000 in other marketing costs.
- Blended ROAS:
120,000 / 30,000 = 4.0 - MER using all defined marketing costs:
120,000 / 40,000 = 3.0
The difference comes from the denominator, not from a contradiction between reports. Neither number covers every operating cost, and neither proves the store is profitable.
Set targets from your economics
Avoid universal fashion, beauty or electronics benchmarks unless they come from a cited study with matching definitions. Instead, estimate your contribution margin after the variable costs in your model.
Illustrative example: at a 40% contribution margin before marketing, 1 / 0.40 = 2.5 is a simplified break-even ratio of revenue to marketing cost. Fixed costs, cash timing, a changing product mix and returns can all push the real target higher. Treat this as a planning example, not a UAE market benchmark.
Cash-on-delivery stores need an extra adjustment for refused and returned orders. Our Egypt e-commerce guide to blended CAC and COD return rates shows how to build that in.
Validate and report
Compare one completed period with store reports and billing records. Show revenue, spend and the ratio together, because a ratio can improve while revenue falls. Don't use it alone to decide whether to scale.
The e-commerce marketing report template gives a layout that keeps store revenue and platform-attributed conversion value apart. They are different measures and shouldn't share a column.
FAQ
Is blended ROAS the same as MER?
Not always. Blended ROAS divides revenue by ad spend only. MER usually divides revenue by all marketing costs. Some teams use the two names interchangeably, so always check the denominator before comparing numbers.
Should I use blended ROAS or platform ROAS?
Use both, for different decisions. Platform ROAS helps compare campaigns inside one ad platform. Blended ROAS shows whether total spend is producing total revenue, without the overlap that comes from every platform claiming the same sale.
Do I need to include VAT in revenue?
Either choice works if you apply it consistently. Most finance teams report revenue excluding VAT, so matching their definition avoids confusion in leadership reports.
Next step
AKM can bring connected ad accounts and store data into one report for e-commerce teams, but confirm each source's available fields and your revenue policy first. Review AKM integrations, then build your dashboard around reconciled inputs.