CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
The average cost to acquire a new paying customer, the most important metric for evaluating marketing effectiveness
The fundamental metric for measuring marketing efficiency and determining whether campaigns can scale profitably.
Why It Matters
Without knowing CAC, you're relying on vanity metrics like impressions, clicks, or quests completions that don't indicate profitability. CAC enables proper ROI calculations and reveals whether your marketing investment is sustainable.
How to Calculate
Total marketing spend ÷ number of new customers acquired in a given period.
In web3, focus on users who complete valuable onchain actions (swaps, deposits, stakes), not just wallet connections or site visits. The blockchain's transparency makes CAC easier to calculate accurately than in traditional marketing.
Critical: Use incremental CAC based on incrementality testing, not just attributed CAC. Attribution shows correlation; incrementality proves causation.
Maximum Sustainable CAC
Determined by your unit economics: Max CAC = LTV × Target Margin
If lifetime value per user is $60 and you want 50% margin, max CAC is $30. In practice, aim for CAC = 30-50% of LTV to maintain healthy margins and buffer for churn, optimistic LTV estimates, and operational costs.