Definition
Email ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is a metric that calculates the revenue generated by email marketing relative to the costs invested. It is expressed as a ratio (e.g. 5:1 meaning £5 earned for every £1 spent) or as a percentage (e.g. 500% return).
While ROAS originated in paid advertising, it is increasingly applied to email marketing to provide a comparable metric across marketing channels. Email ROAS includes all costs associated with email production, platform fees, and team time.
Email ROAS Formula
Email ROAS = Total Revenue Attributed to Email / Total Email Marketing Costs
Example Calculation
If your email campaigns generate £50,000 in attributed revenue and your total email costs (platform, team, creative, deliverability tools) are £5,000:
Email ROAS = £50,000 / £5,000 = 10:1 (or 1,000%)
This means for every £1 spent on email, you earn £10 in revenue.
Email ROAS vs Email ROI
| Metric | Formula | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| ROAS | Revenue / Cost | Revenue efficiency |
| ROI | (Revenue - Cost) / Cost | Profitability |
| Revenue per email | Revenue / Emails sent | Per-message value |
| Revenue per subscriber | Revenue / Active subscribers | Audience value |
Average Benchmarks
| Industry | Typical Email ROAS |
|---|---|
| Ecommerce | 30:1 to 50:1 |
| B2B SaaS | 10:1 to 30:1 |
| Media/Publishing | 5:1 to 15:1 |
| Non-profit | 20:1 to 40:1 |
Email marketing consistently delivers the highest ROAS of any digital marketing channel, typically outperforming paid search (3:1 to 5:1) and social media advertising (2:1 to 4:1).
How to Improve Email ROAS
- Reduce platform costs: Review your ESP pricing as your list grows. Negotiate rates or switch providers if costs exceed industry benchmarks.
- Improve list quality: A clean, engaged list delivers higher revenue per send than a large, disengaged list. Regular list cleaning reduces costs while maintaining revenue.
- Optimise send frequency: More emails do not always mean more revenue. Test frequency to find the revenue-optimal cadence.
- Automate high-value campaigns: Triggered emails (abandoned cart, welcome, post-purchase) generate 3-5x more revenue per send than broadcast campaigns.
- Attribute revenue accurately: Use multi-touch attribution models to capture emails contribution across the customer journey, not just last-click conversions.
Related Glossary Terms
A/B Testing
A/B testing in email marketing is the practice of sending two variations of an email to a small sample of your list to determine which version performs better before sending the winner to the remaining subscribers.
Abandoned Cart Email
An abandoned cart email is an automated message sent to customers who added items to their online shopping cart but left without completing the purchase. It is one of the highest-converting email types in ecommerce.
AIDA Model for Email
The AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) is a classic copywriting framework used to structure email campaigns that guide subscribers from awareness to conversion.
AMP for Email
AMP for Email is a Google-developed framework that allows email messages to include interactive elements like forms, carousels, accordions, and live content. It turns static emails into dynamic, interactive experiences directly inside the inbox.
Announcement Email
An announcement email is a dedicated campaign that communicates a specific update, milestone, or change to subscribers, from product launches and feature releases to company news and events.
AOL Mail for Email Marketers
AOL Mail is a legacy email provider with specific deliverability requirements and rendering quirks, now operating as part of the Yahoo+AOL network under shared infrastructure.
Frequently Asked Questions
A good email ROAS depends on your industry and margin structure. For ecommerce, 30:1 or higher is strong. For B2B, 10:1 or higher is good. Any ROAS above 5:1 is generally considered profitable. Email marketing consistently achieves higher ROAS than any other digital channel.
Include your email platform subscription (annualised), team salaries or agency fees (prorated), design and copy production costs, deliverability tool subscriptions, and any advertising spend specifically for list building. Exclude overhead costs that exist regardless of email.
Best practice is to separate list building costs from campaign costs for ROAS calculation. List building costs (lead ads, content offers, events) should be evaluated against subscriber LTV rather than campaign ROAS.
Email consistently delivers the highest ROAS of any digital channel. Industry averages are 30:1 to 50:1 for email versus 3:1 for paid search, 2:1 for social media advertising, and 5:1 for content marketing. However, email typically requires a larger existing audience to generate these returns.
Measure ROAS monthly for active campaigns and quarterly for overall program performance. Monthly measurement helps identify trends and optimisation opportunities. Quarterly measurement provides a more stable picture that accounts for seasonal variations.