In 2026 we want all you S.O.B.s (small owned businesses) to track your marketing progress and focus on these 3 key analytics.
This week on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are discussing the importance of Return on Investment (ROI), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), 3 marketing analytics every small business owner needs to track in 2026.
We’re sharing why these marketing analytics are important, how they can be compared to one another, and how to calculate and utilize these metrics effectively.
Marketing HOT TAKE: It does not matter how old or large your business is, you need to be tracking your data! Agree? Let us know in the comments!
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to our Marketing Cult! Please Leave Us a Review
02:59 Marketing Essentials for the New Year
05:25 Marketing Hot Take: The Importance of Tracking Analytics
09:22 Understanding Return on Investment (ROI)
16:52 Customer Lifetime Value Explained
29:00 Calculating Customer Acquisition Cost
38: TLDL; Summary of Marketing Analytics
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𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓:
Building a Marketing Budget For Your Small Business in 2026: https://youtu.be/yvmE4e4FyRw
How to Create a Marketing Plan You’ll Actually Use in 2026: https://youtu.be/4aZtxHBBBxE
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Vivian: You know what this reminds me of? It's the uncle at Christmas time that's giving you cash, but he puts it in a big box that's like in a bigger box, that's in a smaller box, that's in a smaller box, and you're opening like 12 boxes before you get the 10 bucks.
*Intro* Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Vivian. Happy birthday to you. I'm sure everyone listening was also singing along.
Vivian: Aw, thank you. Yes, another year older. I'm very excited. I hope 2026 is going to be the year that all kinds of good stuff happens. Yeah, I'm jazzed.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Yes, it's also the year's birthday, I guess. The beginning of the year, yeah, the year's birthday.
Vivian: Yeah, it's the year's birthday too. Chelsea, I think also you have an important anniversary that lands on today.
Chelsea: I mean, I don't know if it lands on today, but I did, I graduated high school in 2016. So it's officially 10 years, and I don't like that. I mean, it's fine. I don't care that much, but it feels weird. It does feel a little weird.
Vivian: I mean, you're getting on up there. You're not going to be called the youths no more. Like from my cousin Vinny, the youths.
Chelsea: I know, when I fill out forms now, I'm not the first box, you know, it goes usually 18 to 25. That's not me anymore. Yeah.
Vivian: Yeah. Well, consider it when I'm filling out my birthdate year. I now have to like scroll, I don't know how far down I'm like, this is not, but I'll take it. It's better than the contrary, the other option. Yeah. Let's not do that.
Chelsea: Yeah, yeah, being dead. Yeah, no, let's not do that. Happy, happy new year, everybody. Let's be positive. Welcome. I promise we're going to get into marketing today. We are going to talk about, I don't want to say basics. Let's say like essentials. We're going to get down to the essentials of marketing and we're going to talk about some core, some key marketing analytics that we feel like you guys need to know.
Vivian: Yes, and I'm really excited about this conversation, not because it's a geeky conversation, but because I really think this is an important discussion for the very beginning of the year, because this can really help you with your marketing as you move through the year in making some of those difficult decisions and also being sure that you're tracking information and all of that.
We want you to be responsible business owners in 2026, okay? So if you've been flying by the seat of your pants like I have for the last couple of years, let's collectively work together to just kind of get our itch together, right?
Chelsea: Yeah, this is going to be the year, y'all, that we lock in and we figure it out and we're on top of it. Hopefully you guys made a marketing budget. You listened to that episode. You made a marketing plan because you listened to that episode. Now we're going to talk about the important marketing analytics that we want you guys to focus and to track throughout the year. Before we get started, though, just a little bit of housekeeping. Pretty, pretty, pretty, please make sure you're following or subscribed, whatever it is on whatever platform you're on. Pretty, pretty, please leave us a review, and if you really, really want to support this podcast, consider buying us a coffee.
Vivian: Yes. So coffee is a metaphor. We are not actually using that money to caffeinate. What we are doing is using that money to support creating this podcast. We want to be sure that we are bringing you really great topics. If you do find value in that, we hope that you'll consider buying us a coffee for $5. You could buy us as many quote unquote coffees as you want and it's just one way for you to get involved in keeping this podcast sustainable throughout throughout the year.
Chelsea: Yes, and that link is www.buymeacoffee.com/sobmarketing. Okay, Vivian. So before we get into these key analytics that I keep talking about, I do have *pew pew pew pew pew sound effect* the marketing hot take. That was a pretty good one, right?
