What is Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)?

The CAC formula is straightforward: CAC = Total Sales & Marketing Spend / Number of New Customers Acquired. If you spent $20,000 on marketing in January and acquired 400 new customers, your CAC is $50. However, the simplicity of the formula belies the complexity of calculating it accurately. You need to decide which costs to include (just ad spend, or also salaries, tools, agency fees, content production?), how to attribute customers to specific channels, and how to handle customers who were influenced by multiple touchpoints before converting.

CAC varies dramatically by channel and by industry. Paid social acquisition on platforms like Meta and TikTok has become increasingly expensive, with CPMs rising steadily year over year. Google Shopping and search ads tend to have higher intent but also higher competition. Organic channels like SEO and content marketing have no direct per-click cost but require significant upfront investment in content creation and technical optimization. Email marketing has the lowest CAC for re-engaging existing audiences but does not technically acquire "new" customers.

The relationship between CAC and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the fundamental equation of e-commerce sustainability. A healthy business has a CLV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1, meaning each customer generates at least three times what it cost to acquire them. When CAC approaches or exceeds CLV, the business is essentially paying more to get customers than those customers will ever return in revenue. This is the trap many venture-funded DTC brands fell into during 2020-2022 when cheap capital subsidized unsustainable acquisition costs.

Reducing CAC does not always mean spending less on marketing. It can mean spending more effectively: improving ad creative, tightening audience targeting, optimizing landing pages for conversion, building organic acquisition channels, and leveraging existing customers for referrals and word-of-mouth. Improving on-site conversion rate is one of the most direct ways to lower CAC because the same ad spend generates more customers.