How much would you pay for a click? 
An introduction to lifetime value 
Presented by: Brent Chudoba, SurveyMonkey 
Lehigh University: Principles of Marketing – MKT 111 
OCTOBER, 2014
Introduction 
Brent Chudoba 
● Senior Vice President, General Manager of SurveyMonkey Audience 
● Joined @SurveyMonkey in 2009 
● @bchudoba 
● brentchudoba.com 
● in/brentchudoba
Goals 
• By the end of this session you will 
- Be ready to start your career in marketing at a 
powerful Internet company. Well maybe not yet, but 
you’ll be familiar with some key jargon and the 
fundamental concept of lifetime value 
- Have a working framework for how to evaluate the 
value of a customer and how it impacts marketing 
decisions 
3
Notes 
4
Session notes 
• This session is about how the value of a customer 
connects to how marketers think about spending on 
advertising 
• We will use a real company example, but numbers are 
based on Internet research on sites like Quora, Forbes 
and Netflix Investor Relations 
• Numbers are simplified to facilitate discussion and explain 
concepts but may have inaccuracies due sources and 
changes over time 
5
Scope notes 
• Customer Lifetime Value is a complex topic 
- The focus in this presentation is on basic lifetime 
revenue value of a monthly subscription service 
customer 
- A starting point for more information on Customer 
Lifetime Value (CLV) can be found in this Wikipedia 
Article 
6
How many of you have access to a 
Netflix paid subscription? 
7
8
9
Key questions 
• How much are you worth to Netflix? 
• How much is Netflix willing to pay to get another 
subscriber like you? 
10
How much are you worth to Netflix? 
11
Let’s establish a reasonable value ceiling 
• What is the total amount of money (one key 
measure of value) that you will pay Netflix over 
time? 
- This is the concept of Lifetime Revenue (LTR) 
• How do we figure out this metric? 
12
Components of basic LTR 
• Average monthly cost of a subscription 
- Often referred to as AOV (average order value) or 
ARPU (average revenue per user) 
Multiplied by 
• Average number of months customers subscribe 
(aka: average lifetime) 
Equals 
• Average Lifetime Revenue of a subscriber 
13
Average monthly cost of a subscription 
• Typically a weighted average of the different subscription 
prices and the % of customers who choose each package 
• We’ll use $10 as a simple average for our example 
14
Average months customers subscribe 
• One simple method to calculate is the “half-life” 
- If customers cancel or “churn” at a consistent rate, at the time where only 
50% of a cohort of customers are still paying subscribers, this is the 
average lifetime of a customer 
Remaining Customers 
15 
100 
80 
60 
40 
20 
0 
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69 73 77 81 85 89 93 97 
Customers 
Month
Lifetime Revenue value 
16
What could be missing? 
• Average monthly cost can be more complex, and may need to 
incorporate 
- Price changes and discounts 
- Package shifting (moving from one subscription type to another) 
- Upselling & cross-selling of other services 
• Lifetime calculations can be more complex 
- Many subscriptions don’t have a constant cancellation rate 
• Cancellation rates can be much higher in early months and drop significantly 
in later months, extending the lifetime 
• Viral marketing benefits and word of mouth sharing increase 
the value of each customer 
17
How does Lifetime Revenue value 
connect to marketing? 
18
How much is this click worth? 
19
Starting with Lifetime Revenue (LTR) 
• If a business spends more than LTR ($180 in this 
example) to acquire a new customer, it will go out of 
business quickly 
- Remember that $180 takes 18 months to collect 
20 
• Most businesses seek 
- Long term profitability 
- Have operating costs (e.g., employee salaries, rent) 
- Have costs for providing services (e.g., servers, data 
hosting, content licensing)
Marketing as a % of LTR 
• For our example, let’s assume Netflix is willing to 
spend 10% of its customer LTR ($180) on 
marketing 
• This would give it $180 X 10% = $18 to spend to 
acquire a new customer 
21
Click value 
• If we assume Netflix can convert 10% of people who click 
on paid search ads to paid customers 
• It can afford to spend $1.80 per click ($1.80 / 10% = $18) 
to meet it’s target of $18 in customer acquisition costs 
22
Business objectives are key to optimizing 
marketing strategy 
23
Marketing strategy is a balancing act 
• A company’s business objectives will have a major impact on 
how is runs its marketing strategy, and how it answers 
questions like: 
- What % of our customer LTR are we willing to spend on acquiring 
new customers? 10%, 50%, 150%? 
- Where should we set our initial price point? 
- Should we offer monthly or annual subscriptions, or both? 
- Do we need to account for sales costs (e.g., commissions)? 
- How important is early traction for a new product or geography? 
24
What can influence marketing strategy? 
