ROAS Sanity
Your Google Ads performance report contains conversion actions with implausible ROAS values: either extremely high (50x+) or near-zero with meaningful conversion volume. Extreme ROAS is almost always a broken value pipeline rather than genuine performance: cents passed as dollars, fixed values on dynamic revenue, currency mismatches, or missing value pass-through.
Why It Matters
Extreme ROAS values usually mean the value pipeline is broken, not that performance is extraordinary. Common causes include currency mismatches, cents passed as dollars, fixed values on dynamic revenue, or missing value pass-through. If ignored, budget and bidding decisions are made from fake profitability.
How To Fix It
Audit the flagged conversion actions from report row back to Google Ads settings and the GTM value parameter. Confirm value units, currency, and whether the value is dynamic or fixed. Compare a sample order total in your backend with the value recorded in Google Ads for the same time window.
Example
Suspicious: 26 purchases, conversion value / cost = 87.4x
Likely issue: value is passed in cents or duplicatedOne or more Google Ads conversion actions in this report show ROAS values inconsistent with reasonable business performance (either extreme highs or near-zero with significant conversion volume). Per Google Ads value-based bidding documentation, conversion value must be passed in the account currency as a numeric, transaction-specific value for ROAS reporting and tROAS bidding to be meaningful. Implausible ROAS almost always indicates a broken value pipeline: cents passed as dollars, a fixed value overriding dynamic revenue, a currency mismatch between site and account, or no value parameter at all. The optimisation risk is budget decisions made from fake profitability. Fix: trace each flagged action from report row back to Google Ads settings and the GTM value parameter, confirm units and currency, and reconcile one sample order between the backend and the conversion row before trusting tROAS or value-based bidding. Source: support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7501826.
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References
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