How Elite Brands Use LTV:CAC Analytics to Outsmart Their Competition

Retail & DTC brands that succeed don't see analytics as a cost center, they use it to unlock hidden revenue opportunities. When viewed through the right strategic lens LTV, CAC, and Retention empower elite brands to graduate to the next stage of growth while their competitors are still stuck 'doing analytics.'

Elite brands like our enterprise clients at NBA, UFC, Princess Cruises or our DTC clients like Seed Health, Henry Rose, or Tezza.

Did you know…

Over 75% of DTC customers only buy once.

Did you also know…

Fixing just 1% of your churn…can pay for ALL of your CAC!

While many brands are resigned to the idea that recurring customers are rare, they continue to chase new customers at exorbitant 2025 CAC prices, and the ignore the OUTSIZED impact of getting existing customers to make a 2nd purchase. This is often most evident during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) when brands offer deep discounts, to customers who are essentially just fickle bargain hunters.

1st Order Profitability

This drag on the brand's "1st Order Profitability" and force brands to try and "Pay Back" this debt by relying on the tiny % of customers that buy a 2nd & 3rd time.

2nd Order Modeling

Without proper "2nd Order Modeling" in place, brands can miss out on massive revenue opportunities that should otherwise be low-hanging fruit.

At Latticework Insights, we help elite brands see their business more clearly and uncover new revenue opportunities. By looking closely at historical customer journeys, we help them pinpoint the most likely customer segments to return. With this advanced "2nd Order Modeling" we can put a dollar value & a probability against each customer record and help them pour rocket fuel on their profitability.

LTV:CAC Modeling

Every DTC team has a proliferation of cohort charts sitting unused in their dashboards. But with the right tweaks, these charts can tell a story of the seasonality driving their biggest profitability and largest growth opportunities.

• BFCM may be big for top line revenue, but is it just stealing revenue from October and December?

• CPMs drop in Jan & Feb, but conversions are abysmal, maybe this is the wrong season for performance marketing?

• During recessions, CAC gets inflated on "low risk" networks like Meta as brand flee to safety, maybe these are the times to experiment on burgeoning platforms?

Predicting Customer LTV

As Data Science becomes more of a commodity in the era of AI, predictive techniques such as SARIMAX and Buy Till You Die are become table stakes. Brands can use their historical data to predict things like

• Number of future purchases

• Timing of future purchases

• Amount of future revenue (LTV)

• Whether the customer is still buying ("alive") or has churned ("dead")

Becoming an Elite DTC Brand

So if your brand is starting to see success and you're looking to become an Elite Brands like Latticework clients NBA, UFC, Princess, Seed Health, Henry Rose, and Tezza, we'd love to explore working with your team.

Click here to Book Us to have a conversation about accelerating your growth.

To read more about Retail Analytics Trends in 2025, check out the our full PDF guide below.