E-commerce benchmarks: what DTC growth actually costs

E-commerce benchmarks are reference values for the KPIs that run an online shop, such as customer acquisition cost, ROAS, conversion rate and average order value. They tell you whether your own numbers are normal for your market or need attention. The benchmarks on this page come from the connected ad accounts and real Shopify orders of a subset of adtribute customers, all direct-to-consumer brands, published monthly as medians.

It depends which ROAS you mean. On a blended basis, total revenue divided by total paid ad spend, the median DTC brand in our panel runs at 5.14 as of August 2026. Per channel, on independent attribution, the median Meta Ads ROAS is 1.15 on last touch and 1.88 on first touch, and the median non-brand Google Ads ROAS 2.72 on last touch and 4.53 on first touch. A ROAS is good when it clears your break-even ROAS, which is 1 divided by gross margin: 2.0 at a 50 percent margin, 1.67 at 60 percent.

The median DTC shop in our panel converts 2.31% of sessions into orders as of August 2026, and the top quarter of shops more than 4.27%. Ticket size drives the spread: by industry the median ranges from 1.49% in home & living to 3.56% in health & nutrition. Sessions are measured with first-party tracking, so the number can differ slightly from GA4.

The median DTC brand in our panel pays €40.84 per new customer as of August 2026, up 36% year over year, with the middle half of brands between €26.12 and €63.45. A good CAC is one the first order or the customer's lifetime value pays back. At the median basket of €78.25 and a 60 percent gross margin, a first order earns about €46.95 of gross profit, just enough to cover the median CAC.

For a DTC brand the core set is blended customer acquisition cost (CAC), the marketing efficiency ratio (MER), channel ROAS for Meta and Google, the media prices behind them (CPM, CPC, CTR), shop conversion rate, average order value (AOV), the share of orders from new customers and the 90-day repeat purchase rate. Read together they show where growth gets expensive: in the auction, at the shop, in the basket or in retention.

Across whole e-commerce accounts, the median Google Ads click-through rate in our panel is 1.69% as of August 2026, with the middle half of brands between 1.30% and 2.98%. That blends Search, Shopping, Performance Max and video, so Search campaigns on their own run well above it and Shopping and video below it.

The median link click-through rate on Meta is 1.26% as of August 2026, with the middle half of brands between 0.96% and 1.62%. Link CTR only counts clicks to the shop, so it runs well below the "CTR (all)" Meta shows by default, which also counts likes and profile clicks.

The median MER, total revenue divided by total paid ad spend, is 5.14 as of August 2026, with the middle half of brands between 3.82 and 7.97. In other words, the typical DTC brand spends about 19 percent of revenue on paid advertising.

Every value is aggregated from the connected ad accounts, first-party tracking and Shopify orders of a subset of adtribute customers, all direct-to-consumer brands. Each metric uses a balanced panel, the same brands in every month, so a line moves because the market moved and never because the panel changed. Only medians and quartile bands are published, never values of individual brands. The benchmarks update monthly, and you can cite any figure with a link to its page.