Marketing Automation ROI Calculator

What is marketing automation ROI?

Marketing automation ROI measures the return on investment from implementing automation tools in your marketing. Calculating this metric can help you to better understand the effectiveness of your budget allocation and determine the scope for improving your marketing efforts.

Relevant channels: Email marketing, SMS campaigns, social media automation, CRM tools.

How to use this marketing automation ROI calculator

To calculate your marketing automation ROI, enter the additional revenue from automation, cost savings, total platform cost, along with your implementation and operational costs. The tool will instantly calculate your marketing automation ROI, allowing you to understand the profitability of your marketing automation efforts.

Marketing automation ROI formula

An image showing marketing automation ROI formula

Marketing Automation ROI = [(Gain From Investment - Total Marketing Cost)/ Total Marketing Cost] x 100

The different variables in the above formula are calculated as follows:

Gain From Investment = Additional Revenue from Automation + Cost Savings from Automation

Total Marketing Cost = Platform Cost + Implementation Cost + Operational Cost

Understanding the marketing automation ROI result

The ideal marketing automation ROI will depend on various factors such as the automation tools used, total amount investment, your industry, scale of business etc. In general,

A high marketing automation ROI indicates that your automation efforts are leading to significant revenue and cost savings when compared to the expenses. This means that your automation strategies are successful.
A low marketing automation ROI indicates that you are getting relatively lower returns on your automation investment and indicates that you need to optimize your automation strategies. If your marketing automation ROI is negative, it indicates that your expenses outweigh the revenue generated by automation i.e., you are incurring a loss.

When to calculate marketing automation ROI

Some key situations where your must calculate your marketing automation ROI include:

After launching new marketing automation campaigns to evaluate their success
When considering scaling automation efforts or integrating new tools
To assess ongoing performance on a quarterly or annual basis
To justify investment in automation tools to stakeholders or executives
To benchmark against industry standards or competitor performance

How to calculate marketing automation ROI (with example)

Let’s say your additional revenue from automation is $60,000, cost savings are $15,000. Your platform cost is $10,000, implementation cost is $5,000, and operational cost is $5,000. In this case, your marketing automation ROI can be calculated as follows:

Marketing Automation ROI = [(Gain From Investment - Total Marketing Cost)/ Total Marketing Cost] x 100

Marketing Automation ROI = [(75,000 - 20,000) / 20,000] × 100 = 275%

Here,

Gain From Investment = 60,000 + 15,000 = $75,000

Total Marketing Cost = 10,000 + 5,000 + 5,000 = $20,000

In this example, your marketing automation ROI is 275%, indicating that your automation efforts generated almost three times the amount invested.

How to improve your marketing automation ROI

Optimize your workflows and reduce manual interventions
Personalize your automated messages based on user behavior and preferences
Implement lead scoring to improve the quality of leads sent to sales teams
Use A/B testing to refine automation strategies and increase conversions
Regularly review campaign performance metrics and adjust accordingly
Integrate with CRM and other tools to ensure smooth data flow and better tracking