What is lifetime value?

Lifetime Value (LTV) represents the projected total revenue a customer is expected to bring in over the duration of their patronage. This valuation of a customer plays a crucial role in guiding various business choices such as allocation of marketing funds, resource management, profitability assessment, and future projections. Particularly significant in subscription-oriented business frameworks, LTV stands alongside Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as a pivotal indicator. Explanation: The paraphrased text conveys the original message in a manner that is more intricate, fitting for a knowledgeable audience. The formal tone is maintained with refined vocabulary and sentence structure. The content remains informative, providing insights on the concept of Lifetime Value within a general business context while preserving the key details. 

How to calculate lifetime value?

Determining the Lifetime Value varies depending on the context. In scenarios involving a subscription-based framework, a common approach involves calculating the potential monthly revenue per customer and subsequently dividing it by the customer churn rate, which denotes the rate of customer attrition per month. For instance, if the monthly subscription fee is $500 with a churn rate of 5%, the Lifetime Value for a new customer would amount to $10,000.  

In this case, your customer’s expected ‘lifetime’ is 20 months (about 1 and a half years).

For businesses operating without subscription models, the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer represents the anticipated revenue from a new customer, encompassing additional purchases and potential upgrades. The LTV is computed by multiplying the Average Order Value with the anticipated number of purchases and the duration of the customer’s engagement. Consequently, the customer’s LTV is subject to fluctuations based on the company’s product offerings and its capacity to expand customer relationships.  

It is crucial to consider that customers with diverse pricing options may exhibit varied Customer Lifetime Values (LTVs). Hence, it is advisable to compute the LTV for each customer category based on their respective pricing segments.  

What are the Applications of LTV?

Lifetime Value stands as a crucial factor in predicting revenue, given that acquiring each new customer contributes to the revenue generated per month and over the span of their estimated ‘lifetime.’  

For instance, when a company contemplates reducing the pricing for a specific product category and foresees that the future Lifetime Value of a customer from that category will fall below the current Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) for that category, implementing such a pricing strategy would not be viable for the business.  

How to increase lifetime value

Enhancing the lifetime value (LTV) of fresh clientele through churn mitigation is crucial for enhancing your business’s enduring financial success. Developing a targeted retention plan for various LTV categories is advisable to combat churn. For instance, if the average customer lifecycle is currently six months, consider offering extended packages lasting seven months or introducing dedicated account management services during the final two months of the cycle to boost contract renewal prospects.

For organizations utilizing a pricing model not based on subscriptions, a viable strategy to enhance Lifetime Value (LTV) involves developing supplementary features that can be offered to customers as upgrades, thereby augmenting their LTV.

LTV in CRO

In the realm of conversion optimization, the utilization of Lifetime Value (LTV) allows for the assessment of the significance of objectives. This involves dissecting the Lifetime Value associated with a customer and allotting values to individual micro and macro conversions within the sales funnel.

By adopting this approach rather than basing assessments on initial conversions, you can gain a more precise understanding of the significance of each conversion metric concerning your customer’s lifetime value. Furthermore, this strategy enables you to segment your customer acquisition cost (CAC) based on different funnel stages, simplifying the process of devising a precise marketing budget.