Maybe your data looks like this:
- All Other New Customers: $20.00 profit in the next year.
- Google Shopping New Customer: $12 profit in the next year.
- Paid Social (Facebook): $10 profit in the next year.
When you email me your questions, you’ll ask if you should avoid the Google Shopping / Paid Social new customer?
What you should avoid is wasting a lot of money marketing to those new customers. If you can earn a profit acquiring those customers, market to them in the “welcome window” … the first 90 days after acquiring the customer, then be gentile with your marketing dollars. Don’t waste them chasing a customer that is not interested.
I know, this is the point where you suggest it isn’t worth acquiring a customer that doesn’t want to have a relationship with you. Almost no customers want to have a relationship with any of us. The customer has a need at a point in time. The customer wants that need met.
The quality of a new customer matters in relation to how you manage the downstream relationship. If you can earn $25 profit acquiring the customer and then earn another $10 in the future (whereas a different new customer pays you back $25 / $20), just back off your downstream marketing efforts to that customer.
The average ecommerce brand doesn’t have this problem, FYI … they don’t have outbound marketing programs that cost $15/year. This is a decidedly old-school problem.