Vivian: I was going to say, I feel like you add pews. Like every week there's more and more pew pews.
Chelsea: I do, I do, sometimes, just to keep you on your toes. So this week, my marketing hot take, because we are talking about analytics, I want to point out, it does not matter how big or small your business is, you need to be tracking your progress, period, point blank.
Vivian: Yeah, I will agree with that. Interesting because I feel like we have more agreements than we have disagreements these days, Chelsea, with these marketing hot takes.
Chelsea: I know I need to get more controversial. I need to get a little spicier.
Vivian: Okay, Madonna. I will say, and you mentioned this, no matter where you are in your business. So if you're a new small business owner, just look at it this way. What you're doing now is you're creating good habits so that as you grow your business, you can actually condition yourself to check in, look at the data, look at the analytics, make sure that you're pivoting when you need to. We don't want you to be a business owner that is checked out and doesn't have a good pulse on what's actually going on. Because if, and when that happens, it takes you longer to sometimes correct issues or recognize that you've wasted money. Nobody likes to do that. So we just want to be financially responsible, and one of the ways you can do that is to be sure that you are staying on top and tracking your data and analytics no matter what.
Chelsea: I want you guys to feel comfortable, feel confident after this conversation. I will have a TLDL at the end of this episode, so a very brief summary of what we talk about today. If you're in a pinch, in a hurry, you can go skip ahead to that TLDL chapter. It's not going to be that helpful, because you probably want to hear all of the information and everything that we're going to say in this conversation today. Also want to say, if you're feeling like, I should know these analytics already and you're feeling kind of bad about yourself, don't. We are here to talk about it. We are here to make you guys feel confident. This is a friendly space and we're going to talk about marketing. It's what we do. Vivian, what were you going to say?
Vivian: I want to structure the conversation a little bit and let you guys know today, the analytics we're going to be talking about, there are going to be three of them. These are global analytics that we feel are extremely important to being able to gauge how well your marketing is doing and also lends itself to allowing you to make the best decisions for your business possible, right? So no matter what, for any of these, even if you don't get it down to the cents, having an understanding, a roundabout number of what these numbers look like is just going to help you tremendously as you move into 2026.
The other thing is Chelsea and I are going to try to explain it as much as you can. There's going to be a lot of acronyms. I'm sorry. You guys know how marketing people be. Okay. They be creating acronyms about every dang little thing. So we're going to give you the definition, the explanation, what it is, and then the acronym for it, and we're going to walk you through the formula. So just as a heads up, that's what you can expect out of this conversation. With that in mind, Chelsea, where do you want to start?
Chelsea: We are starting with the golden analytic, the one that everyone talks about, the infamous ROI, return on investment.
Vivian: I like how you did the long pause before you introduced that.
Chelsea: I needed to be real dramatic about it.
Vivian: Yes, ROI is pretty dramatic. What is return on investment telling us, Chelsea?
Chelsea: Okay, I mean return on investment, it's all right there. Did I make my money back or not? Did I make a return on this investment, on this marketing strategy or this campaign, whatever it is. You can do it for the entire fiscal year. You can do it for just one campaign. You could do it quarterly. It's whatever works for you. The calculation is profit divided by the cost of investment. Don't forget, your profit is revenue minus the cost of investment. So your numerator, that's right, I know math terms, look at that. Your numerator for this equation is revenue minus cost of investment, and the denominator is going to be cost of investment.
Vivian: Yes. The other thing I want to add to this is a lot of times when people are looking at return on investment, I think sometimes they don't actually calculate the full cost. Remind me, the numerator you said was...
Chelsea: Profit. So it's revenue minus the cost of investment. It's not just the money you made. It's the money you made minus your cost of investment.
Vivian: Yes. So that cost of investment, if I'm putting an ad out in a print magazine, let's say I'm doing this by campaign, then my cost of investment better include the money I paid to the graphic designer to create the ad, the ad itself, if there's anything else that you're paying for that. Distribution or whatever, which most of the time you don't. But my point in bringing that up is most people, they would just calculate or include whatever the ad costs them, but they're not including the cost of the support staff. Or the outsourcing you're doing to actually create the thing, unless you're creating the ad yourself. Just be sure that you're very cognizant about how much money you're actually spending in these marketing initiatives.
