Most Marketing KPIs Don’t Matter: CAC, LTV & Unit Economics

Most marketers spend far too much time obsessing over CTR, CPC, CPM and other platform-level metrics. But if you want to understand whether your marketing is actually driving profitable growth, the numbers that really matter sit deeper in the business: customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (LTV), payback period, profit margins and your overall unit economics. In this episode, Tom and Jane break down the marketing KPIs founders and marketing teams should actually pay attention to, why seemingly “good” advertising metrics can be misleading, and how to connect your marketing performance back to the economics of the business. We cover: • Why CAC and LTV matter more than most marketing KPIs • What unit economics actually means in practical terms • Why a lower CPC or CPM isn't necessarily a good thing • How CAC can become your North Star metric • How to think about LTV windows and CAC payback periods • Why acquisition costs naturally rise as you scale • How seasonality can create surprisingly cheap opportunities to acquire customers • Using offers, retention and customer experience to increase LTV • Why website changes and ad platform performance are interconnected • Testing, attribution and the growing importance of incrementality in Meta Ads • The potential trade-off when feeding advertising platforms more customer and value data