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Marketing vocabulary · Marketing Metrics

Customer lifetime value

Meaning in marketing, with examples

nounCommon term

In marketing, customer lifetime value means: An estimate of the total profit or revenue a company can expect from one customer for the whole time that person keeps buying from it.

In Turkish: müşteri yaşam boyu değeri, müşteri ömür boyu değeri

How it is used

Shortened to CLV, CLTV or LTV. It shows how much a company can sensibly spend to win and keep a customer. Many companies compare LTV with CAC, and an LTV much higher than CAC is usually read as a sign of healthy growth.

Example sentences

  1. Customers who join through referrals have a higher customer lifetime value.

  2. We can accept a higher acquisition cost because the customer lifetime value is around 4,000 lira.

Common collocations

  • increase customer lifetime value
  • LTV to CAC ratio
  • average customer lifetime value
  • calculate CLV
  • customer acquisition costThe average amount a company spends on marketing and sales to win one new customer, found by dividing total costs by the number of new customers.
  • customer retentionKeeping existing customers buying from you over time, and the methods a company uses to stop them from leaving for competitors.
  • churn rateThe percentage of customers who stop using a product or cancel a subscription during a certain period, such as a month or a year.
  • brand loyaltyCustomers' habit or wish to keep buying the same brand again and again, even when competitors offer similar products or lower prices.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Marketing Metrics

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