PPC ROI calculator — paid search return including all costs

For Google Search, a good PPC ROI is 300–400% (3–4× your spend returned in profit). This equates to a 4–5× ROAS at typical gross margins. However, what's acceptable depends on your margins — a business with 80% gross margin can afford lower ROAS targets than one with 20% margin. Use our margin-adjusted calculation above for your specific situation.

PPC ROI = (Revenue × Gross margin − Total cost) ÷ Total cost × 100. Total cost must include ad spend, agency or management fees, and tool costs. Many PPC reports inflate ROI by comparing revenue to ad spend only (ROAS) without accounting for margins or management fees.

Common causes: (1) gross margin too thin for the ROAS — at 20% margin you need 5× ROAS just to break even, (2) agency fees not included in the ROAS calculation, (3) product return rates reducing net revenue, (4) high-value keywords spending most of the budget with few conversions. Calculate your break-even ROAS using our ROAS calculator.

The highest-impact improvements: (1) improve Quality Score — higher QS lowers your CPC for the same position, (2) pause keywords with high spend and zero conversions (check every 2 weeks), (3) improve landing page conversion rate — a 1% improvement in CVR has the same impact as cutting your CPC in half, (4) use negative keywords aggressively to eliminate irrelevant clicks.