Marketing ROAS Benchmarks by Channel — 2026

Average ROAS by channel across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Based on Plexrio Budget Brain data from $2.4B in managed ad spend.

Segment

Value

Context

Trend

Meta Ads (all industries)

3.8x

Strong for DTC and B2C — weaker for enterprise B2B

Google Search Ads

4.2x

Highest intent channel — expensive CPCs in competitive categories

Google Shopping

5.1x

Best channel for e-commerce — strong purchase intent

LinkedIn Ads (B2B)

2.4x

Lower ROAS but higher lead quality — LTV often justifies CPL

TikTok Ads

2.9x

High variance — excellent for DTC, weak for B2B

AI Search (referral)

Unmeasured

Growing channel — most companies are not tracking it yet

Google Shopping consistently outperforms other channels for e-commerce brands with clear product-market fit. The combination of high purchase intent and visual product display makes it the most efficient paid channel for DTC brands. Average ROAS of 5.1x is up 0.6x year-over-year despite rising CPCs.

LinkedIn's 2.4x blended ROAS looks weak compared to Google and Meta. But for B2B SaaS and enterprise products with 12-24 month LTV, LinkedIn leads close at higher rates and with higher contract values. When adjusted for LTV, LinkedIn frequently becomes the highest-ROI channel for B2B companies.

Meta's average ROAS has declined from 4.2x to 3.8x over the past two years, primarily due to iOS 14+ attribution gaps and rising CPMs. Despite the decline, Meta remains the most important paid acquisition channel for most B2C and DTC businesses due to unmatched scale and audience targeting.

AI search referral traffic grew 805% year-over-year, but most companies are not measuring it as a marketing channel. The leads and customers arriving via AI search citations are high-intent — they asked an AI for a recommendation and your brand was named. This channel has zero ad spend and no formal measurement for most companies.

data source

Plexrio Platform Data

340+ companies · anonymized · aggregated

last updated

May 2026

updated monthly

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