Chelsea: I love that. I love that you brought that up. I also want to point out ROI is so important when it comes to experimentation and marketing. That's what marketing is about. When you're trying to discover new ways to market your business, you need to look at what your ROI is because if your ROI is negative, don't do that campaign again. You do not want a negative ROI.
Vivian: No. Yes, this return on investment, even though it is the most popular phrase that everybody kind of knows and the calculation is rather simple. It does have a lot of good applications for you as a small business owner. I'm going to give you another example, not just is it positive or is it negative? If I have a negative ROI, then I definitely don't want to do that campaign or that initiative because that means I'm losing money. But we always tell you guys that as you become really good small business owner, it's almost like you're leveling up in a game. Then it's not just the basic good investment, bad investment. Then it's good investment, better investment.
What tracking and ROI can do with your marketing initiatives or campaigns is that you can then stack them against each other. So then you decide, okay, this marketing campaign, great, I made some sales. I really only got a marginal return on investment, and it costs me a lot of work to do that. This may be going out to an event to promote, quote unquote, promote your business and you dump a lot of money into your setup and this and that. Maybe you didn't get that many people interested. So yeah, you did okay, but you didn't do as good as your billboard campaign, right? That you invested X amount of money and you tripled your return on investment. So I think that's where you start to see, then you're like, great, I'm not going to do this thing because yeah, it was okay, but it wasn't as good as this one.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Vivian, can I also say we picked these three analytics? Yes, because they are important and they're kind of like universal and stuff like that. I also think they work really well together in understanding your campaigns better. So for example, this next one, customer lifetime value, let's say you have two campaigns that your ROI is really close together. When you understand your customer lifetime value though, that can also be something you consider when trying to make a choice. Just like what we're going to talk about later, CAC.
Vivian: Another acronym.
Chelsea: Another acronym, which is customer acquisition cost, but that's for a little later guys. But my point is you can use all of these numbers, all of these analytics together to make informed decisions to really, I guess, level up your marketing since this is a video game now.
Vivian: I mean, hello, I did love some Mario brothers. So go get, what's her name? Princess Peaches? Go get her.
Chelsea: You didn't even say it right! It's Princess Peach!
Vivian: What's her name? I mean, whatever. Her name could be Peaches. It could be.
Chelsea: No, it's not peaches. Oh my God.
Vivian: I don't know. What was the bad guy? What's his name?
Chelsea: Bowser.
Vivian: Bowser, I was going to say it's so funny.
Chelsea: I almost said browser is the problem.
Vivian: Yes, go get you princess peaches and browser.
Chelsea: We're such good gamers.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: Okay Vivian. Let's talk about, I already brought it up. Customer Lifetime Value. Do you want to explain what that is?
Vivian: All right, so your customer lifetime value is the total net profit that you expect to generate from a single customer over their entire relationship with your business. Remember, Chelsea had just come off saying, hey, all these kind of work together. So if you're looking at your ROI for some of these marketing initiatives and you know that in your industry, your high end industry, you happen to have a customer lifetime value of $5. They're going to spend good money with you. You just have to get that customer through your door, right? Just let them buy one time and then on average they're going to spend that much money. You're going to be a little more willing to do some of the marketing initiatives that maybe take a little longer time. Also perhaps are a little more expensive because your margin is going to be bigger for you to make that return on investment.
Now on the contrary, if you're in an industry where you get a new customer in and you know your customer lifetime value is only $100, then you're not going to be willing to do that, the more expensive stuff and all that. So it's just a good way. Customer lifetime value is a good way for you to understand because we always say, what is it, Chelsea? Know you're a customer.
Chelsea: Exactly. Know them.
Vivian: Know how much money they're going to be spending with your business and do it based off of the data and analytics that you have. So what data, Chelsea? What is the formula for the customer lifetime value?
Chelsea: Okay, so y'all this is going to sound insane, we're going to walk you through it. So the basic equation, it's not hard. It's average customer value multiplied by average customer lifespan. Now, if you know these two numbers, it is simple. Vivian, let's do an example for customer lifetime value. Let's say, oh my gosh, Vivian, we're going to do something really silly, okay? Because 2026 is the year of silly, okay? We're going to have fun.
Vivian: The Year of Silly Goose, is this on the Chinese calendar?
Chelsea: Yeah, Silly Goose. It's the year of Silly Goose. Actually, that's a really good band. Okay, Silly Goose, y'all. If you like NuMetal, check out Silly Goose. They're pretty cool. You think I'm kidding, I'm not.
Vivian: I know you're not.
