How to Improve ROAS During Black Friday 2025 (5 Tips for eCommerce)

‍

‍

What Is ROAS? and Why It’s Your Black Friday MVP Metric

‍

Black Friday is the Super Bowl (or Champions League final for all you UK folks!) of eCommerce and in 2025, it's expected to be bigger (and more expensive) than ever. With customer acquisition costs rising and ad platforms becoming increasingly competitive, performance marketers are under more pressure to prove ROI. That’s where ROAS - Return on Ad Spend - takes center stage.

‍

ROAS is the metric that shows how much revenue you generate for every dollar (or Pound or Euro) you spend on advertising. It’s a key performance indicator for eCommerce businesses, especially during high-stakes sales periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But here’s the catch: while most brands track ROAS at a campaign or channel level, that’s no longer good enough.

‍

If you want to win during Black Friday 2025, you’ll need to go beyond averages and surface-level metrics. In this post, we’ll cover five proven, data-led ways to improve your ROAS and turn your marketing spend into profit.

‍

‍

1. Track ROAS at the SKU Level to Stop Wasting Ad Spend

‍

Most brands analyze ROAS by campaign, platform, or ad group. It’s convenient, but it’s also dangerously broad.

‍

Imagine running a Google Shopping campaign that includes 50 products. Some of them are bestsellers, some are duds. When you look at campaign-level ROAS, it might look like you're doing fine. But what if 80% of the revenue came from just five products, and the rest are dragging your average down?

‍

This is why SKU-level ROAS is a game-changer.

‍

With Conjura, you can attribute ad spend down to the specific product level, not just the campaign or collection. That means you can identify the individual SKUs that are soaking up ad budget without converting, and reallocate spend to your top-performing products.

‍

And we don’t just mean “products that sold.” We mean products that actually received ad clicks, something most analytics platforms can’t track accurately. Conjura does this by analyzing product landing page traffic and matching it to ad spend across platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Google.

‍

Here’s an example for you:

‍

Let’s say Product A and Product B are both in the same campaign. Product B has a higher ROAS because it sells more units, but when you dive deeper, you see that Product A’s landing page drives more traffic and contributes to sales across your store. That’s value hidden in plain sight.

‍

SKU-level ROAS = fewer assumptions, smarter budget allocation, higher returns.

‍

Especially during Black Friday, when your budget is being burned fast.

‍

‍

2. Focus on Contribution Profit, Not Just Revenue ROAS

‍

A classic eCommerce mistake: assuming that a high ROAS means you’re profitable.

‍

Spoiler alert… it doesn’t.

‍

ROAS only tells you how much revenue you generated from your ad spend. It doesn’t account for your cost of goods sold (COGS), shipping costs, refunds, or ad platform fees. That’s why a better metric to track is Contribution Profit.

‍

Contribution Profit Formula:

‍

Net Revenue – COGS – Shipping – Refunds – Ad Spend – Amazon Fees – Other Variable Costs

‍

Conjura calculates Contribution Profit at the SKU level, so you can see which products are actually driving profit, not just revenue, after all direct costs are considered.

‍

During Black Friday, many brands slash prices to compete. But if your margins are already thin, heavy discounting combined with aggressive ad spend can destroy profitability even if ROAS looks good.

‍

Why this matters for ROAS:

‍

• Two products can have the same ROAS, but drastically different profit margins.
  
  
• Contribution Profit helps you decide which products are actually worth advertising.
  
  
• You can cut spend on high-ROAS, low-profit items and reinvest in high-margin products with slightly lower ROAS but better net returns.
  ‍

‍

Conjura Tip:

‍
Filter your product table to show products with high ROAS but low Contribution Margin. These are the red flags you need to fix before Black Friday.

‍

‍

3. Use Landing Page Revenue to Credit the Real MVPs

‍

Here’s another sneaky ROAS trap: judging a product’s performance purely on its own sales.

‍

Let’s break that down.

‍

If you run ads for Product X and customers land on that page, but end up buying Product Y or Z, traditional ROAS reporting gives all the credit to Y and Z. Product X looks like a loser, even though it drove the sale.

‍

That’s where Landing Page Revenue and Cross-Product Revenue come into play.

‍

With Conjura, you can see:

‍

• How much revenue was generated after a user landed on a specific product page
  
  
• Which products are traffic drivers vs. conversion closers
  
  
• The true impact of ad clicks, even if the clicked product isn’t the one purchased
  
  

‍

Let’s say Product X has a low ROAS on its own, but you discover that people who land on its page often end up buying bundles or related items. That’s value that would be missed in a basic ROAS model.

‍

Solution? Don’t cut ad spend for Product X, promote it more aggressively. It’s your silent sales driver.

‍

This insight helps you protect high-performing landing pages from getting incorrectly marked as underperforming. And during the madness of Black Friday, it’s these nuanced insights that can save thousands in wasted ad spend.

‍

‍

4. Double Down on Traffic That Converts

‍

Here’s the hard truth: not all traffic is good traffic.

‍

You could have the flashiest ads, the biggest discounts, and still end up with disappointing ROAS, because your site visitors simply weren’t ready to buy. Black Friday doesn’t just bring more shoppers. It brings more browsers, deal-hunters, and window-clickers.

