The total cost of acquiring a customer through a specific marketing channel or campaign. CPA = Total Campaign Spend / Number of New Customers Acquired.
CPA is often used interchangeably with CAC but CPA is typically channel-specific and campaign-specific, while CAC is a blended brand-level metric. A campaign might have a $60 Meta Ads CPA while your blended CAC (including all channels) is $45. D2C brands should set maximum CPA thresholds by channel based on first-order contribution margin: if first-order CM is $40, a CPA above $35 means you are barely breaking even on acquisition.
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