Chelsea: They're a cool band.
Vivian: I'm going to Spotify them later.
Chelsea: They're based out of Atlanta too, so there you go. If you're in the South. Let's say, I don't know, Vivian, if you've heard about this, but there are some people out there. I don't want to call anyone out, men, but there are some people out there who are getting stretched so that they can be like half an inch taller.
Vivian: Okay short kings, pop off.
Chelsea: So let's say we're a doctor's office and we stretch our clients.
Vivian: So me on one end, you on the other. I get the toes.
Chelsea: And we're just pulling people. Yep. We're pulling toes to give them an extra half inch. Vivian, let's say that we already know what our average customer value is and what our average customer lifespan is. So you give me some numbers.
Vivian: Okay, so let's say on average these people, men, they're going to come in for two years total. So looking at our data we see that they usually stick around for two years to get the service done.
Chelsea: Sure, half an inch a year.
Vivian: Half an inch a year, so in the end they get a full inch. Okay. Let's say that over one year, we know that they spend $1 with us. So your basic formula for your customer lifetime value would be $1 that they spend per year times the two years that we know they're with us. That would give us $2. So we know that anytime a new customer comes through, we're probably going to get $2 out of them.
Chelsea: Perfect, I love that. Just to pull their toes.
Vivian: Just to pull their toes.
Chelsea: Now let's say we didn't have that information. We didn't know what the customer value was or what the average customer value or the average customer lifespan was. We have to calculate for that. Let's start with average customer lifespan. That one's pretty easy. It's just the average length of time that a customer continues buying from you.
So that's just looking at your analytics, looking at your data. Hopefully you're tracking your customers and you can see how long they're usually spending time with you.
Vivian: Yeah, and I just want to point out the word average here. You guys like we said, this number is not going to be perfect, but what it is is you're using the information you have and you're just aggregating it and figuring out, what is a baseline number and what does that look like? Obviously the more years you're in business, the better these numbers are. The more solid these numbers are going to be. They're going to be an accurate reflection, but if you're just starting out, you still want to keep this in mind because you need to start tracking the data that is going to allow you to actually calculate this stuff because you don't want to get two years in and you're like, I really don't know how much money on average people spend with me. I really don't know how long or how many products they buy or you know what I mean?
Chelsea: Yeah, exactly. So that's average customer lifespan. Now average customer value, we need to solve for that. That's going to be average purchase frequency multiplied by average purchase value.
Vivian: This feels like one of those little Russian dolls.
Chelsea: Well, that's because we're about to go even deeper. So how do you find average purchase frequency?
Vivian: No, you know what this reminds me of? It's the uncle at Christmas time that's giving you cash, but he puts it in a big box that's like in a bigger box, that's in a smaller box, that's in a smaller box, and you're opening like 12 boxes before you get the 10 bucks.
Chelsea: Exactly. That's exactly what this is. So your average purchase frequency is going to be the number of purchases divided by the number of individual customers who made purchases. Y'all, we're going to give you numbers and we're going to talk through this in a second. OK, let me just say it first. Your average purchase value is going to be the total value of all purchases divided by the number of purchases.
Okay, Vivian, so we're pulling people's toes to make them an inch taller in two years.
Vivian: Doing God's work out here.
Chelsea: Doing God's work out here. So let's say we have five clients. They come in once a month, they spend $100 every month. That's how much it costs. They come in for two years to grow an inch. Okay, so average purchase frequency is going to be 60.
Vivian: Because that is how many visits, right? How many purchases they have made.
Chelsea: Uh huh. That's how many purchases they have made because it's five clients times 12. So that's going to be 60.
Vivian: The five clients that are coming in one time a month for one year, that means total they're coming in 60 times. That's that number. Okay. The next number you said is divided by...
Chelsea: 5. That is the total number of clients that we have. That's going to give us, that gives us 12, and that's the average purchase frequency.
Vivian: That makes sense because if you think about it logically, we know that a client's going to come in once a month for a year, they're coming in because there are 12 months, 12 times. So that makes sense. Tracks.
Chelsea: Yes, it makes sense. We are using very simple numbers right now. Unfortunately, will it be this easy when you solve for it yourself? I don't know. Hopefully.
Vivian: It will it will.
Chelsea: It will. It'll be super easy. Don't worry about it. Next, we need the average purchase value.
Vivian: What you're doing is you're taking the total value of all your purchases for that year, right? So remember we had 60 visits total for all five clients for that year and each visit was $100.
