Marketing Metrics

Overview

Marketing metrics track your advertising spend, the costs of sample/promotional orders, and the efficiency of your marketing investment. These metrics help you understand whether your marketing activities are generating a positive return and how they impact your bottom line.

Metrics

Net Ad Spend

• What it shows: Your combined TikTok Ads cost after available ad credits and coupons for the selected period. This includes GMV Max and eligible standard Auction/PSA campaigns connected to the same shop.
• Formula: GMV Max campaign cost after available credits, plus standard Auction/PSA campaign spend.
• Where you see it: Dashboard, Profit & Loss, Sales & Profit
• Important notes: Net Ad Spend is subtracted from Operating Profit to calculate Net Profit. Expand the P&L row to see Gross Ad Spend and Ad Credits. TikTok Ads Manager normally shows gross spend, so compare it to Dashboardly's Gross Ad Spend. Sales & Profit and its CSV export use the explicit Net Ad Spend label. If the values show as zero, make sure TikTok Ads is connected in Settings.
• Example: If TikTok reports 77.89 of GMV Max spend and 78.61 of standard PSA spend for the same day, Dashboardly shows $156.50 of Gross Ad Spend before any GMV Max credits.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

• What it shows: How much revenue you earn for every dollar spent on advertising.
• Formula: TikTok-attributed Revenue / Net Ad Spend
• Where you see it: Dashboard
• Important notes: A ROAS of 5.0 means TikTok attributed 5.00 of revenue for every 1.00 of net ad spend. Higher is better. ROAS is empty when Net Ad Spend is zero. For GMV Max, TikTok-attributed revenue uses paid + organic blended attribution rather than an exact paid-only sales total.

TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales)

• What it shows: What percentage of your gross product sales goes to advertising.
• Formula: (Net Ad Spend / Gross Product Sales) x 100
• Where you see it: Dashboard
• Important notes: Lower is better. A TACoS of 10% means you spend 0.10 on ads for every 1.00 of gross product sales. The denominator includes both organic and ad-driven product sales, making TACoS a broader efficiency measure than ACoS.

ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales)

• What it shows: What percentage of TikTok-attributed revenue goes to advertising costs.
• Formula: (Net Ad Spend / TikTok-attributed Revenue) x 100
• Where you see it: Dashboard
• Important notes: Lower is better. ACoS focuses specifically on revenue driven by ads, while TACoS looks at total revenue. If ACoS is 25%, you spend 0.25 in ads for every 1.00 of ad-driven revenue.

Sample COGS

• What it shows: The cost of goods for sample or promotional orders (orders marked as samples in TikTok Shop).
• Formula: Unit Cost x Quantity for sample order items
• Where you see it: Profit & Loss (within Marketing Expenses breakdown)
• Important notes: Sample orders are orders you send out for free as promotional items or influencer samples. They generate no revenue but have real product costs. Replacement shipments and paid or refundable sample-program orders are not counted as free samples, even if TikTok also returns a sample-program flag for the order. Sample COGS is tracked separately from regular COGS so it does not distort your product profitability.

Sample Shipping / Sample Fees

• What it shows: The outbound shipping cost and any separately recognized platform fees for free sample orders.
• Formula: On Order date with Settlement basis, Dashboardly combines the sample order’s finalized TikTok shipping charges, credits, and platform fees once. If no finalized detail exists, applicable seller-configured shipping is used. On Statement date, Dashboardly uses your seller-fulfilled shipping cost period active for each SKU on the sample activity date; TikTok shipping and platform fees already included in the finalized settlement remain there.
• Where you see it: Profit & Loss (within Marketing Expenses breakdown)
• Important notes: The free product itself creates no sale. Its product cost and seller-fulfilled shipping stay on the sample activity date, while TikTok may still settle shipping charges or credits for that order. Dashboardly applies the effective shipping period for that SKU and falls back to its current Inventory shipping cost only when no matching period exists. With Statement date, TikTok shipping and platform fees remain in the finalized statement and are not deducted a second time as sample expenses. For example, a €3.30 finalized shipping charge and a €1.71 shipping credit create a net €1.59 cost. With €3.00 of sample COGS, Order date + Settlement shows €4.59 of Total Sample Costs.

Marketing Expenses

• What it shows: The total cost of your sample/promotional order program, combining product cost, shipping, and fees.
• Formula: Sample COGS + Sample Shipping + Sample Fees, using each component's signed value. Expenses are negative; a legitimate shipping or fee refund is positive and reduces the total expense. For Statement date, Sample Fees excludes amounts already included in finalized settlement.
• Where you see it: Profit & Loss
• Important notes: Marketing Expenses are subtracted from your Operating Profit. This is separate from Ad Spend, which is subtracted at the Net Profit level. If you are sending out many samples, this number helps you understand the true cost of that marketing strategy.

