How to Calculate ROAS for Retail Media in Consumer Healthcare Products

Why standard formulas aren't enough—and how to build a measurement framework your CFO will approve.

Introduction: pharmaceutical retail media in the US, a market in full acceleration

Retail media has become the most dynamic growth driver in pharmaceutical e-commerce in the United States. On CVS Pharmacy, Amazon Pharmacy, and Walgreens platforms, advertising investments from consumer healthcare (CHC) brands are growing significantly each year. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and programmatic display formats are multiplying, and players like Criteo Commerce Media are now powering the media ecosystems of HealthWarehouse and other online pharmacies.

But this acceleration poses a concrete problem for performance marketing teams and e-commerce managers: how do you truly measure the return on investment of these expenditures?

The answer seems obvious: calculate the ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). Divide the revenue generated by the amount invested in advertising. And yet, in the pharmaceutical sector, this simplistic formula misleads more often than it guides. Purchase cycles are longer, halo effects on the brand are real, customer journeys cross multiple retailers, and regulatory constraints from the FDA and FTC add layers of additional complexity.

This article proposes a comprehensive methodological framework for calculating, interpreting, and leveraging retail media ROAS in the specific context of CHC products in the United States. It addresses performance marketing teams, finance-oriented e-commerce managers, and all those who must justify their media investments to demanding financial leadership.