Chelsea (27:23) Exactly. So, 6.
Vivian Walton (27:44) 60 multiplied by 100 is 6. Then you're dividing that by the total number of purchases, which was 60.
Chelsea: Yeah, so we're going to get 100. Now we did both, we got both of those numbers. We got the average purchase frequency and the average purchase value because we need to multiply them to get the average customer value.
Vivian: So we're multiplying 12 by 100.
Chelsea: Yes, and we get 1200. Now we want to multiply that by the average customer lifespan, which we discussed is two years because they want to grow an inch. So 1200 times two is 2400. So five men are spending $2400 with us to grow an inch.
Vivian: Well worth every penny, okay? Well worth every penny. But the thing is sometimes you guys, when you're doing these calculations, if you just stop to think about it, like when Chelsea and I are walking through the example and I'm thinking, okay, if we know that a person's paying $100 a pop to get stretched and we recommend our best practices, they come in one time a month, there are 12 months, then it tracks that they're spending $1 in a year. And then if on average through our data, we're able to see that they stick with us for two years, that makes sense that 2 is going to be our customer lifetime value? What that means is whenever I am going out there and I'm debating if I want to put a billboard up that says, let us stretch your bones. Gain an inch in two years, you know, come see us.
Chelsea: Tired of being a short king.
Vivian: The money that we're putting into that billboard campaign, I'm going to be able to calculate when I'm breaking even. I'm going to be able to calculate if it's even a good decision, right? Like if we're getting five clients, $2 per client is actually not bad, right? That's a good chunk of money per client. So you're thinking all these things through as you're looking at your opportunities to promote your business.
Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so now we've got CAC.
Vivian: Ugh. Okay, what's CAC?
Chelsea: CAC is your customer acquisition cost. I'm going to be honest, this is the only one I don't say, like, I use the acronym for because I usually just say return on investment or usually just say customer lifetime value. But I like saying CAC.
So your customer acquisition cost is the average cost to gain a customer. This one, Vivian, I feel like is so slept on and it's so important.
Vivian: It is, you know, because look, if I'm piecing all this together for our booming business of short Kings, that focuses on short Kings out there.
Chelsea: Can I just say, y'all, we don't have anything against short people. We are both very short, okay? Just saying.
Vivian: Yes, we are. I'm doing this to be funny, you guys. I hope you guys know we definitely are not, we're just silly goose's. We're in the year of silly goose, and so we're silly goose-ing around. Okay. Don't take offense, please. We love all people. Yes.
Chelsea: Yes. Especially you short kings out there.
Vivian: What I was saying is if I know that it's every person we have come through the door is about $2, when I'm looking at my customer acquisition cost, it does me no good if it costs me $2 to get a person in because then I'm only making a hundred bucks margin, right? So that's the reason all of these kind of intertwine and they're good to know because you want to be sure that per marketing initiative, you understand exactly how much you're out to try to attract that person in. Because if it doesn't match or at least make sense with your customer lifetime value, then may not be a good idea.
Chelsea: Absolutely. If there's any numbers that you track this coming year in 2026, I want them to be these three. Okay. I want them to be these three because like Vivian just explained, like if your CAC is so much higher than your customer lifetime value, that's not going to be useful to your small business. We want you guys to make money.
Vivian: Think about it this way. Every single one of you business owners out there, you go through this process, this same decision making process, when you're looking at how much it takes you to actually make a product, to offer a service and then what you price it to the public, right? Because it makes no sense if you're literally going to be in the negative or if you're just making five cents off of stuff. That's not a sustainable business. So in the same way, your ROI, your customer lifetime value and your customer acquisition cost will help to guide you to be sure that you guys aren't just spinning your wheels.
Chelsea: Yes, absolutely. So the equation for customer acquisition cost is expenses divided by the number of new customers. Expenses, y'all. Make sure you are adding all the expenses that are involved with bringing in and gaining a new customer. Just like Vivian talked about earlier with ROI, make sure you're including all the things that you might not think of. It's really important to do this with your customer acquisition cost.
Vivian: Yeah. So, take, for example, a lot of small business owners really love doing events, right? If you are in that, pop-up market circuit and that's going to be one of the ways that you sell your jewelry. One of the things we want to be sure you're accounting for in those expenses. What are you laughing at?
Chelsea: I thought of an example of jewelry. This is not that kind of podcast. Don't even worry about it.
Vivian: Did it have anything to do with stretching?
