Marketing returns
Marketing Efficiency Ratio Calculator
Compare total business revenue with total scoped marketing spending without assigning individual sales to channels.
Use MER for a blended business-level revenue-to-marketing-cost view. Use ROAS to examine attributed revenue against media spend for one campaign.
What the result means
MER is a blended efficiency ratio, not attributed ROAS or profit. It can improve because of repeat revenue or seasonality even when current campaigns become less effective.
The formula
Total business revenue / total marketing costs
Results are displayed to at most two decimal places. Calculations use the unrounded inputs.
A worked example
Put the formula to work
- Total business revenue (currency)
- 100,000
- Total marketing costs (currency)
- 20,000
Total revenue per unit of marketing cost: 5x
Total revenue of 100,000 with 20,000 total marketing costs gives a 5x MER.
How to use this calculator
- Choose a business-wide reporting period.
- Collect net revenue across paid, organic, direct, and returning-customer sales.
- Sum marketing costs under a documented and repeatable scope.
- Divide revenue by costs and interpret changes with seasonality and retention.
Why this number matters
A blended measure provides a cross-check when individual platforms claim overlapping revenue and channel attribution cannot be cleanly reconciled.
Input definitions
- Total business revenue (currency)
- Net revenue from all channels during the selected period, including unattributed and returning-customer sales.
- Total marketing costs (currency)
- All marketing costs in your scope, including media, creative, agencies, tools, and marketing labor where applicable; must be greater than zero.
Assumptions and limitations
- Does not prove that marketing caused the revenue.
- Cost scope varies across businesses; media-only and fully loaded MER are not interchangeable.
- Product costs and fixed non-marketing expenses are not deducted.
Methodology
The default result and worked example use the same calculation functions as the interactive tool. The formula cannot verify the quality or scope of your source data.
Read our calculation methodology
Last updated .