Definition
ROI, return on investment, is net profit from an activity divided by its cost, expressed as a percentage — an ROI of 50% means the activity returned its cost plus half again. In affiliate media buying it is the standard bottom-line measure of a campaign or a bundle: (revenue minus all costs) divided by spend.
Unlike ROAS, which looks only at revenue over ad spend, ROI is meant to be a true profit measure and so must include every cost.
The accuracy of an ROI figure depends entirely on what is counted as cost and as revenue, and over what period. A campaign ROI quoted the day it ends, counting only ad spend against gross conversions, is optimistic; the same campaign measured after clawbacks, account and creative costs, payment fees and the settled-not-pending payout is the real number.
In context
For an affiliate, disciplined ROI accounting means: revenue is settled, post-clawback commission actually received; costs include media spend, ad-account and proxy costs, creative production, any tools and subscriptions apportioned to the campaign, and the affiliate's own time if they are pricing labour; and the period is long enough that pending conversions and holdbacks have resolved. A bundle that shows 40% ROI on day 30 might be 22% once everything settles, which is still fine but changes scaling decisions.
ROI is used to rank where the next dollar of budget or hour of effort should go. A portfolio of bundles is sorted by ROI and by how much volume each can absorb before ROI decays; budget flows to the high-ROI bundles with headroom, and low-ROI bundles are cut or reworked.
The common mistakes are quoting gross ROI before clawbacks, ignoring fixed and overhead costs so campaign ROI looks better than business ROI, and treating a single campaign's ROI as stable when competition and creative fatigue erode it over time.
Worked example
An affiliate reports a bundle at 45% ROI after week one. By the time all conversions settle and clawbacks apply, it is 26%, and after account, proxy and creative costs, 19%.
That is still worth running, but the affiliate scales it more cautiously than the day-one number would have suggested.
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Browse the full iGaming & affiliate glossary — hundreds of EN/RU terms with examples.
← Back to glossary