Lifetime Value: Acquisition Costs Across Different Media

Front End vs. Back End

Acquisition cost, or front-end expense, is the investment it takes to turn a prospect into a customer. Back-end profits are earned by making repeat sales to existing customers.

For each medium, database marketers need to link the front-end and back-end strategies. For a marketer that has treated all buyers in the same manner (for example, all buyers are catalog buyers) this can be a difficult change. This is especially true when there is no sound method to judge LTV.