In business, it is essential to understand the value of each customer and use this information to make strategic decisions.
The metric known as Lifetime Value (LTV) allows you to calculate the average financial value that a customer brings to the business throughout their journey.
And the adoption of LTV represents a change in the company's maturity, moving from simply acquiring new customers to maximizing the value of customers throughout their entire journey.
LTV-based strategies can not only boost profitability, but also help to build stronger, longer-lasting relationships with customers, generating a long-term competitive advantage.
In this article, you'll understand what LTV is, how to calculate and interpret it, as well as some best practices for optimizing it.
What is Lifetime Value?
Lifetime Value (or LTV) is an English term that literally means "value for life". LTV is a metric that defines the average financial value a customer generates for the business throughout the time they remain a consumer.
In other words, LTV is an estimate of how much each customer contributes to the company's revenue throughout their journey as a consumer.
This metric plays a fundamental role in understanding the return on investment in customer acquisition and in defining retention strategies.
By calculating LTV, companies can see how much they can invest in attracting new customers without compromising profitability.
In addition, LTV provides a more comprehensive view of the customer's relationship with the company.
What is the importance of LTV?
Understanding LTV is fundamental for companies to make strategic decisions and develop more efficient marketing actions.
Through this metric, companies can allocate resources more effectively to attract, retain and retain customers who generate greater financial value, optimizing the return on investment in marketing and sales.
By measuring the value that each customer brings throughout their journey, LTV allows companies to identify behavioral trends, develop personalized engagement strategies and improve the customer experience.
What is the difference between LTV and CLV?
Although the terms Lifetime Value (LTV) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) are often used synonymously, there is a subtle and important difference between them.
CLV represents the total value a customer brings to the company throughout the relationship, while LTV is a metric calculated for a specific period.
To illustrate this difference, let's consider the following example: imagine a music streaming subscription, where each customer pays R$10 per month. If a particular customer keeps their subscription for 12 months, their LTV for that period will be R$120.
On the other hand, if we consider CLV, we must take into account the customer's entire relationship with the company, with no time limit.
Suppose that the same customer, in addition to the monthly subscription, also buys additional products from the same company over time, such as concert tickets or personalized products from the singers.
If, during the relationship with the company, this customer spends a total of R$500, this will be the value of the CLV.
It's easy to see that CLV tends to be higher than LTV, since it takes into account a longer period of time and all the customer's possible purchases with the company.
How do you calculate Lifetime Value?
Calculating LTV involves a few steps. Here's an example to help you understand:
Imagine that you have a movie streaming subscription company with a monthly plan of R$50 and that each customer stays for an average of 10 months. To calculate the LTV, multiply the average monthly revenue by the average length of stay:
LTV = Average Monthly Revenue x Average Length of Stay
LTV = R$ 50 x 10
LTV = R$ 500
Therefore, the customer's LTV would be R$500.
This means that each customer, on average, generates a value of R$500 for your company during their time as a subscriber. This figure of R$500 is a projection of the total revenue you can expect to get from each customer.
This information is crucial for customer acquisition and retention strategies, as it offers a view of how much it would be feasible to invest in attracting and keeping each customer.
With an LTV of R$500, for example, investing R$100 to acquire a new customer would still leave a significant profit for the company.
3 Important Indicators for Lifetime Value
In addition to LTV, there are other marketing indicators which are important for a complete analysis of the value generated by each customer:
1. churn rate
It represents the rate at which customers cancel or are lost over time. The lower the churn rate, the more likely a customer is to remain active and increase their LTV.
It is crucial to monitor this rate and understand its causes, since customer retention is generally more cost-effective than acquiring new ones.
In addition, maintaining a low churn rate usually indicates high customer satisfaction and contributes to a higher LTV, since satisfied customers tend to stay longer and make more purchases.
2. Average Ticket
It represents the average amount spent by customers on each transaction. A higher average ticket helps to increase LTV, as long as it doesn't compromise customer retention.
It is an essential metric for assessing customers' purchasing behavior and, therefore, their consumption patterns.
Increasing the average ticket can be an efficient way of increasing LTV, as long as it is done in a way that maintains or increases customer satisfaction. Strategies such as upselling and cross-selling, when well executed, can contribute to this increase.
3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
It measures the cost needed to acquire a new customer. The aim is for LTV to be higher than CAC, guaranteeing the profitability and sustainability of the business.
It is essential to compare the CAC with the LTV, because obtaining a higher LTV than the CAC demonstrates the economic viability of customer acquisition strategies.
An inverse ratio (CAC higher than LTV) may indicate the need to optimize marketing efforts or improve customer retention and average ticket.
The Relationship Between LTV and CAC
As mentioned earlier, in order to guarantee the sustainability of the business, the LTV must be greater than the CAC.