Chelsea: I mean, it had to do with men.
Vivian: I know where you're going. We ain't that kind of podcast.
Chelsea: Yeah, that's what I just said.
Vivian: That might be in 2027. We'll take a whole year to kind of prep for it. Going back to the events, if you know you're going to be doing that circuit of markets and stuff, one of the expenses we want to be sure that you don't overlook is not just how much your display is going to cost you to set up, like the money you're pouring into displaying your products and your jewelry at the events. Also the fees that they're charging you to actually participate, right? Anything like that or the extra inventory that you have to carry to be able to do these events, all of those need to be included in that expenses number. Then you can accurately gauge if that event actually gave you a good customer acquisition cost.
Chelsea: Yeah, and then number of new customers. Y'all just make sure that you have ways to track these kinds of numbers, whether that's through your website, whether you have a system set in place, whatever you decide to do, you know, as long as it works for you.
Vivian: Yes, I love this. The other part, the other reason you want to attract new customers as well is we want you to start building that relationship with a new customer to get them to be a reoccurring customer. That's the goal, right? Because as Chelsea mentioned, it is cheaper. Well, I think you mentioned this in a conversation with me, not here on this episode, but it is cheaper to get somebody who's already spent money with you back in for a reoccurring purchase, then it is to actually try to get a new customer in. So tracking that new customer information gives you and opens up those opportunities, whether it be through SMS texting, whether it be through emails for you to start to communicate with them, give them other offerings that match maybe what they like or what they recently purchased.
So it helps in so many different ways, but it also helps with this customer acquisition cost, being able to calculate it.
Chelsea: Yes, absolutely. I have one other thing I want to discuss and I'm going off script. So I don't know if Vivian's going to agree with me, but we want you guys, we talked about marketing budgets, we talked about marketing plans recently, we suggested doing them quarterly. I would suggest calculating these numbers quarterly as well. If you're already taking the time to look back at how your quarter went, take the time to calculate these numbers as well.
Vivian: Yeah, I will agree with you to some extent. I think definitely at a minimum do it once a year. Okay. At a minimum, you want to have 12 months of data that you're looking over to say, what's my customer lifetime value, all that. But to Chelsea's point, if you do this quarterly, it's just going to be easier to keep up with it because you're looking at the numbers. The numbers may not change quarter to quarter, to be honest with you. So you may have like three quarters where it's the same. And then maybe there'll be a change at the end of the year or whatever. But it does make it easier and it keeps that finger on the pulse of your business. That is the key here. I think the main takeaway is we don't want you guys to be like little blind mice out there, like just kind of guessing, I think this is a good decision, but I don't know. We want you to feel confident. And part of being confident is knowing that you have your numbers locked down, right?
What better way to say like, somebody comes in, a rep comes in and they're trying to sell you on some advertising and you're basically like, yeah, that's a little too rich for my blood because at the end of the day, my customer lifetime value, the number for that is not, it's just not going to work, right?
Chelsea: Well, Vivian, are we ready for the TLDL?
Vivian: Let's do it.
Chelsea: Okay, well, y'all, this is the TLDL chapter. Too long didn't listen. If you skipped ahead, that's fine. I'm going to give you a brief summary of what we talked about today, but make sure you go back and listen to this entire conversation because it'll make more sense. Trust me. Today, we talked about three marketing analytics, equations that we feel like you should really know, understand, and use as small business owners. They're going to be ROI, customer lifetime value, and customer acquisition cost. I will give you the basic formulas for each one. So ROI is going to be your profit divided by cost of investment. Your customer lifetime value is going to be average customer value multiplied by average customer lifespan. And your customer acquisition cost is going to be expenses divided by the number of new customers.
We talked about these three equations together because they all kind of relate to one another. It's helpful to compare all the numbers together so that you can feel confident in your marketing, what you're spending on your marketing, which marketing initiatives you're doing and all of those things.
Vivian: Before we leave, y'all know we love getting voice notes for you. Please use that. Okay, go to sobmarketing.com. Go over to contact us, scroll down. There's going to be a purple button on that page. Hit that purple button. Just start recording a message to send us. We want to hear from you and we are so excited and stoked to go into this new year with you guys. We're here for all the success and we want to be right beside you, just helping you out on the marketing side, giving you tips and information, keeping you abreast of all of the stuff. It just felt fitting.
Chelsea: Okay, sure. And y'all go be the best SOBs you can be and silly geese as well.