How We Think About ROAS, CAC, and Scaling Profitably

ROAS is just the surface. To scale profitably, we go deeper—into CAC payback, margin, and LTV.

Many founders obsess over Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), but ROAS alone doesn’t determine growth. A 4x ROAS sounds good—until you realize you’re spending $200 to acquire a customer who pays $50 upfront and never returns.

At Paid Media Consulting, we think about payback periods. How long does it take to recover Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)? Can we reinvest fast enough to sustain momentum without burning cash?

We look at contribution margin—not just revenue. If shipping and fulfillment eat half your sale, then your CAC tolerance has to adjust. Otherwise, you're scaling unprofitably.

And then there's LTV. Do your customers come back? Do they upgrade or churn? These behaviors drive real scale—because the more you earn per customer over time, the more you can spend to acquire them today.

In short: We don’t just scale ads. We scale healthy businesses. That starts by aligning spend with lifetime value, not just chasing short-term clicks.