ROAD (Return on Adjusted Dollars)
ROAD measures the return of the marketing portfolio after applying SpendSignal’s recommended budget reallocations. It is a CFO-grade metric that answers: What happens to returns when we invest where incrementality is highest? It essentially forecasts the future efficiency of optimized spend.
The Short Version
ROAD predicts your future ROAS *after* you fix your budget allocation.
Visual Explanation
What Is Incremental ROAS?
Your ROAS might look great. That doesn’t mean it worked.
Prerequisites
The Forecasting Gap
CFOs don't just want to know what happened yesterday (ROAS). They want to know what will happen next quarter.
Most teams assume constant ROAS: 'If I double spend, I double revenue.' This is false due to diminishing returns. ROAD accounts for this saturation to give a realistic forecast.
How it works
Analyze marginal returns for every channel
Reallocate budget from low-performance to high-performance areas
Calculate the weighted average return of this new portfolio configuration
Common Misconceptions
Assuming ROAD = Current ROAS (ROAD is specifically a post-optimization forecast)
Ignoring Saturation (ROAD punishes over-spending in efficient channels)
Treating it as a guarantee (It is a probabilistic forecast, not a promise)
Deep Dive Concepts
Related Terms
Frequently Asked Questions
QWhy is ROAD often higher than my current ROAS?
Because it simulates moving money away from wasted areas to efficient areas. The act of optimization improves the blended return.
QIs ROAD conservative?
Yes. SpendSignal's ROAD calculation explicitly factors in diminishing returns to prevent over-optimistic scaling projections.