Supplement: POAS, COGS and margin benchmarks
Supplement brands sell a first order and hope for a subscription. In Recharge's data from roughly 1,800 supplement brands, 86.6% of first-time subscribers reordered once, but only 33.8% reached a third order. On Google Ads, health and wellness brands had a median ROAS of 2.06 in Triple Whale's benchmarks, while their median cost per acquisition rose 13.36%. Subscription discounts, churn and Google's healthcare ad policies all sit between the ROAS a campaign reports and the profit it eventually returns. The pages below cover what a healthy return looks like, where assumed retention inflates ROAS, and how to scale spend on the subscribers who stay.
The questions, with sourced numbers
- What's a healthy POAS?
What POAS supplement and vitamin stores need on Google Ads when first orders are discounted to start a subscription, and how long payback can take.
2.06Median Google Ads ROAS - Why does optimising for ROAS overspend?
Why supplement stores overspend on ROAS: subscription discounts, churn and one-time buyers all look identical in the ROAS column. Where the gap forms.
17.3%Renewal cycles that end in churn - What counts as COGS?
Ingredients, contract manufacturing, batch testing, packaging and expiry: which supplement costs belong in COGS when measuring POAS on Google Ads.
61.4%COGS as a share of sales (one company) - How do you scale spend profitably?
How to scale Google Ads for a supplement brand on profit: separate subscription from one-time orders, set targets from payback, and stay inside ad policy.
86.6%First-time subscribers who reorder
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