CPO, CPA, and CAC

The terms CPO, CPA and CAC can be confusing because the terms are often interchanged.

CPO (Cost per Order): Cost To Acquire An Order.

CPA (Cost per Acquisition): Cost To Acquire a New Customer

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): Same as CPA -> Cost to Acquire a New Customer

Calculations for Each Metric

Marketing platforms (Facebook, Google Ads, Pinterest, etc.) do NOT know if the orders they have tracked are the first, second or some other order for that customer.

Marketing Platforms report on your CPO and not your CPA.

That this report from Google Ads:

Example of Google Ads Report

We Ran a campaign that Generated 5 orders and we spent $237 on that campaign. By looking at our UTM campaign we found 3 New Customers and 2 Existing Customers placed an order.

• CPO = $237 / 5 = $47.4

• CPA = $237 / 3 = $79

• CAC = $237 / 3 = $79