Optimizing LTV to CAC at Unbounce

About Alex Nazarevich

Alex Nazarevich is Vice President of Growth at Unbounce. With a background in e-commerce and digital marketing, Alex bridges the gap between these interrelated disciplines. At Unbounce, he leads two main teams: the acquisition team, which focuses on maximizing customer inflow through inbound channels, and the customer marketing team, responsible for customer engagement and tailored marketing strategies.

Alex has been overseeing the entire customer journey since joining Unbounce. Despite recent macroeconomic headwinds, he emphasizes that the core objectives of his role remain constant: focus on customer acquisition and efficiency.

The importance of LTV to CAC in Unbounce's strategy

Alex Nazarevich explains that the Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost (LTV to CAC) ratio sits at the centre of Unbounce's growth strategy. LTV, or lifetime value, represents the average revenue a customer generates over their relationship with the company. It's calculated by multiplying the average number of months a customer stays by their average monthly payment. Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is determined by dividing total sales and marketing expenditure by the number of customers acquired in a given period.

For a SaaS company, Alex says achieving an LTV to CAC ratio of 3:1, meaning $3 of lifetime value for every dollar spent on acquisition, signals a profitable and scalable marketing strategy.

The metric's value extends well beyond marketing. It serves as a North Star across departments, aligning goals and fostering a shared understanding of what drives sustainable growth. LTV gives the finance team a clear lens for evaluating marketing spend, and the lessons it surfaces help product teams prioritize features that improve customer engagement and customer retention.

Alex describes LTV to CAC as a fixture in his daily and weekly conversations with other leaders, calling it essential to unified, strategic decision-making.

Optimizing CAC at Unbounce

Alex reports a 35% to 40% year-over-year reduction in Unbounce's CAC. His team achieved this by focusing on areas they could control directly, enabling rapid, high-impact changes without extensive stakeholder involvement.

The approach starts with a thorough analysis of spending across every customer acquisition channel: SEO, paid search, social media advertising, and affiliate marketing. For each channel, the team evaluates volume, conversion rate, and lead quality, with a specific focus on the likelihood of leads becoming paying customers.

Alex's CAC calculation includes all sales and marketing costs divided by the total number of customers acquired. Notably, he assigns real value to organic channels, something many marketers overlook. Salaries, software costs, and SEO investment are all factored in. This comprehensive view allows the team to strategically target high-value customer acquisition rather than simply chasing volume.

Tackling organic channel volatility

When Alex joined Unbounce, organic search was his first priority. He put the best people and tools on it, determined to get a handle on a channel known for its unpredictability.

Advances in AI have levelled the playing field in SEO, making it harder to stand out through content volume alone. Alex's response is to double down on quality. He believes genuinely helpful content wins over time, even if the results aren't immediate. Unbounce, known for its conversion rate optimization (CRO) content and landing page expertise, leans into that strength and sees steady, incremental gains in organic search.

Paid search, however, is where Alex and his team find more significant near-term opportunities. They analyze every keyword and pattern, fine-tuning spend and sharpening the distinction between branded and unbranded terms. The goal is continuous efficiency improvement and uncovering new conversion opportunities in their highest-volume channels.

Key strategies for reducing CAC

Alex recommends starting at the point of conversion and working backwards. For Unbounce, that means the free trial sign-up, where customers provide payment information. The goal is to maximize the number of sign-ups, knowing a portion will convert to paying customers.

When the team investigated the checkout process, they found it was more complex than expected. They shifted focus to the pricing page and landing pages supporting paid search and affiliate campaigns. Working backwards from the checkout button, they identified which changes would have the greatest impact relative to the effort required. This method lets Alex prioritize initiatives based on his team's actual capabilities, an approach that has consistently delivered results.

The power of segmentation

Segmentation by company size and industry type is central to Unbounce's acquisition strategy.

Unbounce serves both solo marketers and large teams. Its tools allow individuals to operate with the efficiency of a bigger team, launching campaigns independently and at speed. Alex's team targets both segments by highlighting the features most relevant to each. On platforms like LinkedIn, they experiment with messaging and use precise targeting to learn what resonates.

Industry type adds another layer. A SaaS growth strategy and an e-commerce company have different needs, different buying triggers, and different timing. Alex's team adapts campaigns accordingly, for example, building e-commerce messaging around peak moments like Black Friday.

Reflecting on triumphs and trials in CRO

One of the most impactful and straightforward wins for Alex's team came from revisiting calls-to-action (CTAs) on the homepage and key landing pages. Despite being a fundamental element of CRO, these basics had room to improve, particularly when targeting new audience segments.

Alex is candid about failure being a natural part of growth-driven experimentation. He recalls a pricing page test that initially appeared to reduce overall conversions. On closer inspection, the customers who did convert showed higher retention rates. The short-term dip masked a long-term gain, which reinforced the importance of looking beyond immediate conversion metrics.

His framework for CRO balances two time horizons. The first is immediate: Did the visitor convert? What plan did they choose? The second plays out over three to six months: Are those customers staying? That longer view is where the real signal lives.

Overcoming challenges

Alex encourages people not to feel intimidated by the math in data-driven marketing. Understanding conversion rates and customer lifetime value doesn't require advanced expertise. With a bit of research and experimentation, most practitioners can build the foundation they need.

The harder challenge, in his view, is the reluctance to tackle sensitive areas of the business: the pricing page, customer targeting, or any element that feels untouchable. Alex's advice is to follow the data regardless, even when it leads to difficult conversations. Curiosity is embedded in Unbounce's culture, and that openness is what enables innovative, effective strategies.

Alex also expects his team to develop data literacy. With his support and, for more complex questions, the help of the revenue operations team, team members should be able to access and interpret data independently.

Just get started

Alex closes with direct advice: just get started. Pick one thing, set up a test, and communicate openly about what you're trying to improve. High-impact areas like landing pages, homepages, and pricing pages are the right places to begin.

Small changes can produce surprising results. And what feels untouchable in a business, the elements everyone assumes are working fine, may not have the impact people think. The key to progress is taking that first step and committing to the process of discovery.