Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost of acquiring a new customer, calculated by dividing total marketing and sales spend by the number of new customers gained over a given period.
SEO often produces a significantly lower long-term CAC compared to paid channels, since the cost of ranking a page doesn’t recur with each new customer the way a cost-per-click does — once a page ranks well, it can continue acquiring customers at a steadily declining effective cost over time.
Comparing CAC across channels (SEO, paid search, social ads) helps businesses make informed decisions about where to invest marketing budget for the best long-term return.
We help track organic CAC trends as part of our SEO Audits & Reporting service.