Step 3 of 5 on the chain

Profit on ad spend (POAS)

Also called POAS, Margin-based bidding.

Bidding on the profit a lead brings rather than its revenue. Each value is multiplied by the share of a deal you keep, so the platform chases the sales that pay, not only the ones that are big.

Why it matters

Two deals of the same size are not worth the same when one keeps sixty per cent and the other fifteen. Told only revenue, Smart Bidding treats them alike and will happily buy the big, thin one.

What goes wrong

The catch is the target. A Target ROAS set on revenue is wrong once the values are profit: the same campaign now returns a smaller number, and a target left unchanged asks for a return it can never reach, so the campaign stops spending. The target has to be multiplied by the same share.

It only helps when margins really differ between kinds of lead. With one margin across everything it changes every value by the same factor, and the bidding stays the same.

What this product does about it

Send profit instead, under the value model, multiplies every value by the share you enter and says what that means for your target.

How to check it on your own account

If your products or services keep very different shares of the sale, it is worth it. If they all keep about the same, revenue is fine.

Next to this

How it applies in your trade

The same method, worked through for each kind of business: what a lead is worth, what is known on arrival and what to prepare.

The rest of this step

Measure this on your own data

The diagnostic reads a CRM export in your browser and reports your volume, your match rate and the spread between your leads against the thresholds in this glossary. Nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.

Run the diagnostic All terms