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What is TACoS?

Also known as Total Advertising Cost of Sale

TACoS is advertising spend divided by total revenue — organic and ad-driven combined — rather than by ad-attributed revenue alone. It shows whether advertising is growing the business overall.

Why it matters

ACoS answers whether an individual ad-driven sale was profitable. TACoS answers whether the advertising budget is building something. They can move in opposite directions, and that divergence is the useful signal.

A healthy pattern is ACoS near break-even during launch, falling as organic rank builds, with TACoS trending down across both. That means ads are buying rank that then produces free sales.

Rising TACoS alongside flat ACoS usually means advertising is cannibalising sales you would have won organically — you are paying for traffic that was already yours.

Related

Terms that come up alongside this one

ACoS
ACoS is advertising spend divided by the revenue that advertising generated, expressed as a percentage. An ACoS of 25% means you spent $25 on ads for every $100 of ad-attributed sales.
Break-even ACoS
Break-even ACoS is the advertising cost of sale at which an ad-driven sale produces zero profit. It is mathematically identical to your gross margin percentage.
Organic rank
Organic rank is a listing's unpaid position in marketplace search results for a given query. It is driven mainly by relevance and sales velocity, not by advertising spend directly.

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