‍

So how do you make sure your ad budget is attracting high-quality traffic? The kind that converts?

‍

Step 1: Track Product Conversion Rate and CTR by Channel

‍

With Conjura, you can monitor not just your conversion rate and click-through rate (CTR) at a campaign level, but also at the product level, segmented by channel.

‍

This allows you to:

‍

• Identify underperforming traffic sources that are generating clicks but not purchases
  
  
• Compare conversion rates across Google, Meta, TikTok, etc.
  
  
• Spot campaigns that drive volume but result in abandoned carts or bounces
  
  

‍

Step 2: Prune the Dead Weight

‍

Once you know which traffic sources are underperforming, don’t hesitate to:

‍

• Reduce bids or budgets for low-converting segments
  
  
• Exclude audiences that tend to bounce
  
  
• Pause campaigns with high spend and low contribution profit
  
  

‍

Step 3: Optimize Ad Creatives and Messaging

‍

Low conversion often comes from misaligned messaging. Are your ads over-promising and under-delivering? Is your landing page experience consistent with your ad creative? Test variations of headlines, product angles, and CTAs to better align ad intent with landing page experience, especially when time is limited during Black Friday week.

‍

‍

5. Target High-LTV Customers - They’re Worth More Than One Click

‍

One of the most overlooked ROAS tactics? Retention-based targeting.

‍

Yes, Black Friday is a prime time to acquire new customers, but the real value often lies in existing and high-LTV audiences.

‍

Let’s do the math:

‍

• If your average ROAS is 3x, and you spend $1,000, you’ll make $3,000 in revenue.
  
  
• But if you spend $1,000 targeting your top 20% of customers, with high Repeat Rate and LTV to CAC ratios, that $3,000 could turn into $5,000+ over the next 3–6 months.
  
  

Not bad, right?

‍

What Conjura shows you:

‍

• LTV Gross Revenue: How much revenue customers bring in 12 months post-acquisition
  
  
• Repeat Rate: % of customers who return to buy again
  
  
• CAC vs LTV: Compare customer acquisition cost to lifetime value at the cohort level
  
  
• New vs. Existing Revenue Split: See which products or campaigns are bringing in one-time buyers vs loyalists
  
  

‍

How to act on it:

‍

• Create Lookalike Audiences based on high-LTV customer cohorts
  
  
• Segment email/SMS offers for VIP customers with higher AOV and faster repurchase cycles
  
  
• Test retargeting ads focused on products bought by repeat customers
  
  

‍

What’s a Good ROAS for eCommerce?

‍

It depends on your margins…

‍

Let’s address the elephant in the marketing room: what is a "good" ROAS for ecommerce?

‍

Industry Averages:

‍

• 2–4x ROAS is often cited as “healthy” for eCommerce brands.
  
  
• But that number means nothing without context.
  
  

‍

Key Questions to Ask:

‍

• What are your average product margins?
  
  
• How high is your return/refund rate?
  
  
• What’s your average CAC?
  
  
• How many of your customers are one-and-done vs. repeat buyers?
  
  

‍

For example:

‍

• If you have a 60% profit margin, a 2x ROAS might be fine.
  
  
• But if your margin is only 30%, you’ll lose money on anything under 3.3x unless you’re counting on high LTV.
  
  

‍

This is why Conjura doesn’t stop at ROAS. It gives you:

• Contribution Profit to see the true bottom-line impact
  
  
• LTV to CAC Ratios to validate acquisition strategies
  
  
• SKU-level ROAS so you can spot which products are real performers
  
  

‍

Bringing It All Together with Conjura

‍

Improving ROAS isn’t about working harder; it’s about seeing your data in a way that gives you smarter, faster decisions. Especially during peak periods like Black Friday.

‍

Here's how Conjura helps brands take control:

‍

‍

If you’re gearing up for Black Friday 2025, ask yourself:

‍

Are you optimizing based on true product profitability?

‍
Do you know which products drive high-LTV customer acquisition?

‍
Can you spot low-performing SKUs before they eat your ad budget?

‍

If the answer isn’t a confident “yes” - it’s time to make your analytics work harder for you.

‍

With the addition of our new AI agent, Owly AI, it's now even easier than ever to instantly craft personalised strategies to improve your ROAS during busy sales periods like Black Friday. Owly AI, works like your own in-house data analyst that understands your performance data inside out. Ask Owly anything about your business and gain instant insights, build reports and develop impactful strategies to go and implement.

‍

Don’t Just Chase ROAS - Make It Profitable

‍

In the end, ROAS alone isn’t the goal - profitable growth is. By tracking product-level performance, analyzing true contribution profit, and targeting customers who bring long-term value, you’ll build a smarter, leaner ad strategy that performs during Black Friday and beyond. And if you need help turning insights into action, Conjura’s analytics platform does exactly that, pulling together all your eCommerce and marketing data into dashboards that actually make decisions easier.

‍

Ready to boost your ROAS this Black Friday?

‍

‍Book a Conjura demo and uncover the product, channel, and customer insights that drive real profit.

‍