Blog·Profit intelligence·
Delivered ROAS vs platform ROAS: why your Meta number lies
Platform ROAS counts the order. Delivered ROAS counts the order that arrived and got paid. For COD-heavy Indian D2C, the gap between them is your real margin.
Meta tells you a campaign did 4x. Your bank account disagrees. Both can be right at the same time, and the reason is the order line.
What platform ROAS actually measures
Platform ROAS is revenue attributed at the moment an order is placed, divided by ad spend. It stops counting the instant the checkout completes. It has no idea whether the parcel was delivered, returned, or refused at the door.
Where the number breaks for COD
In COD-heavy categories a meaningful share of placed orders never convert to cash: RTO (return to origin), refused delivery, and undelivered NDR cases. Every one of those still sits inside platform ROAS as if it were revenue.
- Reverse logistics cost on every RTO
- Lost COGS on damaged or unsellable returns
- Forward + return shipping you already paid
- GST on the ad spend that drove a parcel that came back
Delivered ROAS: the number that pays your bills
Delivered ROAS divides delivered, paid revenue by the fully loaded cost of getting it there. It is the only ad-efficiency number that matches your settlement. When you optimise to it, you stop scaling campaigns that look profitable above the order line and quietly lose money below it.
Attribution tells you which ad got the click. Delivered ROAS tells you whether that click ever became money.
That shift, from order-time vanity metrics to delivered-margin truth, is the whole reason Margifi exists.