In other words, the value a customer brings during their time as an active client must outweigh the cost of attracting them. When this relationship is positive, the company has greater potential to profit from each customer.
Here's another practical example to better understand the relationship between LTV and CAC.
Suppose you have an online shoe store. To attract customers, you invest in online ads and discover that, on average, you spend R$100 to attract each new customer - this is your CAC.
Now let's calculate the LTV. If a customer buys an average of two pairs of shoes a year, each costing R$80, and remains active for five years, then this customer's LTV will be 2 * R$80 * 5 = R$800.
In this case, the LTV (R$800) is significantly higher than the CAC (R$100), indicating that the investment in ads is worthwhile in the long term.
This example illustrates how a company can use these two metrics to ensure that the value brought in by a customer (LTV) exceeds the cost to attract them (CAC), thus ensuring the profitability of the business.
4 Tips to Improve Your Business's LTV
To optimize LTV and maximize the value of each customer, some practices can be adopted. Check them out below.
1. Offer Exceptional Service
Invest in quality customer service to build solid, lasting relationships.
Providing exceptional customer service goes beyond the basics; it involves creating positive experiences for customers in every interaction with your company. Train your team to be empathetic, attentive and proactive.
Remember that satisfied customers are not only more likely to increase your LTV, but also become promoters of your brand, attracting new customers through recommendations and positive reviews.
2. Encourage Customer Loyalty
Create loyalty programs, offer exclusive benefits and rewards to encourage customers to keep buying and engaging with your brand.
Customer loyalty can be a determining factor in increasing LTV. Loyalty programs, such as accumulative points or special discounts for frequent customers, encourage active customers to repurchase.
Customers who feel valued and rewarded tend to spend more and stay longer, thus increasing their LTV.
3. Personalize the Customer Experience
Use data and information on customer behavior to offer a personalized experience, meeting their needs and desires in a personalized way.
Understanding and anticipating your customers' needs and desires allows you to offer products and services that really matter to them.
Personalization can take the form of targeted offers, segmented communications or even customer service adapted to individual preferences.
This not only increases customer satisfaction, but can also lead to an increase in the average ticket and frequency of purchase.
4. Invest in Customer Retention
Dedicate resources to ensuring that customers remain satisfied and engaged over time. Offer relevant content, an efficient after-sales service and loyalty programs.
By concentrating on keeping the customers you have already won over, rather than constantly looking for new ones, you will be helping to increase your LTV and, consequently, your company's profitability.
How Technology Can Help Optimize LTV
Technology plays a key role in optimizing LTV. Here are two major areas in which it can be useful:
Big Data
The use of large-scale data allows for a more precise analysis of customer behavior, making it possible to create retention strategies and personalize the experience.
The era of Big Data provides an unprecedented amount of information that can be used to improve understanding of your customers.
By analyzing this data, it is possible to identify behavior patterns, purchasing trends and even predict future interactions.
This information can be used to personalize communication and the offer of products or services, thus increasing customer satisfaction and retention.
In addition, large-scale data analysis can also help identify opportunities for upselling or cross-selling, helping to increase the average ticket and, consequently, the LTV.
Artificial Intelligence
A Artificial Intelligence can automate processes, provide valuable insights into customer behavior and help identify patterns that drive LTV, allowing for more efficient and personalized actions.
AI systems can analyze large volumes of data faster and more accurately than any human could, providing valuable insights into customer behavior.
AI can also be used to automate processes, such as customer service via chatbots, enabling efficient and personalized service.
It can also be applied to identify complex patterns that may indicate, for example, potential customer churn, allowing the company to act proactively to reverse this situation.
Therefore, the intelligent use of AI can result in more efficient, personalized and real-time actions that boost the LTV of your business.
Maximize LTV with Robotic Process Automation
The robotic process automation (or Robotic Process Automation, RPAs) can play a significant role in optimizing LTV.
For example, an RPA that does Omnichannel Budget Management can be a valuable tool in optimizing investment in marketing campaigns.
This RPA automatically adjusts campaign budgets in Google ads / Meta ads based on the highest return on investment and, consequently, prioritizes customers with the highest average ticket, helping to increase LTV.
In addition, lead qualification RPAs such as Lead Scoring and Lead Mapper, by assigning a score to each lead based on its purchasing potential, allow the identification of the highest value leads, contributing to an increase in LTV.
Similarly, a Stock Optimization RPA can prevent loyal customers from coming across products that are low on stock, avoiding customer dissatisfaction and ultimately helping to optimize LTV.
Conclusion
As you can see, Lifetime Value is an essential metric for assessing the value of each customer and guiding business strategies.
By understanding, calculating, interpreting and optimizing LTV based on good practices and technology, you can boost your company's business, maximize return on investment and ensure a sustainable future.
LTV offers a valuable insight into the profitability potential of each customer, and its intelligent use is fundamental to the long-term success of your business.
