Return on Ad Spend equivalent for affiliate programs: Net Incremental Affiliate Revenue / Total Program Cost. Expressed as a multiplier (4.3× means every dollar spent on the affiliate program generates $4.30 in net incremental revenue). Preferred by finance teams who work with media ROAS benchmarks and can compare affiliate ROAS to paid search (target 4-6×), paid social (target 3-5×), and display (target 2-4×) for channel allocation decisions. Calculation requires the same incrementality adjustment as ROI: use net incremental revenue (not gross GMV, not gross revenue) in the numerator and fully-loaded costs in the denominator. Category benchmarks: electronics 3-5×; fashion/apparel 4-8×; health/wellness 5-10×; SaaS 6-20×.
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