Pet Products: POAS, COGS and margin benchmarks
US pet spending reached $158 billion in 2025, and $68.3 billion of it went on food and treats, according to the American Pet Products Association. A growing share is bought online. Pet stores sell two different businesses under one brand: heavy, repeat-purchase consumables and lighter hard goods such as toys and beds. The same ROAS means very different profit depending on which one a campaign sells, and on whether its customers come back. The pages below cover what a healthy return looks like, where ROAS misleads, what belongs in a pet store's cost of goods, and how to scale spend on both halves of the business.
The questions, with sourced numbers
- What's a healthy POAS?
What POAS pet products stores need on Google Ads when heavy food and litter orders sit beside higher-margin toys and accessories in one account.
2.88Median Google Ads ROAS - Why does optimising for ROAS overspend?
Why pet stores overspend on ROAS: heavy consumables post strong ROAS on thin margin, while free-shipping competitors set customer expectations.
$68.3B of $158BUS spend on pet food & treats - What counts as COGS?
Product cost, weight-based shipping, treat expiry and packaging: which pet product costs belong in COGS when measuring POAS on Google Ads.
70.2%COGS as a share of sales (one company) - How do you scale spend profitably?
How to scale Google Ads for a pet store on profit: split consumables from hard goods, price autoship acquisition, and cut orders that ship at a loss.
An estimated 41%US pet product sales made online
Background reading
- What Is POAS (Profit on Ad Spend)? Full Definition
- ROAS vs POAS: Which Metric Should You Actually Use?
- ROAS vs POAS: The Metric Killing Your Shopify Profits
- How to Calculate Break-Even ROAS (With a Worked Example)
- Shopify COGS Setup: How to Track Cost of Goods Sold
- Google Ads for Shopify: The Complete Profitability Guide
- Wasted Ad Spend in Google Ads: How to Find and Fix It