From the results of a recently completed Secured Research survey of over 300 secured finance industry firms, barely more than 4% measured customer acquisition cost and less than 3% measured customer lifetime value. In contrast, our B2C finance cousins relentlessly manage both CAC and CLV, with over 80% of non-bank B2C financiers using these metrics as top 10 KPIs.

What’s going on? Why wouldn’t every business want to know with at least some certainty how much it costs to acquire a customer and, once acquired, the typical lifetime value they deliver to the bottom line? Anyone successfully selling their company will want to have these answers well-formed. Beyond the M&A implications, why do these metrics matter?