What ROAS is counting
Return on ad spend in the Google Ads interface is conversion value divided by cost, using the conversions Google believes it influenced inside your chosen settings. Change the conversion window, the primary conversion, or the value rules, and the same spend produces a different ROAS.
Finance does not care about that interface. Finance cares about money that cleared. When those two diverge, the account can look efficient while the business gets thinner.
Start by writing down which conversion action is primary, what value it carries, and whether that value is revenue, a proxy, or a lead score dressed as currency.
Brand queries inflate the story
Brand search often converts cheaply and gets generous credit. If brand and non-brand sit in the same blended ROAS target, cutting non-brand makes the number prettier and the new-customer engine weaker.
Split reporting. Judge prospecting on its own efficiency and volume. Judge brand on defence and capture. Blended ROAS is a summary, not a steering wheel.
Offline and CRM gaps
Lead gen accounts break here constantly. A form fill is not revenue. If offline conversions are imported late, duplicated, or valued at a flat fantasy number, Smart Bidding chases the fantasy.
Map the path: click to qualified opportunity to closed won. If you cannot show that path in a query, you are not ready to trust automated bids with a revenue target.
Duplicate tags and mirrored pixels create the opposite problem: ROAS looks heroic because two systems count the same sale.
Reconcile weekly, not quarterly
Once a week, compare platform conversion value to CRM or commerce revenue for the same period, with a written note on known lag. When the gap widens, pause scaling until you know why.
Useful questions: Did brand share jump? Did a value rule change? Did a tracking release double fire? Did discounting change average order value while bids still hunted last month’s numbers?
Healthy accounts argue with their own dashboards. Unhealthy ones screenshot ROAS and call it strategy.