Most companies never find out. The diagnostic settles it: what a customer truly costs to acquire, what that customer is worth, and whether the two add up. One CLV:CAC ratio, measured to a standard finance will accept.
Believed healthy. Measured 0.53:1, under the 1:1 break-even.
Leads, conversion rates, attribution, pipeline: all of it proves marketing was busy. None of it answers the only question capital cares about: what does a customer cost to acquire, and what does that customer return?
The CMO holds the shortest tenure in the C-suite, hired as a fixer: more leads, more pipeline, more demand. So the fixing starts before anyone has asked the question that decides whether the fixing pays at all. How much does a customer cost, and what are they worth?
Ask it late, and the answer is almost always wrong, and wrong in the flattering direction. Acquisition cost comes in low, because the fully-loaded cost of winning a customer is rarely counted. Lifetime value comes in high, because revenue stands in for margin. And the ratio that joins them belongs to no one, so no one governs it.
So capital gets allocated on conviction, not evidence. Research puts 20 to 40 percent of marketing's financial contribution at stake on that guess. The diagnostic swaps the conviction for a number, built to a standard a CFO will accept and a marketer can act on.
No estimates, no vibes. Fully-loaded costs, gross margin, a discount rate, a five-year cohort cap: inputs held to finance standards. Out come two numbers both functions can stand behind.
Start with the core business profile. It sets the commercial context every downstream calculation draws on.
Your CLV:CAC position against benchmark. Your true acquisition cost, net customer value, and payback period. And the short list of priorities that will move the ratio most. Nothing to interpret, everything to act on.
Every new customer costs more to win than it returns over its discounted lifetime. Fix this before anything else.
Blended CAC overstates true acquisition cost by 30.2%.
CLV:CAC is 0.53:1 against a 3:1 minimum; payback 56 months.
Marketing claims 50.0% of pipeline; only 18.8% is verifiable.
A ratio is a verdict. It does not tell you how quickly the damage is done. Capital Burn Velocity does: the rate, in pounds per month, at which your acquisition engine is building value or torching it. The diagnostic's second headline number, and the one that turns a static score into a cash-flow sentence a CFO can act on.
The diagnostic already holds two numbers for every new customer: the fully-loaded cost to acquire them, and the net present value of what they return. The gap between the two is what winning that customer actually earned you. Multiply it by how fast you are acquiring, and the gap becomes a velocity, a figure in pounds per month.
It pivots on the 1:1 line, where lifetime value equals acquisition cost. Above it, the velocity runs negative and you are banking capital. Below it, it runs positive and you are burning it. This is the acquisition engine's value-destruction rate specifically, not total company cash burn, and that precision is exactly the point.
This is the number that ends a familiar argument. Below 1:1, every extra pound of acquisition spend feeds the fire, so "give it more budget to test and learn" means spending faster to destroy value faster. Burn Velocity puts the exact figure on how much faster.
£835,000 a year, at the current acquisition pace.
A number on its own changes nothing. Where the diagnostic finds the problem, the repair follows in the order the ratio dictates, not the order of the loudest tactic in the room. Run it as a fixed-scope project, or as ongoing fractional leadership.
See the ways to work together →Calibrate is a ten-minute self-assessment. No cost, no login. It shows you roughly where your acquisition economics stand, and whether the full diagnostic is worth your time. Most who run it find it is.
One fixed fee. One board-ready verdict. Delivered, typically, in two to three weeks.