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Which marketing channel has the best ROI?

True ROI: revenue divided by all costs, not just ad spend. Ranked monthly.

Business insightMarketingMonthly on the 5th. Quarterly deep-dive on attribution model.

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Free to startNo credit card requiredUpdated Apr 2026

You'd think this needs a finance + marketing analyst pairing — Astra runs the math monthly with all hidden costs and tells you exactly which to scale.

The short answer

Astra calculates true per-channel ROI monthly using a 'fully loaded cost / attributed revenue' formula. For each channel (organic search, paid Google, paid LinkedIn, content marketing, email, podcast sponsorships, affiliate, etc.) she sums: direct spend (ad platforms, sponsorships) + allocated payroll (% of marketing team time on that channel from time tracking or self-report) + allocated tools (Ahrefs for SEO, ConvertKit for email) + allocated agency/contractor spend. Then she pulls 12-month attributed revenue from Stripe (using the right attribution model for your sales cycle) and computes ROI as revenue / cost. Channels ranked monthly with trend. The Lark report shows top 5 channels by ROI, biggest mover, recommended reallocation. Most teams find their highest-ROI channel by 5-10x is also the one they're under-investing in — and their flashiest channel (LinkedIn ads, podcast sponsorships) has the worst ROI.

How Astra actually does it

1
Sum fully loaded channel costs
Direct spend (ad platforms) + marketing payroll allocation (per channel time %) + tools (Ahrefs/ConvertKit/etc.) + agency/contractor billings. Per channel for 12mo trailing.
BrexGustoQuickBooksGoogle AdsLinkedInMeta
2
Pull attributed revenue per channel
Stripe paid signups attributed to channel via GA4 + PostHog + post-signup self-report. Sum 12mo gross revenue per channel.
StripeGA4PostHog
3
Compute ROI = revenue / cost
Per channel: ROI ratio + payback period (cost / monthly recurring revenue from channel). Rank descending.
4
Track month-over-month trend
Per channel ROI trend last 6 months. Flag biggest mover (improving or declining 30%+). Trend matters more than absolute ROI for direction-setting.
5
Deliver report + reallocation
Monthly Lark: top 5 channels by ROI, biggest movers, recommended reallocation (cut $X from worst, redirect to best with scaling room).
Lark

What it looks like in chat

Which marketing channel has the best ROI?

Astra

Last 12 months, fully loaded: **By ROI ratio:** 1. **Organic SEO: 14.2x** ($28K cost → $397K revenue). Cost = Ahrefs + 60% of content writer salary. **Massively under-invested.** ✅✅✅ 2. **Email/lifecycle: 8.7x** ($14K cost → $122K revenue). Cost = Mailchimp + 30% of growth eng salary. 3. **Affiliate: 4.1x** ($24K cost → $98K revenue). Solid but flat 6mo. 4. **LinkedIn organic: 3.8x** ($86K cost → $327K revenue). Cost dominated by your CMO time. Hard to scale further. 5. **Google Ads: 2.2x** ($72K cost → $158K revenue). Healthy but plateaued. 6. **LinkedIn ads: 1.4x** ($48K cost → $67K revenue). Below 3x = needs intervention. 7. **Podcast sponsorships: 0.6x** ($24K cost → $14K revenue) ❌ losing money. **Biggest movers:** - Organic SEO: 9.2x → 14.2x (your /alternatives pages compounding) ✅ - LinkedIn ads: 2.4x → 1.4x (CPMs up 40% YoY) ❌ **Reallocation (one move):** Cut podcast sponsorships ($24K/yr) → redirect to **2 more content writers + Ahrefs Enterprise** = scale organic from 14.2x to projected 18-20x with $200K+ extra annual revenue. Want me to draft the podcast sponsor cancellations and the content hire spec?

What you get back

Monthly Lark report: top 5 channels by ROI, biggest MoM movers, recommended reallocation move with projected revenue impact.

Cadence

Monthly on the 5th. Quarterly deep-dive on attribution model.

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Frequently asked questions

How do you allocate payroll to channels?

Default: ask each marketer their % time per channel quarterly (5-min self-report). For more rigor she can use Toggl/Harvest time tracking integration. Even rough allocation (CMO = 40% LinkedIn / 30% strategy / 30% other) gives you 80% of the insight; perfect tracking adds the last 20%.

Why use 12-month revenue instead of 30-day?

30-day understates ROI for compounding channels (SEO, content, affiliate). A blog post written today drives revenue for 24+ months. 12-month trailing captures most of the long-tail. For pure performance channels (paid ads) 30-day and 12-month converge — the difference exposes which channels actually compound.

What's a 'good' ROI ratio?

3x is the typical break-even bar (accounts for gross margin + opportunity cost). 5-10x is healthy. 10x+ means under-invested and you should scale. Below 2x = losing money. Astra benchmarks against your category and tells you which absolute level to target.

Can she model what happens if I scale the best channel 5x?

Yes — she'll project revenue impact assuming linear scaling for the first 50%, decreasing returns after that. She'll also flag scaling constraints (organic SEO is content-team-bound; affiliate is partnership-bound). The projection includes a confidence interval based on historical scaling curves.

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