How These Metrics Connect

Marketing costs impact your profit at two different levels:

1. Marketing Expenses (sample costs) are subtracted in Operating Profit -- they are an operating cost of running your business
2. Ad Spend is subtracted in Net Profit -- it is treated as an investment cost separate from daily operations

The efficiency metrics (ROAS, TACoS, ACoS) help you evaluate whether your advertising investment is generating sufficient return.

Gross and Net Advertising Views

These are intentionally different views of the same campaign activity. Compare TikTok Ads Manager to the gross view. Use the net view to understand the advertising cost that Dashboardly deducts from profit.

For GMV Max, the source basis also matters: creative impressions and clicks are paid traffic, while revenue and orders are TikTok's paid + organic blended attribution. Dashboardly keeps these labels separate and does not calculate an exact organic-sales remainder from differently attributed totals.

Common Questions

Why does Net Ad Spend show as zero? You need to connect your TikTok Ads account in the Settings page. Ad spend data comes from a separate TikTok API (Ads API) and requires its own authorization. Shop sales data and ads data are imported independently.

Does Net Ad Spend include standard PSA campaigns? Yes. When the advertiser maps to one connected shop, Dashboardly combines eligible standard Auction/PSA spend with GMV Max spend for that shop and day. GMV Max credits remain visible separately because TikTok does not provide the same credit split for the standard Auction report.

What is the difference between Marketing Expenses and Net Ad Spend? Marketing Expenses cover the cost of sample/promotional orders (product cost + shipping + fees for free samples you send out). Net Ad Spend is TikTok campaign spend after ad credits. They are separate costs tracked at different levels of the profit calculation.

Why is TikTok Ads Manager spend higher than Dashboardly Net Ad Spend? TikTok Ads Manager normally shows gross spend. Dashboardly subtracts ad credits and coupons before deducting advertising from profit. Expand Net Ad Spend in P&L and compare TikTok's amount to the Gross Ad Spend child; the other child shows the credits that explain the difference.

Why is spend still visible when TikTok offers campaign credits or ROI protection? Gross Ad Spend records ad delivery. Net Ad Spend uses the available cost after credits for both Product and LIVE GMV Max campaigns; TikTok says these net-cost figures can take up to 11 hours to update. A target ROI or a paused campaign does not by itself make that cost zero. TikTok's ROI protection guide explains how to check a campaign's eligibility and credit history. If TikTok has confirmed a credit or a separate no-charge arrangement but your figures still differ, send Support the campaign name or ID, the affected dates, and that confirmation so we can reconcile the same campaign and period.

Why is ROAS different from what TikTok Ads Manager shows? Dashboardly's P&L, Dashboard, Sales & Profit, and Product profitability calculate Net ROAS as ad-attributed revenue divided by Net Ad Spend. The Marketing and Product Ads views intentionally follow TikTok Ads Manager's gross-spend basis. Ad credits can therefore make Net ROAS higher than the gross-spend ROAS in TikTok, Marketing, or Product Ads.

How are sample orders identified? TikTok marks sample-program orders in its API. Dashboardly additionally checks that the buyer-paid product subtotal is zero before treating an order as a free sample. A paid or refunded sample-program order remains a regular sale; only true free samples that were fulfilled are separated from revenue and included in Sample Costs. An unshipped cancelled request is excluded; a cancelled sample with shipment tracking retains its fulfillment cost. A replacement shipment is never included in Sample Costs, even if TikTok also carries the original sample-program flag on that replacement. Its additional product and seller-fulfilled shipping costs remain under regular COGS and shipping.

Should I worry about high Marketing Expenses? It depends on the return. If your sample program is driving significant affiliate sales and creator content, the expense may be worthwhile. Compare your Marketing Expenses against the Affiliate Sales revenue to evaluate the ROI of your sample strategy.

Why do sample shipping/fees look different across products? Sample COGS and per-unit shipping belong to the SKU actually sent as a sample, not to the variants with the most regular sales. An SKU with no sample activity should not receive a share of a sibling's sample costs. Order-level shipping and fees are shared across the products in that sample order, then across each product's sampled SKU quantities.

Why is sample shipping different from the current Inventory rate? Check the SKU's cost history for the sample date. A matching dated shipping cost takes precedence over the current Inventory value. In Order date + Accrual, an available TikTok shipping amount for that sample order takes precedence; when it is unavailable, applicable seller-configured shipping is used before a historical estimate. An explicit sample-order shipping override remains separate from the automatic FBS setting.

Sample Units are additive across child SKUs. Sample Orders count distinct orders: one order containing two SKUs appears in each SKU's order count but only once in the parent product's count.