Performance Marketing
What is Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)?
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is the average amount spent to acquire one customer or conversion through a given channel or campaign, calculated as total spend divided by acquisitions.
Who Is It For?
CPA is tracked by paid media and performance marketing teams, and reviewed by RevOps and finance when evaluating channel efficiency.
How Is It Used?
CPA is used to judge whether a channel or campaign is acquiring customers efficiently relative to the revenue those customers generate.
- Calculate CPA per channel to compare efficiency across paid, organic, and outbound
- Compare CPA against Average Contract Value to judge whether the spend makes sense
- Watch CPA trends over time as a channel scales, since efficiency often shifts with volume
- Segment CPA by lead quality, not just raw conversion count
Related Terms & Concepts
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the difference between CPA and CAC?
CPA usually refers to the cost of one specific acquisition event within a channel or campaign (a lead, a sign-up); CAC is the broader, fully-loaded cost of acquiring a paying customer across all sales and marketing spend.
How do you know if a CPA is too high?
Compare it against the revenue a typical customer generates — a CPA that takes many months of revenue to recoup is a warning sign, especially for lower-ACV products.
