Advertising metrics explained

What ad spend, ROAS, blended ROAS, MER, CPA, CPC, CTR, CPM, conversions and first order payback mean, and how each is worked out.

4 min readUpdated 7 October 2026

Advertising figures come from two places: the ad platforms' own reporting (spend, impressions, clicks and the conversions they claim) and your Shopify sales. Figures that mix the two, such as blended ROAS and MER, tell you how advertising performs against everything you sold.

Before you start

Connect Meta or Google Ads in Settings, Integrations.
Paid Media pages need a role that can view paid media and a plan that includes it (Growth or higher). Agency staff and brands covered by their agency's plan are never locked.
Spend is reported in each ad account's own currency and converted into the brand's reporting currency.

Spend and efficiency across all platforms

Figure	How it is worked out
Total ad spend	Spend across Meta and Google Ads, in the brand's currency.
Blended ROAS	Net sales plus shipping, divided by total ad spend. It counts every sale, whichever channel drove it.
MER %	Total ad spend divided by net sales plus shipping, times 100. Lower is more efficient. It is blended ROAS turned upside down.
Platform-claimed ROAS	Ad platform revenue divided by total ad spend: the platforms' own view.
Fabrik-attributed ROAS	Net sales on orders Fabrik gives to a paid channel (paid social, paid search, display), divided by total ad spend.
Ad platform revenue	The revenue Meta and Google each claim for their own ads, added together. Email and SMS revenue is not included.
Total purchases	Meta purchases plus Google conversions.
Cost per purchase	Total ad spend divided by total purchases.
Cost per order	Total ad spend divided by all orders in the period, whichever channel drove them.
New customer CPA	Total ad spend divided by new customers.
First order payback	The average first order's gross sales less its goods cost, divided by new customer CPA.

Each platform's own figures

Figure	How it is worked out
Spend	The spend the platform reports for the period.
Impressions and Clicks	As the platform reports them.
Purchases (Meta) and Conversions (Google)	What the platform attributes to its own ads, on its own attribution setting.
Revenue (Meta revenue, Google revenue)	The purchase or conversion value the platform attributes to its ads.
ROAS	The platform's revenue divided by its spend.
CPA	Spend divided by purchases or conversions.
CTR	Clicks divided by impressions, times 100.
CPM	Spend divided by impressions, times 1,000: the cost of a thousand impressions.
CPC	Spend divided by clicks. Shown in the campaign tables.

A worked example

Fellwick spends 10,000 in a month: 7,000 on Meta and 3,000 on Google. Net sales plus shipping is 40,000 and there were 200 new customers.

Blended ROAS: 40,000 divided by 10,000 = 4.00x
MER: 10,000 divided by 40,000 = 25%
New customer CPA: 10,000 divided by 200 = 50

Step by step: find the figures

Open the brand and choose Paid Media. The Overview shows the blended figures across every platform.
Choose Meta or Google for that platform's own figures, then its Campaigns (and Ad sets, Ads, Ad groups, Keywords or Search terms) for the tables, where CTR, CPM, CPC, CPA and ROAS appear by row.
Use the currency menu in the command bar to show amounts in the brand's currency or the ad account's own.

What you will see

New figures arrive through the day. Every day Fabrik also re-reads recent days (Meta 7 days, Google 14) because the platforms revise them.
Campaign tables show the change against the comparison period beside each figure.

Troubleshooting

Platform ROAS is far higher than blended ROAS. Each platform credits itself with sales on its own window, often including views. Blended ROAS cannot double count. See the article comparing the three kinds of ROAS.
No spend for a platform. Check the connection in Settings, Integrations. If a brand has left its agency, its ads must be connected with the brand's own account.

Frequently asked questions

Which platforms are included in total ad spend?

Meta and Google Ads, added together and converted into the brand's reporting currency.

Is a lower MER better?

Yes. MER is ad spend as a percentage of net sales plus shipping, so a lower MER means each unit of revenue cost less advertising. On Targets, an MER target counts as met when the actual is at or under the target.

Why does Meta report more purchases than I had orders?

Meta purchases are the purchases Meta attributes to its own ads, on Meta's own attribution setting, which can include people who saw an ad and bought later. Google does the same for its conversions. Two platforms can both claim the same order, so total purchases can be higher than your real orders.

What is a good first order payback?

At 1x or more, the profit on the average first order (sales less goods cost) pays for what it cost to acquire that customer. Below 1x, you are relying on repeat orders to make the customer pay back.

Why does spend for a recent day change after I looked at it?

Ad platforms revise recent figures. Fabrik re-reads the last 7 days from Meta and the last 14 days from Google every day, so recent spend and conversions settle after a few days.

Is CPA the same as new customer CPA?

No. Meta CPA and Google CPA divide each platform's spend by the purchases or conversions that platform claims. New customer CPA divides total ad spend by the new customers in your Shopify orders.