25 
May optimize for: 
• Conversion / Market Share 
• Cash 
• LTV (long term revenue) 
• Profit 
• Supply/Inventory mix 
Business scenario: 
• Bootstrapped startup 
• VC backed startup 
• Established business 
• Unknown LTR 
• Physical product retailer
Price point implications 
26
Subscription term implications 
27
How complex can LTR get? 
28
Really complex 
29 
Does anyone have an iPhone? 
How would Apple estimate your LTR? 
How valuable did you become to Apple when you bought an iPhone? 
After your iPhone purchase, you became: 
• Much more likely to spend money on iTunes & the App Store 
• Much more likely to buy a Mac, which makes you 
- Much more likely to spend more money on iTunes 
- Much more likely to upgrade to the next iPhone 
• More likely to buy an iPad 
• More likely to buy an Apple Watch 
• Much more likely to upgrade to new versions of all these products 
• More likely to tell your family and friends to buy Apple products… 
It’s safe to say that $199 is only the beginning of a new buyer’s LTR
Appendix 
30
Marketing acronyms 
31
What about the acronyms… 
I overhear conversations like this every day… 
Marketing: “This test failed, the LTV impact was too negative despite a 
higher AOV.“ 
Exec: “But first period churn may be better given the source, and with the 
higher AOV and ARPU, the LTR is going to look better.” 
Marketing: “The main AOV impact was related to higher conversion because 
of the source mix, but that also means CAC is higher for these users so LTV 
will be lower.” 
Exec: “Ah, gotcha. Makes total sense, let’s keep testing.” 
32
But they are important to understand 
• There are about a dozen inputs that 
go into many of the spend 
calculations for marketers 
• Most businesses rely heavily on core 
metrics that allow them to gauge 
performance 
• Advice: when you hear a metric you 
don’t understand, raise your hand, 
figure out what it means… 
33
Bonus: Pricing tactics 
34
Which package does Spotify want you to buy? 
35
A marketer might see… 
36 
They are 
really trying 
to drive to 
this 
package w/ 
a badge 
and a 
different 
color CTA 
Using images to show the major 
differences, which is device 
portability, extremely helpful cue 
This is a freemium 
product, if I downgrade I 
revert to free
Which package does Netflix want you to buy? 
37
A marketer might see… Packages 1 and 3 may be 
38 
Avg. 
price/month is 
likely in the 
~$10 range, 
Avg. lifetime in 
the 18 month 
range, so LTR 
may be around 
$180… 
used as bookends, with the 
price 33% higher making 
“Camera” look like a great deal
39 
Thank 
you!

(10-15-14) Lehigh Marketing 111 Lecture Materials

  • 1.
    How much wouldyou pay for a click? An introduction to lifetime value Presented by: Brent Chudoba, SurveyMonkey Lehigh University: Principles of Marketing – MKT 111 OCTOBER, 2014
  • 2.
    Introduction Brent Chudoba ● Senior Vice President, General Manager of SurveyMonkey Audience ● Joined @SurveyMonkey in 2009 ● @bchudoba ● brentchudoba.com ● in/brentchudoba
  • 3.
    Goals • Bythe end of this session you will - Be ready to start your career in marketing at a powerful Internet company. Well maybe not yet, but you’ll be familiar with some key jargon and the fundamental concept of lifetime value - Have a working framework for how to evaluate the value of a customer and how it impacts marketing decisions 3
  • 4.
  • 5.
    Session notes •This session is about how the value of a customer connects to how marketers think about spending on advertising • We will use a real company example, but numbers are based on Internet research on sites like Quora, Forbes and Netflix Investor Relations • Numbers are simplified to facilitate discussion and explain concepts but may have inaccuracies due sources and changes over time 5
  • 6.
    Scope notes •Customer Lifetime Value is a complex topic - The focus in this presentation is on basic lifetime revenue value of a monthly subscription service customer - A starting point for more information on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can be found in this Wikipedia Article 6
  • 7.
    How many ofyou have access to a Netflix paid subscription? 7
  • 8.
  • 9.
  • 10.
    Key questions •How much are you worth to Netflix? • How much is Netflix willing to pay to get another subscriber like you? 10
  • 11.
    How much areyou worth to Netflix? 11
  • 12.
    Let’s establish areasonable value ceiling • What is the total amount of money (one key measure of value) that you will pay Netflix over time? - This is the concept of Lifetime Revenue (LTR) • How do we figure out this metric? 12
  • 13.
    Components of basicLTR • Average monthly cost of a subscription - Often referred to as AOV (average order value) or ARPU (average revenue per user) Multiplied by • Average number of months customers subscribe (aka: average lifetime) Equals • Average Lifetime Revenue of a subscriber 13
  • 14.
