Median profit-based ROI of successful advertising campaigns worldwide 2017-2024

In 2024, successful advertising campaigns' median profit-based return on investment (ROI) worldwide reached 2.5 U.S. dollars, meaning global advertisers profited, on average, 2.5 dollars for every dollar they spent on those strategies. Successful ad campaigns' median revenue-based ROI stood at 4.33 dollars that year.

ROI: expectation and reality

Within the realm of advertising and marketing, ROI measurement is often crucial to justify budget adjustments – not only to lower or raise it but also to determine in which channels to invest. A common formula entails subtracting organic sales growth and marketing costs from revenue growth and dividing it by the marketing costs. Still, multiple campaigns may require different approaches. During a 2024 survey, nearly one-third of global marketing decision-makers listed ROI measurement among the challenges for a data-driven strategy.

Reliable ROI measurement rules

A late 2022 worldwide study investigated marketers' confidence level in their ROI measurement across multiple ad channels. Social media emerged as number one: Over 60 percent of respondents said they felt either extremely or very confident calculating their ROI. In the last quarter of 2024, another survey asked which social media platforms had the highest ROI according to global marketers. Facebook and Instagram – both controlled by Meta – led that ranking, named by 28 and 22 percent of the interviewees, respectively.