Industry ROAS Figures for 2026: What You Should Expect

By María de la Vega

Performance Marketing Specialists Checked by Senior Media Buyers

Published January 26, 2026

9 min read · Industry Benchmarks

Most operators rely on Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) as their primary performance metric. The trouble is, context changes everything. A 2.5x ROAS represents exceptional performance in luxury goods, sits firmly in the middle ground for supplement brands, and signals serious problems in mobile gaming. We've pulled together honest 2026 benchmarks for the main sectors, alongside guidance on diagnosing underperformance.

Understanding These Benchmarks

ROAS figures shift considerably depending on your attribution window, whether you're using in-platform or blended measurement, your organic baseline, and the way you categorise brand activity. Think of the ranges below as guiding figures rather than gospel.

• In-platform ROAS (figures from Meta or Google) typically runs 30-80% higher than blended ROAS as tracked within your data warehouse.
• Your attribution window makes a real difference. 7-day click is the default for Meta now. Stack 28-day click against 7-day click and you'll get a distorted picture.
• Brand spend skews results upwards. Branded search delivers 8-15x ROAS and inflates your overall figure. Strip out branded activity and check your non-brand ROAS for a clearer read on actual performance.
• New customer value versus lifetime value. A first-purchase ROAS of 1.2x can be highly profitable for subscription businesses where customer lifetime value reaches £400.

E-commerce ROAS Across Sectors

• Clothing and fashion: Typical range 2.0-3.5x · Best performers 5.0x+
• Beauty and skincare: Typical range 2.5-4.0x · Best performers 6.0x+
• Health and nutritional supplements: Typical range 1.5-2.5x · Best performers 4.0x+
• Home and furniture: Typical range 2.5-4.5x · Best performers 7.0x or above
• Electronics: Typical range 3.0-5.0x · Best performers 8.0x or above
• Food / CPG: Typical range 1.8-3.0x · Best performers 4.5x or above
• Luxury (£500+ AOV): Typical range 3.0-6.0x · Best performers 12.0x or above

Lead-Gen ROAS / CPL Standards

When measuring lead-gen campaigns, monitor Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Lead-to-Revenue conversion rates. Often these matter more than ROAS.

• Insurance: CPL £25-£80 · Lead-to-policy 3-8%
• Mortgage: CPL £40-£120 · Lead-to-fund 2-5%
• Solar: CPL £80-£200 · Lead-to-install 3-7%
• Legal (personal injury): CPL £150-£400 · Lead-to-case 4-10%
• SaaS demo request: CPL £50-£200 · Lead-to-MQL 25-40%
• Local services: CPL £20-£80 · Lead-to-close 15-35%

SaaS / Subscription ROAS

First-purchase ROAS tells you little about SaaS health. What matters: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) versus Lifetime Value (LTV).

• Healthy SaaS: LTV/CAC ratio between 3.0 and 5.0x.
• Payback period: Less than 12 months for venture-backed; less than 6 months for bootstrapped.
• B2B SaaS demo CPL: £50-£300 is reasonable; exact cost depends on contract value.
• Consumer subscription first-purchase ROAS: 0.7-1.2x is acceptable provided your 60-day LTV reaches 2.5x or more on first purchase.
• Trial-to-paid conversion: 15-35% is the benchmark across SaaS segments.

Mobile App ROAS

• Casual games (D7 ROAS): Typical range 8-15% · Best performers hit 25%+
• Casual games (D30 ROAS): Typical range 25-45% · Best performers hit 70%+
• Hyper-casual games (D7 ROAS): Typical range 30-55% (aim for 100%+ to break even at D7)
• Subscription apps (D30 ROAS): Typical range 40-80% · Best performers hit 150%+
• Utility apps (D30 ROAS): Varies considerably, anything from 20-200% depending on your monetisation approach.

When Your ROAS Falls Short of Benchmark

1. Start by auditing your creative. Poor creative accounts for 60% of underperforming campaigns. Fresh creative typically outpaces fresh audiences.
2. Audit your landing page conversion rate. Landing pages converting below 2.5% (e-commerce) or 8% (lead generation) won't be saved by better creative alone.
3. Review attribution health. Without Meta CAPI or TikTok Events API properly set up, you're likely missing 30-50% of your actual conversions.
4. Review your audience strategy. Running cold and retargeting within one campaign causes retargeting to cannibalise your cold ROAS figures.
5. Examine LTV instead of fixating on ROAS alone. A 1.2x first-purchase ROAS is excellent for a 60-day LTV business but unacceptable for one-time-only products.
6. If everything checks out and ROAS remains weak, your unit economics may simply be the limiting factor. Certain products lack the margin to support paid acquisition profitably. Consider shifting focus to organic growth, retention, or a different product category.

Benchmarks serve as a sanity check, not as final judgment. Use them to establish whether you're in a realistic ballpark for your sector, then target improvements by working from the maths of your unit economics backward, not from what the platform reports.