Indian Ecommerce Ad Benchmarks: CAC, CPM, CPC and Shopping ROAS

How much does a new customer cost in each category?#

Expect about ₹700 of paid marketing per new customer, or between ₹381 and ₹1,038 depending on your category. These CY 2025 averages come from ProfitBox360 research, 2025 (client data and shopper surveys), as do the other benchmarks on this page.

CAC here is paid marketing spend divided by the number of new customers won.

CAC by category#

Food and beverages (₹381) and beauty (₹488) win customers most cheaply. Electronics and jewellery cost the most, at more than ₹900 per customer. Compare your CAC with your own category's row, not the ₹700 average. Then judge it against the gross profit a customer brings you over a year.

Why cost per order looks cheaper than CAC#

Cost per order divides your spend by every order, repeats included, so it comes out below CAC whenever some orders are repeats. Across Indian ecommerce, 67.5% of orders come from first-time customers. So about one order in three is a repeat.

Illustrative example: a food and beverages brand's month.

• It spends ₹2,70,000 on ads, all aimed at winning new customers
• It takes 1,000 orders, and 675 of them (67.5%, the Indian average share) come from first-time customers
• Each new customer places one order in the month, and the other 325 orders are repeats

Cost per order = ₹2,70,000 ÷ 1,000 orders = ₹270

CAC = ₹2,70,000 ÷ 675 new customers = ₹400

Against the ₹381 food and beverages benchmark, cost per order makes the brand look ₹111 cheaper than average. Its CAC is really ₹19 higher. Across 675 new customers, that's ₹12,825 a month more than the category average.

Why ad dashboards make new customers look cheaper#

Meta's cost per purchase and Google's cost per conversion include purchases by existing customers, so both understate what each new customer costs. In Indian D2C accounts, 26.5% of Meta-attributed orders come from existing customers. On Google Shopping, 68.5% of conversions come from new customers, so nearly a third come from people who have bought before.

Meta also reports about 25% more purchases than brands can match to store orders.

Illustrative example: a brand's Meta account for one month.

• Spend: ₹2,94,000
• Meta-reported purchases: 1,000, so cost per purchase is ₹294
• Existing customers make 265 of those purchases (26.5%, the Indian average share)
• Every purchase Meta reports matches a store order

Cost per new-customer purchase = ₹2,94,000 ÷ 735 = ₹400

About ₹77,910 of the month's spend (265 purchases at ₹294) is credited to people who had already bought. Where some Meta purchases don't match store orders, the cost per new customer is higher still.

See the new-customer split in Meta and Google#

• Meta Ads Manager: set up audience segments first. Open All tools, choose Advertising settings, then Audience segments, and pick custom audiences for Engaged audience and Existing customers. Then click Breakdown and choose Audience segments under By demographics. Sales campaign results split into new audience, engaged audience and existing customers. Meta says the feature may not be available to every account yet.
• Google Ads: in the Campaigns table, click Segment and add New vs. returning customers. The New customers and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) columns appear only when a campaign uses the new customer acquisition goal and optimises for purchases.

What should Meta ads cost per impression and click?#

Plan on about ₹210 per 1,000 impressions and ₹11.25 per link click. These are 2025 averages across Indian Meta ad accounts.

Use the link-click versions of these metrics in Ads Manager:

• CPM = amount spent ÷ impressions × 1,000
• CPC (cost per link click) = amount spent ÷ link clicks
• CTR (link click-through rate) = link clicks ÷ impressions

Clicks (all) also counts likes, comments, shares and clicks to your Page or profile. It shows more clicks than link clicks, so a cost per click built on it looks cheaper than it is.

Prices move over time: Meta CPM in India rose 36% between 2023 and 2025.

How the Meta figures fit together#

The four Meta benchmarks form one chain, from the price of an impression to the cost of a purchase.

1. At ₹210 per 1,000 impressions and a 1.9% link click-through rate, 1,000 impressions bring about 19 link clicks. That puts each click at about ₹11, in line with the ₹11.25 benchmark.
2. With 4.1% of link clicks becoming Meta-reported purchases, Meta counts about one purchase for every 24 link clicks.
3. So each Meta-reported purchase costs about ₹274 (₹11.25 ÷ 4.1%).
4. At a ₹1,000 average order, ₹1,000 ÷ ₹274 gives about 3.65x, the Meta-reported ROAS benchmark.

The ₹1,000 order blends COD orders at ₹850 (62.5% of orders) with prepaid orders at ₹1,250.

The 4.1% is Meta's own count, made with Meta's attribution. It includes the extra purchases Meta reports beyond matched store orders, so fewer than 4.1% of link clicks become store orders.

