Cloud Ten / MER calculator
One number your platforms cannot inflate.
Calculate your marketing efficiency ratio and see how much revenue your platforms are double-counting. Total revenue divided by total spend, adjusted for margin.
If your platforms claim more revenue than the business made, the difference is double-counting.
What is marketing efficiency ratio?
MER is total revenue divided by total marketing spend. One number over the top of everything, using figures from your accounts rather than from an ad platform reporting on itself.
Why MER exists
Every channel claims the same conversion. Add up what Meta, Google and TikTok each say they produced and the total routinely exceeds what the company actually banked. MER cannot double-count.
What MER will not tell you
It cannot say which channel deserves credit, and it counts revenue that would have arrived anyway. Use it as the headline number and incrementality testing to find what advertising genuinely added.
Frequently asked
What is MER?
Marketing efficiency ratio: total company revenue divided by total marketing spend across every channel. Unlike platform ROAS it cannot double-count, because it uses one revenue figure and one spend figure.
How do I calculate MER?
Divide total revenue for the period by total advertising spend for the same period. 400,000 of revenue on 80,000 of spend is an MER of 5.0.
What is a good MER?
It depends on margin. A 70% margin brand can thrive at 3.0; a 25% margin brand needs 5.0 or more. Compare MER to your break-even, not to another company.
MER or ROAS?
Both. ROAS compares ads within a channel. MER tells you whether the whole marketing operation is working, which is the question a finance director asks.