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Vendor reportChannable, 2026

A cheap sale is not a profitable one: cost per sale and return on ad spend barely line up across EU ecommerce categories

Channel validation

IndustryCPA (EUR)CPC (EUR)CTR (%)Conversion Rate (%)ROAS (%)
Baby & Pets10.020.451.6%3.89%562%
Electronics & Tech20.270.571.29%2.48%536%
Fashion & Apparel14.740.381.79%2.52%562%
Food & Beverages13.560.481.4%3.05%474%
Health & Beauty11.310.541.38%4.79%420%
Home & Garden26.260.571.49%2.07%484%
Other18.230.441.48%2.36%447%
Sports & Leisure16.590.411.58%2.36%676%

P-Max median CPA, CPC, CTR, conversion rate and ROAS by industry (last 365 days)

Reader Note:
Health & Beauty buys the second-cheapest Performance Max sale at 11.31 EUR yet returns the least on spend, 420%, while Sports & Leisure pays 16.59 EUR and returns the most, 676%. Across the eight categories cost per sale runs 10.02 to 26.26 EUR, a 2.6-fold spread, and return on ad spend 420% to 676%, and the two orders barely correspond: the cheapest sales of all, Baby & Pets at 10.02 EUR, sit mid-table on return at 562%. What moves cost per sale is conversion rate rather than what a click costs. Health & Beauty and Home & Garden pay almost the same per click, 0.54 EUR against 0.57 EUR, but convert at 4.79% against 2.07%, and that is the whole of the gap between an 11.31 EUR sale and a 26.26 EUR one. Click-through rate meanwhile barely moves across the eight categories, staying inside 1.29-1.79%. Return on ad spend reflects order value as much as advertising efficiency, and Channable publishes no basket sizes, so the gap between these categories may be about what a sale is worth rather than how well the ads work.
Evidence:
Observed behaviour
Vendor interest:
Moderate — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:
Aggregated and anonymised Google Ads data from more than 10,000 e-commerce accounts across the EU and EEA, covering Shopping, Performance Max and Search campaigns. Selection and privacy rules are disclosed: only e-commerce merchants, only EU and EEA markets, a minimum of 10 independent merchants per segment with smaller segments hidden entirely, a cap preventing any single merchant from exceeding 25% of a segment’s cost or conversions, multi-account merchants counted as one participant, and accounts with unreliable conversion tracking excluded. All figures are medians rather than averages, reported in EUR. The number of merchants behind any individual segment is not published beyond the floor of ten, and no industry, size or basket-value mix is given. The dashboard is live and recalculates over a rolling 365 days; the values captured here cover the window ending 7 October 2026.

Good for

Comparing yourself against a similar segment, and choosing what to test next.

Not for

  • Saying that one thing caused another, or predicting what you would get.
  • This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
  • This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.
  • Nobody counted this directly — it's a calculation. The publisher worked it out itself, or took the ad platform's word for what its ads achieved.
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