Marketing dashboards can make event marketing look more complicated than it really is.
There are dozens of numbers to watch, but three of them answer some of the most important business questions: CAC, ROAS and LTV.
They look at the same customer journey from different angles.
CAC asks how much it costs to acquire a new customer.
ROAS asks how much revenue advertising generates compared with its cost.
LTV asks how much value a customer can generate over the entire relationship.
The real insight comes from understanding how these three numbers connect.
CAC: What Does It Cost to Win a Customer?
CAC stands for Customer Acquisition Cost.
At its simplest:
CAC = Customer acquisition costs ÷ New customers acquired
Imagine you spend £6,000 on activities designed to acquire new customers and gain 300 new customers.
Your CAC is £20.
That means you spent an average of £20 to acquire each new customer.
For an event organiser, this is more meaningful than asking how much a click costs. A £0.50 click is irrelevant if the person never buys a ticket.
CAC focuses on the outcome that matters: a new customer relationship.
But there is an important detail.
Be consistent about what you include in acquisition costs and how you define a new customer. Advertising spend alone may be appropriate for a narrow campaign comparison, while a broader business-level CAC may include other directly attributable marketing or sales costs.
And do not confuse a ticket transaction with a customer. One person may buy tickets several times.
ROAS: What Did the Advertising Generate?
ROAS means Return on Ad Spend.
The formula is:
ROAS = Attributed revenue ÷ Advertising spend
Spend £5,000 on advertising and receive £20,000 of revenue attributed to those campaigns, and your ROAS is 4×.
That sounds impressive, but ROAS needs to be interpreted carefully.
It measures attributed revenue, not profit.
It also does not necessarily measure incremental revenue, the sales that would not have happened without the advertising.
Different platforms use different attribution methods, so two systems can assign credit differently to the same customer journey.
ROAS is therefore useful for evaluating advertising performance, but it should not be treated as a complete measure of business profitability.
LTV: Why the First Ticket Is Not the Whole Story
LTV stands for Lifetime Value.
It asks a different question:
How much value can this customer generate over the entire relationship with the business?
This matters enormously for organisers who run multiple events.
A customer might buy a £40 ticket today, return for another event six months later, and then purchase again the following year.
Looking only at the first transaction makes that customer appear worth £40.
Looking at the relationship tells a different story.
A simplified revenue-based approach might estimate LTV using average customer revenue and expected purchase frequency. For acquisition decisions, however, a contribution-based LTV is generally more useful because it accounts for relevant variable costs rather than treating every pound of revenue as profit.
LTV is also an estimate, not a guaranteed future amount. The quality of the estimate depends on how much reliable customer history you have.
Why the Three Metrics Matter Together
Consider two potential customers.
Customer A costs £10 to acquire and buys one £40 ticket.
Customer B costs £25 to acquire but returns for several events and generates £150 of contribution over time.
If you optimise only for CAC, Customer A looks better.
If you understand LTV, Customer B may be far more valuable.
This is one of the biggest strategic mistakes in performance marketing: optimising for the cheapest acquisition instead of the most valuable customer.
For event businesses, repeat attendance can make this distinction particularly important.
A Simple Example
Suppose an organiser spends £12,000 acquiring 400 new customers.
The CAC is:
£12,000 ÷ 400 = £30
Now imagine those customers generate an average of £120 in contribution over their relationship with the organiser.
The acquisition economics look considerably more attractive than they would if each customer purchased only once.
But there is an important caveat.
The £120 is not necessarily received immediately.
If customers generate that value over several years, the organiser has to wait for future purchases. That means cash flow matters as well as eventual profitability.
A business can have attractive long-term customer economics and still experience financial pressure if it has to spend heavily today and recover the money much later.
CAC and LTV Should Be Viewed Together
A useful way to think about acquisition is the relationship between LTV and CAC.
If a customer's expected contribution is £120 and acquiring that customer costs £30, the LTV ratio is 4:1.
That can indicate attractive economics, but there is no universal ratio that guarantees success.
The right level depends on margins, retention, cash flow, the reliability of the LTV estimate and the broader economics of the business.
The key idea is simpler:
The value you expect from a customer should justify what you spend to acquire them.
If acquiring a customer costs more than the value they are realistically expected to generate, scaling that acquisition channel will not solve the problem.
Why LTV Is Not Just a Marketing Metric
LTV can also reveal something about the event itself.
If customers rarely return, the problem may not be advertising.
It could be the experience.
A great event can create a reason to come back. A poor experience can make even an excellent acquisition campaign economically weak.
This is why customer retention, event quality, communication and audience development all influence the economics of marketing.
Advertising brings people through the door.
The experience determines whether they want to walk through it again.
Do Not Chase One Number
There is a temptation to declare one metric the winner.
But CAC, ROAS and LTV answer different questions.
A campaign can have excellent ROAS but acquire few new customers.
A campaign can have a high CAC but attract customers with exceptional LTV.
A campaign can have a low CAC while bringing customers who never return.
None of these numbers makes sense in isolation.
The smarter approach is to ask:
How much are we spending to acquire customers, what revenue is our advertising generating, and what are those customers likely to be worth over time?
That gives you a much more complete picture.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Which is more important: CAC, ROAS or LTV?
A: None is universally more important. CAC measures acquisition cost, ROAS measures attributed advertising revenue, and LTV estimates the longer-term value of customers. Together, they provide a much stronger view of customer economics.
Q: What is a good CAC for an event business?
A: There is no universal benchmark. A £30 CAC may be expensive for a one-time £35 customer but reasonable for someone who regularly attends your events. Compare acquisition cost with the customer's expected contribution over time.
Q: Can a campaign have a high ROAS but still be a poor acquisition campaign?
A: Yes. ROAS measures attributed revenue against advertising spend. It does not tell you how many genuinely new customers were acquired or how valuable those customers will be in the future.
Q: How can an organiser increase LTV?
A: Encourage repeat attendance by delivering strong experiences, staying relevant to previous customers and communicating future events that genuinely match their interests. Retention is not purely an advertising problem.
Q: Should LTV be based on revenue or profit?
A: For acquisition decisions, contribution-based LTV is generally more useful because it considers relevant variable costs. Revenue-based LTV can still be useful for simpler reporting, provided its limitations are understood.
If you need additional advice or support, the TicketCRM team is always ready to help with your questions!