ROAS benchmarks 2026: how to know if your Google Ads agency is lying

The headline numbers

These are blended ROAS and CPL figures observed across audited French accounts in the €10K–100K monthly spend range, between Q4 2024 and Q1 2026. They include only accounts with proper Conversions API and Consent Mode v2 — accounts without recover too little signal to be benchmarked.

Ecommerce (B2C, France)

Apparel and fashion: blended ROAS 3.0× to 4.2×. Search High-Intent alone 6× to 12×. Average AOV €65–120. Conversion rate 1.4% to 2.6%.

Beauty and skincare: blended ROAS 3.8× to 5.5×. Search High-Intent 8× to 18×. Average AOV €45–85. Conversion rate 2.1% to 3.4%. Subscription LTV uplift adds 1.5–2× to lifetime ROAS.

Home goods and decor: blended ROAS 4.0× to 6.0×. Search High-Intent 10× to 22×. Average AOV €80–250. Conversion rate 1.8% to 2.8%. Strongly seasonal, December and June peaks.

Supplements and wellness: blended ROAS 4.5× to 7.0×. Search High-Intent 12× to 28×. Subscription model lifts blended ROAS by 2–3× over single-purchase view.

Premium and luxury: blended ROAS 2.0× to 3.5×. Lower volume, higher margin, longer consideration. Brand campaigns play a larger share than direct response.

B2B SaaS (France, mid-market)

Cost per qualified demo: €80 to €250 on Google Search, €150 to €400 on LinkedIn Ads. Cost per signup (PLG): €20 to €80 on Google. SQL conversion rate from Demo to SQL: 35–55%. SQL to closed-won: 12–25%. CAC payback target: under 18 months.

Meta Ads for B2B: €15 to €35 CPL on site-visitor retargeting audiences. Cold prospecting on Meta typically underperforms LinkedIn for sales-led pipelines but can work for product-led growth on developer-tools and design-tools categories.

Fintech and financial services (France)

Cost per funded account (consumer): €60 to €180. Cost per loan application start: €8 to €25. Cost per qualified lead (insurance, mortgage): €35 to €120. Heavy regulatory burden on ad copy (AMF, ACPR compliance) reduces creative testing speed by 2–3×.

Content media and podcasts (France)

Cost per email subscriber: €1.20 to €4.50. Cost per episode listen (paid podcast promotion): €0.30 to €1.20. Sponsorship revenue: heavily dependent on engaged audience size, not raw downloads.

The 47× outlier — context

The bahri.studio flagship FR account hit 47× peak ROAS on Search High-Intent. That is not a benchmark — it is a peak under specific conditions: extremely tight keyword targeting (3 ad groups, 9 keywords total), 18,387 clicks at €0.18 average CPC, AOV around €80, conversion rate 2.8%, full Conversions API match quality 9.1.

Peak ROAS on Search High-Intent in your account should sit at 3 to 5× your blended ROAS, not 10×. Anything above 10× peak typically means you are taking credit for branded traffic or returning customers. Do the branded vs non-branded split before celebrating.

The three checks that catch inflated reports

Check 1: Reported revenue vs Stripe or Shopify revenue

Pull Google Ads reported revenue for the last 30 days. Pull your actual paid revenue from Stripe or Shopify for the same window, filtered to traffic sources that touched paid (UTM contains cpc, paid, or gclid). Compare. Gap above 30% means either double-counting (events firing both client-side and server-side without dedup) or an attribution window stretched too wide (90-day click + view-through gives Google credit for organic conversions).

Check 2: Blended ROAS, not channel-only

Ask the agency for blended ROAS across ALL channels: Google, Meta, LinkedIn, organic, email, direct. The number that matters is total revenue divided by total ad spend, not Google's view of Google. If the agency reports 6× ROAS on Google but your blended is 1.8×, you have a hidden cannibalization problem (most often Performance Max eating organic).

Check 3: Branded vs non-branded split

Ask: "What share of paid revenue comes from queries containing the brand name?" If the answer is 60%+, the agency is taking credit for demand they did not create. Branded search has near-zero incremental contribution — those buyers would have converted from organic. Real attribution means pulling brand-only campaigns out of the ROAS calculation entirely.

Why benchmarks lie even when nobody is lying

Industry-average benchmarks (the kind agencies cite from WordStream, AgencyAnalytics, etc.) are unreliable for two reasons.

Sample contamination. Most published benchmarks aggregate from agency portfolios, which skews toward accounts with healthy budgets and clean implementations. Your account is more likely to be at the bottom quartile until proven otherwise.

Attribution model variance. One agency reports last-click, another reports data-driven, another reports Meta's view-through 7-day. Same account, three different ROAS numbers, all "true." Always specify the model when comparing.

Better than industry benchmarks: your account's own 90-day rolling baseline. You only care about whether this month is better than last month, holding strategy constant.

The two metrics that actually matter

Forget vanity ROAS. Two metrics determine whether Paid Media is creating value.

CAC payback period. How many months of customer revenue does it take to recover the acquisition cost? Under 12 months = healthy. 12–18 months = acceptable for high-LTV businesses. Above 18 months = the unit economics do not work, and no amount of bid optimization fixes it.

Incrementality. What share of conversions would not have happened without paid? Geo holdout tests, conversion lift studies on Meta and Google, MMM directional checks. The honest number is usually 40–70% of reported conversions, not 100%. Plan budget around the incremental number, not the reported number.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good ROAS in 2026 for French ecommerce?

Healthy blended ROAS for French ecommerce in 2026 sits between 3× and 6× depending on margin, AOV, and category. Apparel and fashion average 3.5×, beauty and skincare 4.2×, home goods 4.8×, supplements 5.5×, premium and luxury 2.5–3.5× (lower volume, higher margin). Search High-Intent campaigns alone can hit 8–15× when keyword targeting is tight. Sub-2× blended ROAS is unprofitable for most product businesses.

What is a normal CPL for B2B SaaS in France?

Mid-market B2B SaaS CPL in France ranges from €30 (broad sign-ups) to €150 (qualified demos). LinkedIn Ads CPL is 2 to 3× higher than Google Search at €100–250 for sales-ready demos. Google Search at €40–120 for qualified MQLs. Meta Ads underperforms B2B except for retargeting (€15–35 CPL on site-visitor audiences). Always optimize against pipeline-attributed revenue, not raw form fills, since lead quality varies by 10× across channels.

How do I know if my agency is reporting inflated numbers?

Three checks. First: compare Google Ads reported revenue to your actual Stripe or Shopify revenue for the same period — gap above 30% means attribution windows are inflated or events are double-counted. Second: ask for blended ROAS across ALL channels, not channel-only ROAS — agencies often hide the channel that is bleeding. Third: ask for branded vs non-branded breakdown — if 60%+ of revenue comes from branded search, the agency is taking credit for organic demand.