Find the step that costs you most#

Illustrative example: a fashion brand's Meta sales campaigns for one month.

• The brand gets 16 link clicks per 1,000 impressions, so CPC = ₹240 ÷ 16 = ₹15
• Cost per Meta-reported purchase = ₹15 ÷ 3% = ₹500
• It buys 500 Meta-reported purchases a month, for ₹2,50,000

Now fix one step at a time, leaving the other two as they are.

The higher CPM is the easiest gap to spot, but the biggest saving, ₹67,073 a month, comes from the site. Check the landing page, product page and checkout before chasing cheaper impressions.

Check a public benchmark before comparing#

Before you compare with a figure from a tracker or agency, check its period, currency, sample and whether it's a median or an average. A global median in US dollars can't be compared with a rupee average from Indian accounts.

What Google Shopping ROAS should you expect by category?#

Expect about 4.4x as Google reports it, from 3.25x in electronics to 5x in beauty and in food and beverages. At 4.4x, Google credits ₹4,40,000 of conversion value to every ₹1,00,000 of Shopping spend.

At 3.25x, an electronics brand gets ₹3,25,000 of reported value for every ₹1,00,000 spent. At 5x, a beauty brand gets ₹5,00,000. Across Search and Shopping together, Google Ads reports an average ROAS of 4.5x.

What Google counts in Shopping ROAS#

• The formula: the Conv. value / cost column divides total conversion value by the total cost of ad interactions.
• Which conversions: the Conversions column counts your primary conversion actions. All conv. adds secondary actions and view-through conversions.
• Attribution: data-driven attribution is the default for most conversion actions. It shares credit for a sale across ad interactions, based on your account's past data. So the 4.4x is Google's estimate of the sales its ads helped bring, not your store's revenue.
• Who buys: 68.5% of Google Shopping conversions come from new customers.

What Google clicks cost#

Expect about ₹23 per Shopping click and ₹31.50 per non-brand Search click.

Shopping ads charge per click, only when someone clicks through to your landing page. They use your Merchant Center product data, not keywords, to decide where to show.

For Search, check your own keywords before comparing with ₹31.50. Keyword Planner shows a Top of page bid (low range) and a Top of page bid (high range). These are roughly the 20th and 80th percentile bids advertisers have paid, for your location and Search Network settings. They're bids, not the CPC you'll pay.

Read CPC and ROAS as separate benchmarks. Each is an average across different accounts and products.

Compare your Shopping ROAS fairly#

1. Compare Shopping campaigns with this benchmark, and keep Performance Max separate. Performance Max also runs on YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps, so its ROAS is a different mix.
2. Use a full month that has closed. Google can report conversions up to 90 days after the click, dated to the ad impression.
3. Compare with your own category's row, not the 4.4x average.
4. Split new and returning customers with the New vs. returning customers segment.
5. Then judge the result against your break-even ROAS, which depends on your margin.

FAQ#

What counts as a link click in Meta Ads Manager?#

Meta records a link click when someone clicks through to a destination such as your website, for example by tapping Shop now. Clicks (all) also counts likes, comments, shares and clicks to your Page or profile. Compare your CPC (cost per link click) and link click-through rate with the ₹11.25 and 1.9% Indian benchmarks.

Is a low Meta CPM always a good sign?#

No. A cheap impression helps only if people click and then buy. The Indian average is about ₹210 per 1,000 Meta impressions, but a campaign can show a lower CPM and still cost more per purchase. Judge Meta ads on cost per new customer, and use CPM to explain why that cost has moved.

Does the CAC column in Google Ads match a brand's real CAC?#

No. Google Ads calculates CAC as the ad spend allocated to new customers divided by the unique new customers one campaign acquired. A brand's own CAC adds every other channel and acquisition cost, such as Meta ads, agency fees and creative. Use Google's column to compare campaigns, and your own figure for the business.

How does Google Ads decide whether a buyer is new?#

With its own auto-detection, Google Ads treats a buyer as new if they haven't bought in the last 540 days. It can also use your customer lists and your conversion tag. Some conversions show as Unknown because of iOS limits or privacy settings. These reports need the new customer acquisition goal switched on.

How often should a brand compare its ad costs with benchmarks?#

Once a month, using a month that has fully closed. The benchmarks here are 2025 averages across a whole year, so one month can sit above or below them for seasonal reasons. Also compare each month with the same month a year earlier, because Meta CPM in India rose 36% from 2023 to 2025.

Can Meta and Google be compared on cost per click?#

Not fairly. A Meta link click costs about ₹11.25 and comes from someone browsing Meta's apps, who may not have been shopping. A Google Shopping click costs about ₹23 and usually follows a product search. Compare the two platforms on cost per new customer, matched to store orders in the same way for both.