CPO – Cost per Order

Definition

CPO (Cost per Order) describes the average advertising cost incurred for a single order. In e-commerce, CPO is the most important cost metric as it can be directly compared with revenue per order to determine profitability.

Formula

Example

An online shop invests €3,000 in Meta Ads and achieves 150 orders. The CPO is €3,000 / 150 = €20. With an average order value of €85 and a margin of 40% (€34), the contribution margin after deducting CPO is €14 per order.

Optimization Tips

Optimize your checkout process to reduce cart abandonment. Use upselling and cross-selling to increase AOV. Deploy retargeting campaigns for cart abandoners. Analyze which products achieve the lowest CPOs.