Props to Corey Eulas for pointing out this excellent collection of information from Google themselves about a change in mindset to go from thinking about Marketing as a cost, to thinking about Marketing as the full profit center that it can and should be. It seems along the lines of “the more you know” / “knowledge is power.”
If the question is simply would you rather have a cost per acquisition of $80 or of $90, the answer is that it really depends on what both bring. If the $80 CPA gets you a handful of leads from an ad placed further down somewhere, how does the lifetime value of those new customers compare to what you may get from the $90 CPA if that is what it takes to get that number one spot? And maybe more importantly, does your business even have all the analytics and metrics in place to figure out those lifetime values, to track a user all the way through their flow, seeing your ad on their mobile phone, checking up on your company during spare minute or two on their work computer, then going through the final conversion on their tablet while relaxing watching tv in the evening?
It really makes you think … with Google ( www.thinkwithgoogle.com ). There’s even a Strategic Guide fifteen page doc with more in-depth analysis, and this “Profit-Driven Marketing” collection is just one of who knows how many other collections of knowledge and insight are hiding in there. What do you think?