Marketing & Acronyms

CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

Quick Definition

CPA is the total cost to acquire one customer or qualified lead — total marketing spend divided by conversions.

In context

The most important comparison metric across channels. SEO CPA declines over time as fixed investments amortize across growing traffic; paid CPA is roughly stable.

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Related terms

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

CAC is the total cost to acquire a paying customer, including marketing, sales, and overhead.

LTV (Lifetime Value)

LTV is the total revenue a customer generates over the lifetime of their relationship with your business.

MarTech (Marketing Technology)

MarTech is the broad category of marketing technology — analytics, automation, CRM, advertising, content, attribution.

ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)

ARR is the annualized version of MRR, commonly used in B2B SaaS for valuation and reporting.

CES (Customer Effort Score)

CES measures how much effort customers had to expend to complete a task — easier experiences correlate with stronger loyalty.

MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)

An MQL is a lead that marketing has determined meets criteria suggesting they're worth passing to sales.

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