Break Even ROAS for Truck Accessories in New Zealand: The Number to Beat

What Break-Even ROAS Actually Means

ROAS means revenue divided by advertising spend. If a campaign produces $1,000 in revenue from $250 of ads, its ROAS is 4.0x ($1,000 ÷ $250). That number describes the relationship between sales and ad spend; it does not show whether the sale made money. A break-even ROAS is the minimum ROAS at which revenue covers advertising plus the costs that rise when an order is sold.

For a New Zealand truck accessories store, those variable costs can include product cost, payment fees, shipping subsidies, expected refunds and other order-linked costs. Tax obligations also matter. Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake) states: “GST in New Zealand is charged at a rate of 15%.” If a customer pays $115 including GST, only $100 is revenue before other costs. Treating the full $115 as available to fund ads would make the break-even point look lower than it is. Use the break-even ROAS calculator to test the calculation with your own costs. ORVX can calculate realized revenue from delivered orders, excluding returned and cancelled orders, then show profitability rather than relying on reported sales alone (Source: Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake)).

Build the Calculation From Contribution Margin

Start with the contribution left from one delivered order before advertising. Use the selling price actually collected after discounts, then subtract landed product cost, payment fees, fulfilment, and any shipping subsidy. Include the expected cost of returns: refund value plus return freight or handling, allocated across orders using your own return rate. The result is the amount available to pay for advertising without making the order unprofitable.

Keep tax treatment consistent. Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake) states that GST in New Zealand is charged at 15%: GST guidance. If you are GST-registered and can claim input GST, calculate contribution using GST-exclusive revenue and costs. If not, use the amounts that genuinely leave or enter the business. Apply discounts before calculating revenue, and include shipping revenue when it offsets the carrier charge (Source: Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake)).

The separate worked example should be read in this order: adjusted revenue minus each variable cost equals contribution before ads; adjusted revenue divided by that contribution gives break-even ROAS. Replace every example input with your own order economics. You can check the arithmetic in the break-even ROAS calculator, but the result is only as reliable as the costs and return assumptions entered.

Read Platform Numbers Carefully

Platform-reported ROAS is useful for diagnosing ad delivery, not for deciding whether a truck-accessories campaign is profitable. Its result depends on the attribution window: a platform may credit an order after a click or view within its selected period, while another platform or Shopify record may assign that order differently. Conversions can also arrive later, so yesterday’s ROAS may change as delayed purchases are recorded.

Reconcile the platform figure with delivered store orders. Remove cancellations and returns, and check whether reported sales include GST, discounts and refunded amounts. GST in New Zealand is charged at 15% (Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake), GST). For illustration only, $115 tax-inclusive revenue is $100 before GST; against $25 of advertising, that is 4.0x rather than 4.6x. Then subtract product and fulfilment costs to test profit, not just attributed sales (Source: Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake)).

Use the platform number to investigate delivery changes such as falling click-through or conversion volume. Use realised revenue and profit records to scale, reduce or stop spend. ORVX connects Shopify orders with advertising accounts, calculates realised revenue from delivered orders only, and shows attributed ROAS separately from MER, gross profit, net profit and contribution after advertising. That gives the break-even ROAS calculator a cleaner profitability input than an unadjusted platform total.

New Customers and Repeat Customers Need Different Tests

A first-order break-even ROAS tests whether the initial delivered order leaves enough contribution to cover its advertising cost. That is the right test for a new-customer campaign when you need the first purchase to stand on its own. For illustration only, if a delivered order contributes $80 before advertising and costs $40 to acquire, the first-order ROAS test uses the $80 available from that order, not an assumed future order, to assess the campaign.

An acquisition view can include later purchases, but only when your own customer data shows that those purchases occur and what contribution they produce after product costs, discounts, refunds and fulfilment. A customer acquired for $40 who later generates $120 of verified contribution may justify a lower initial result, but that conclusion should come from observed cohorts, not a blanket lifetime-value assumption. ORVX shows customer-level profitability and repeat behaviour so you can compare those views.

Assess acquisition campaigns separately when their job is to create first-time customers. Assess repeat-customer campaigns on incremental contribution: revenue that would not have occurred without the campaign, rather than all orders from existing customers. Mixing both audiences can make a campaign appear efficient because repeat orders carry little acquisition cost, while hiding weak new-customer economics. Use the break-even ROAS calculator for the first-order test, then validate any longer-term view against your store’s completed customer history.

Set a Target for Truck Accessories Campaigns

Turn the break-even result into three operating thresholds, not one universal number. If your delivered-order break-even ROAS is 3.0x, that is the minimum viable return: below it, the campaign does not cover advertising from the first order. It is not automatically a scaling target. Set a higher prospecting target, such as 3.6x, to absorb daily volatility, attribution gaps and delayed conversions. Retargeting can use a different target because the audience already knows the store, while branded activity should be judged on incremental value rather than credited demand alone.

Use the same realized-revenue basis for every comparison. A campaign showing 3.4x in the platform may still fall below its target after cancellations, returns or incomplete attribution are accounted for. Review over a defined window and enough delivered orders to avoid pausing on one weak day. Reduce or pause spend when the measured result remains below the minimum viable return; hold or test when it is profitable but below the scale target; increase spend only when it clears the target consistently without worsening contribution. Put the assumptions into the break-even ROAS calculator and revisit them when costs, discounts or product mix change.