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Ad Budget and Revenue Target Planner

Revenue targets are usually just a number somebody liked. This turns it into consequences: orders, sessions, budget — and whether your margin can carry it.

Enter the revenue target; the tool works backwards to the orders, sessions and spend it implies.

Target

Target

%

Share arriving without ads. Keep it low for a new brand.

Ad performance

Ad performance

%

Share of ad sessions that convert.

Margin

Margin

What's left per order before ads — take it from the unit economics calculator.

Monthly ad budget required

102.424

295 of ad cost per order against 369 of contribution — affordable.

Orders needed534
Expected organic187
Must come from ads347
Ad sessions neededat 2.2% conversion15.758
Cost per acquisition295

What that budget implies

ROAS2.54×
ACoS39.4%
TACoSSpend / total revenue25.6%
Left after ads94.376
TACoS is 26% — more than a quarter of revenue goes to ads. Acceptable at launch, not as a steady state.
This is a plan, not a promise: conversion and CPC move with campaign, season and competition. Run an optimistic and a pessimistic scenario for a range.

Your inputs stay in your browser — nothing is sent to a server.

How it's calculated

It runs backwards. Target ÷ average order value gives the orders needed. The organic share comes off, and the rest must come from ads. Orders ÷ conversion rate gives the sessions, and sessions × cost per click gives the budget.

The budget is then checked against contribution. If cost per acquisition exceeds what an order leaves you, the target isn't ambitious — it's arithmetically impossible. That distinction matters: ambitious targets are worked toward, impossible ones are not.

It also shows the ROAS, ACoS and TACoS the budget implies — the fastest way to check whether the plan sits inside what anyone in your category actually achieves.

The organic share is the strongest lever. The budget gap between hitting the same revenue at 20% organic versus 50% dwarfs any CPC optimisation.

What people most often forget

  • Conversion is a cheaper lever than CPC. Page, imagery and reviews cut the budget directly; CPC depends on competitors and isn't yours to control.
  • Seasonal cost rises are real. CPC climbs sharply in peak periods; planning November on an annual average runs the budget dry mid-month.
  • Budgets are managed per campaign, not in total. The overall figure can be right while one campaign eats it and returns nothing.
  • The organic halo isn't modelled here. Ad-driven sales lift rank and grow the organic share over time, which is why early months look more expensive than they are.
  • Enter contribution, not gross profit. Using gross profit makes the budget look affordable when it isn't.

Scope, sources and freshness

A planning tool, not a forecast: conversion and CPC are your assumptions and they move with campaign, season, category and competition. Nothing is pulled from an ad platform. Brand effects, the organic halo and lifetime value are out of scope. Keep every field in one currency.

Sources last reviewed: 16 August 2026

Frequently asked

How should I set my ad budget?

Work backwards from the target rather than taking a fixed share of revenue, then check the resulting cost per order against contribution. If it doesn't fit, change the target, not the budget.

What's a good TACoS?

Ten to fifteen percent is usually healthy for a mature product, and twenty-five to thirty can be a deliberate launch investment. The direction matters more than the level: a falling TACoS means organic is growing.

I don't know my conversion rate — what should I enter?

Take it from analytics for paid traffic. With no data, start pessimistic and run two scenarios — overestimating conversion understates the budget and misleads the whole plan.

How do I raise the organic share?

On a marketplace through rank and reviews; on your own store through SEO, email and repeat purchase. Both are slow and both compound — every point of organic makes the same revenue cheaper.

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