Glossary/Measurement & Attribution/Profit on Ad Spend (POAS)
Measurement & Attribution
Profit on Ad Spend (POAS)
Gross profit generated by advertising divided by ad spend, a margin-aware alternative to ROAS.
By Brandon Mina·CEO, BrandPilot AI·Updated November 2026
Short answer
Profit on ad spend (POAS) is the gross profit generated by advertising divided by ad spend. Unlike ROAS, which uses revenue, POAS accounts for product margins, so a campaign selling low-margin items is not mistaken for a strong performer. Advertisers can feed profit values to bidding systems to optimize toward profitable sales.