Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

AKA:
Acquisition (ACQ), Cost-per-action (CPA)

What does it mean:

The cost takes to acquire 1 user to your service. Typically this would just factor paid media spend but can sometimes include other costs. 

The Formula:

Media spend / Users acquired = CAC

Use it in a sentence:

To colleagues:

“We need to optimize our media spend around the channels with lower CAC.”

To investors:

“Today our CAC is $50 and steady. We have been testing new channels that may bring this down to as little as $30.”

At a party:

“So I say to the guy in the bathroom at the marketing conference, excuse me but your zipper is down and your CAC is showing.”