    Average monthly costof a subscription • Typically a weighted average of the different subscription prices and the % of customers who choose each package • We’ll use $10 as a simple average for our example 14
  • 15.
    Average months customerssubscribe • One simple method to calculate is the “half-life” - If customers cancel or “churn” at a consistent rate, at the time where only 50% of a cohort of customers are still paying subscribers, this is the average lifetime of a customer Remaining Customers 15 100 80 60 40 20 0 1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69 73 77 81 85 89 93 97 Customers Month
  • 16.
  • 17.
    What could bemissing? • Average monthly cost can be more complex, and may need to incorporate - Price changes and discounts - Package shifting (moving from one subscription type to another) - Upselling & cross-selling of other services • Lifetime calculations can be more complex - Many subscriptions don’t have a constant cancellation rate • Cancellation rates can be much higher in early months and drop significantly in later months, extending the lifetime • Viral marketing benefits and word of mouth sharing increase the value of each customer 17
  • 18.
    How does LifetimeRevenue value connect to marketing? 18
  • 19.
    How much isthis click worth? 19
  • 20.
    Starting with LifetimeRevenue (LTR) • If a business spends more than LTR ($180 in this example) to acquire a new customer, it will go out of business quickly - Remember that $180 takes 18 months to collect 20 • Most businesses seek - Long term profitability - Have operating costs (e.g., employee salaries, rent) - Have costs for providing services (e.g., servers, data hosting, content licensing)
  • 21.
    Marketing as a% of LTR • For our example, let’s assume Netflix is willing to spend 10% of its customer LTR ($180) on marketing • This would give it $180 X 10% = $18 to spend to acquire a new customer 21
  • 22.
    Click value •If we assume Netflix can convert 10% of people who click on paid search ads to paid customers • It can afford to spend $1.80 per click ($1.80 / 10% = $18) to meet it’s target of $18 in customer acquisition costs 22
  • 23.
    Business objectives arekey to optimizing marketing strategy 23
  • 24.
    Marketing strategy isa balancing act • A company’s business objectives will have a major impact on how is runs its marketing strategy, and how it answers questions like: - What % of our customer LTR are we willing to spend on acquiring new customers? 10%, 50%, 150%? - Where should we set our initial price point? - Should we offer monthly or annual subscriptions, or both? - Do we need to account for sales costs (e.g., commissions)? - How important is early traction for a new product or geography? 24
  • 25.
    What can influencemarketing strategy? 25 May optimize for: • Conversion / Market Share • Cash • LTV (long term revenue) • Profit • Supply/Inventory mix Business scenario: • Bootstrapped startup • VC backed startup • Established business • Unknown LTR • Physical product retailer
  • 26.
  • 27.
  • 28.
    How complex canLTR get? 28
  • 29.
    Really complex 29 Does anyone have an iPhone? How would Apple estimate your LTR? How valuable did you become to Apple when you bought an iPhone? After your iPhone purchase, you became: • Much more likely to spend money on iTunes & the App Store • Much more likely to buy a Mac, which makes you - Much more likely to spend more money on iTunes - Much more likely to upgrade to the next iPhone • More likely to buy an iPad • More likely to buy an Apple Watch • Much more likely to upgrade to new versions of all these products • More likely to tell your family and friends to buy Apple products… It’s safe to say that $199 is only the beginning of a new buyer’s LTR
  • 30.
  • 31.
  • 32.
    What about theacronyms… I overhear conversations like this every day… Marketing: “This test failed, the LTV impact was too negative despite a higher AOV.“ Exec: “But first period churn may be better given the source, and with the higher AOV and ARPU, the LTR is going to look better.” Marketing: “The main AOV impact was related to higher conversion because of the source mix, but that also means CAC is higher for these users so LTV will be lower.” Exec: “Ah, gotcha. Makes total sense, let’s keep testing.” 32
  • 33.
    But they areimportant to understand • There are about a dozen inputs that go into many of the spend calculations for marketers • Most businesses rely heavily on core metrics that allow them to gauge performance • Advice: when you hear a metric you don’t understand, raise your hand, figure out what it means… 33
  • 34.
  • 35.
    Which package doesSpotify want you to buy? 35
  • 36.
    A marketer mightsee… 36 They are really trying to drive to this package w/ a badge and a different color CTA Using images to show the major differences, which is device portability, extremely helpful cue This is a freemium product, if I downgrade I revert to free
  • 37.
    Which package doesNetflix want you to buy? 37
  • 38.
    A marketer mightsee… Packages 1 and 3 may be 38 Avg. price/month is likely in the ~$10 range, Avg. lifetime in the 18 month range, so LTR may be around $180… used as bookends, with the price 33% higher making “Camera” look like a great deal
  • 39.

Editor's Notes

  • #9 What do you notice? Single CTA Price featured