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Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend required to acquire one new customer, calculated by dividing acquisition costs by the number of customers gained. Lowering CAC is a primary reason businesses invest in first-party data and suppression.

CAC is a core efficiency metric: rising acquisition costs squeeze margins, especially as paid channels saturate and tracking signals degrade.

First-party data lowers CAC by enabling suppression of existing customers, sharper lookalike targeting, and better measurement, so every acquisition dollar works harder.

Related terms

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)Suppression ListLookalike Audience

Go deeper

11 min readThe ROI of First-Party Data: How to Measure What It's WorthFirst-party data pays back through lower acquisition costs, higher retention, and better targeting. Here is where the ROI comes from, how to measure it, and how to build the business case.

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