CAC by Channel Benchmarks
A channel-by-channel CAC benchmark for online stores in the €1M–€15M revenue band, with typical ranges for Meta, Google, TikTok, email, affiliate and organic, plus how to read them.
CAC by Channel
CAC by channel splits customer acquisition cost across each paid and owned channel so you can see which sources actually scale profitably.
CAC by channel is the per-channel cut of your blended customer acquisition cost. Instead of one company-wide number, you calculate cost ÷ new customers separately for Meta, Google, TikTok, email, affiliate, organic and any other meaningful source. That granularity is what turns CAC from a board-deck metric into a budget-allocation tool.
For an online store in the €1M–€15M band, channel-level CAC is usually the difference between defending ROAS and quietly bleeding margin. Meta and Google rarely cost the same per customer, and a channel that looks cheap on last-click can be expensive once you bake in creative production, agency fees and incrementality.
The blended CAC number on your monthly P&L hides where money is actually being spent well. Two stores can both report a €42 blended CAC and have completely different problems — one is over-indexed on Meta prospecting at €70 per customer, the other is leaking budget into branded Google search that would have converted organically.
Splitting CAC by channel is the first analytical move once you have a stable CAC Calculation in place. It tells you which channels to scale, which to cap, and where incremental euros earn their keep. The benchmarks below are typical 2024 ranges for Shopify and WooCommerce brands in apparel, beauty and consumer electronics.
Typical CAC ranges by channel for online stores (€1M–€15M revenue band, 2024)
| Channel | Apparel CAC (€) | Beauty CAC (€) | Consumer electronics CAC (€) | Typical share of new customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Ads (prospecting) | 35–80 | 30–70 | 55–140 | 30–45% |
| Google Ads (non-brand) | 40–95 | 35–85 | 60–160 | 15–25% |
| Google Ads (brand) | 5–18 | 4–14 | 8–25 | 5–10% |
| TikTok Ads | 25–65 | 20–55 | 70–180 | 8–20% |
| Email & SMS (Klaviyo) | 3–12 | 2–10 | 5–18 | 5–12% |
| Affiliate / influencer | 20–55 | 15–45 | 40–120 | 5–15% |
| Organic search & direct | 0–8 | 0–6 | 0–10 | 10–25% |
Read the table as ranges, not targets. A €40 Meta CAC on apparel is healthy if your average order value is €85 and you have repeat purchase behaviour; it is a problem if AOV is €55 and second-order rate sits below 20%. Channel CAC only means something when paired with contribution margin and a realistic payback window.
Median CAC by channel — apparel vs beauty vs consumer electronics
Apparel
Beauty
Consumer electronics
Why CAC varies so much between channels
The headline driver is intent. Someone searching for "linen midi dress" on Google is already mid-funnel; someone scrolling Reels has zero purchase intent until your creative earns it. Higher intent compresses the funnel and lowers CAC, which is why brand search and organic almost always sit at the bottom of the table.
Auction dynamics matter just as much. Meta CAC has roughly doubled since iOS 14.5 broke deterministic attribution, and TikTok CAC swings widely with creative fatigue — a winning hook can pull CAC to €25 for six weeks and then snap back to €70 once the audience is saturated. Email and organic look cheap because the acquisition cost is amortised across earlier paid touches you've already paid for.
Category economics also distort the picture. Consumer electronics carries higher CAC because consideration cycles are longer, returns eat margin, and the customer rarely comes back inside 12 months. Beauty sits at the cheap end because repeat purchase is fast and creator content travels well on TikTok and Reels.
Last-click attribution flatters owned channels
If you measure CAC with last-click in GA4, email and brand search will look unreasonably cheap because they harvest demand that Meta and TikTok created upstream. Before you cut paid social based on channel CAC alone, pressure-test the numbers with a geo holdout or a media mix model. Otherwise you'll redirect budget into channels that can't actually scale new-customer volume.
Using channel CAC to reallocate budget
The useful comparison is not channel CAC against channel CAC — it's channel CAC against channel contribution margin and the headroom to scale. A €70 Meta CAC with €90 first-order contribution and a 35% 90-day repeat rate is a channel you push harder. A €25 affiliate CAC that only fires on existing customers with promo codes is a discount you're paying yourself.
Once you have stable channel-level CAC, the next move is working through the CAC Reduction Levers — creative testing cadence, landing page conversion rate, offer structure, and post-purchase flow — to bring the expensive channels into the same range as the cheap ones. The benchmarks above tell you whether you're inside or outside the normal band; they don't tell you which lever to pull first.
Frequently asked questions
There isn't a universal good number — it depends on your AOV, contribution margin and repeat rate. As a rule of thumb, a channel is healthy if first-order contribution margin covers at least 70% of channel CAC, with the rest paid back inside 90 days from repeat orders. For an apparel brand with €80 AOV, that usually means Meta CAC under €55 and Google non-brand under €65.
Three things stacked: iOS 14.5 broke the signal Meta needed for efficient prospecting, more advertisers crowded the auction post-2021, and creative fatigue cycles shortened from months to weeks. Most brands we see have absorbed a 60–120% Meta CAC increase since 2021 and now compete on creative velocity rather than audience targeting.
Take channel spend (ads + agency fees + creative production) and divide by net new customers attributed to that channel in the same window. The hard part is the attribution model — see CAC Calculation for the full method, including how to handle shared costs and platform-reported vs platform-agnostic conversions.
Yes, but separately from paid. Email and organic have real costs (Klaviyo subscription, SEO retainer, content production) and ignoring them overstates how cheap your owned channels are. Keep them in their own row so they don't get averaged into paid channel decisions.
Sometimes, for the right category. Beauty, apparel and impulse-priced accessories often see 20–40% lower TikTok CAC than Meta when creative is genuinely native. Consumer electronics, considered purchases and anything over €200 AOV tend to be more expensive on TikTok because the platform's audience doesn't convert as readily on high-consideration items.
Monthly at minimum, weekly during peak periods like Q4 or product launches. CAC moves fast — a creative refresh, a competitor entering the auction, or a single algorithm update can shift channel CAC by 30% inside a week. Static quarterly reporting is too slow to catch the change before it hurts margin.
Brand search converts at 15–25% versus 2–4% for non-brand, so blending them produces an artificially low Google CAC that hides how expensive cold prospecting really is. Always split brand from non-brand in your reporting, and treat brand spend as a defensive line item rather than incremental acquisition.
Different channels acquire different customers. TikTok and Meta prospecting often bring in discount-sensitive first-time buyers with lower 12-month LTV, while Google non-brand and referral tend to bring higher-LTV repeat-prone shoppers. Always pair channel CAC with channel-level LTV before reallocating budget — a higher CAC channel with 2x LTV is still the better channel.
Pick a single attribution model, document it, and stick with it for at least a quarter so changes are comparable. Most brands in this revenue band use data-driven attribution in GA4 as the default and pressure-test with an incrementality test (geo holdout or platform lift study) twice a year. Switching models monthly makes CAC trends impossible to read.
Start with channels where CAC sits above the upper end of the typical range AND first-order contribution margin doesn't cover it. Usually that's broad Meta prospecting with stale creative or non-brand Google on generic head terms. Don't cut affiliate or email first — they're usually the cheapest customers you'll ever buy.
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