Blog
Language
All articles
Strategies

ROAS vs. ROI: what's the difference between the metrics?

5 min read

ROAS vs. ROI: what's the difference between the metrics?

If you work with digital products or are thinking about entering the digital market, you've probably heard of ROI and ROAS. After all, these two metrics are essential for evaluating your campaigns' performance and making smarter decisions when it's time to scale your online business.

Strategies like the Diamond Funnel can also help you push these numbers even higher. But first, you need to understand what the acronyms mean in practice and how to use them correctly. Don't worry: if you keep reading, you'll learn:

What is ROI?

In short, ROI stands for return on investment. This metric shows how much profit you made relative to the amount invested in a given project or campaign.

How to calculate ROI

It may sound complicated, but the formula is simple: ROI = (profit - investment) ÷ investment x 100.

For example, imagine you invested R$5000.00 in a digital launch and made a profit of R$15000.00. In that case, your ROI would be:

(15,000 - 5,000) ÷ 5,000 x 100 = 200% ROI.

In other words, you earned three times what you invested.

And what is ROAS?

ROAS, on the other hand, stands for return on advertising spend.

Although ROAS is most commonly used in digital marketing, especially to measure the performance of online paid traffic (such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, YouTube Ads, etc.), the metric can be applied to any kind of advertising investment, including offline media, such as:

  • TV commercials;
  • Radio ads;
  • Print newspapers and magazines;
  • Billboards;
  • Flyers and printed materials.
cademi.com.br - diamond funnel roi and roas

What matters for ROAS is that you can measure how much was invested in a given campaign and how much revenue it generated directly.

Online, tracking results is more precise. Simply and in just a few clicks, you can find out how many people saw an ad, clicked, bought, and how much revenue came in, all in real time. That's why ROAS gained so much traction in digital marketing and became essential.

With offline media, attributing returns is harder. You have to use indirect methods, such as:

  • Channel-specific discount coupons;
  • Trackable QR codes;
  • Custom URLs;
  • Audience surveys: who hasn't answered the famous question “how did you hear about us?”

How to calculate ROAS

The formula for calculating ROAS is also simple and straightforward: ROAS = revenue generated from ads ÷ amount spent on ads.

If, for example, you invested R$2000.00 in ads to sell your online course and brought in R$8000.00, your ROAS was 4. That means for every real invested in media, you generated R$4.00 in revenue.

Why ROI and ROAS matter for your online business

For anyone working with digital products, knowing your ROI is essential to understand whether the operation is profitable. That applies to launches, paid traffic campaigns, and building a member area, as well as decisions about hiring staff or buying tools.

And still on paid traffic: if you use it to capture leads and sell digital products, ROAS helps you identify which campaigns are performing best. It's an indispensable metric for scaling sales, especially when you want to optimize spending and increase the return on every real invested.

How the Diamond Funnel increases ROI and ROAS

If you're struggling with poor ROI and ROAS, the diamond funnel is the best solution.

In short, it's a methodology exclusive to Cademí. It was designed specifically to boost ROI and ROAS for digital product creators by creating a highly personalized, efficient buyer journey that goes far beyond a simple sales funnel.

The Diamond Funnel starts from a powerful principle and uses an approach that sparks interest, drives genuine engagement, and attracts more qualified leads to your digital ecosystem.

From the moment that lead enters the journey, they start receiving targeted content, smart purchase prompts, and new offers connected to what they've already bought, all inside Cademí itself.

Can you imagine the result?

  • Less spending on paid traffic, since you keep selling without having to chase new leads all the time;
  • Higher average order value, with more products consumed by the same customer;
  • More control over the buyer journey, without relying on fragmented tools;
  • And, of course, much healthier ROAS and ROI, with consistent, scalable profit margins.

Diamond Funnel: the smartest way to scale your online business

In the digital market, where every click can be a new sales opportunity (or wasted budget), understanding and applying strategies that deliver strong ROI and ROAS is what separates ordinary businesses from the ones that truly grow consistently.

That's where the Diamond Funnel stands out as a real game changer.

If you want to see your ROI and ROAS climb month after month, it may be time to build a more profitable, smarter business with this methodology, which is exclusive to Cademí.

Keep reading

All articles