What is customer lifetime value?

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a metric that estimates how much value (usually revenue or profit margin) any given customer will bring to your business over the course of the total time they interact with your brand—past, present, and future.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the single most important metric for you to know because it demonstrates who your best customers are and what they have in common. Using this metric effectively revolutionizes the approach to both acquisition and retention marketing, separating true industry disruptors from the rest of the pack.

Think about it—how would your marketing, sales, and product strategies and budget allocations change if you could predict which audiences will remain loyal to your brand for years to come? And which will visit your site and make just one highly-discounted purchase before falling off the radar completely? What if you knew that some customers you are already planning to spend lots of your budget to retain actually aren’t likely to bring lots of value to your organization anyway?