We are building a crowdsourcing marketplace, where we will have clients on one side and freelancers on the other side. Let's say we have the freelancers side under control and we don't need to acquire freelancers at the moment. What would be a regular CAC value in order to acquire clients in our platform?
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Your customer acquisition cost is not something you should benchmark against other businesses. Without knowing more, like your short and long-term goals, it's impossible to answer.
Two companies with similar business models may have different answers to this question. A venture-backed startup trying to keep up with aggressive revenue goals may be able to stomach an astronomical CAC. A bootstrapped startup that is not seeking venture money may aim for slower growth and much lower CAC.
I suggest setting up a call with a marketing or finance expert to determine what CAC is appropriate for your company and how to get there.
The acquisition cost depends on the channel you will use to reach out your clients and your ability to target them.
At first, you will probably spend quite a lot in order to find the right mix for targeting and you will hopefully improve that.
What I would do is to put a small budget and test (a lot) what are the best acquisition channel and targets.
In my case, I had the opportunity to build a platform of 200 000 users just by using the right channel and targeting the right people in 9 months with no users at all at all in the beginning. We have decreased our acquisition cost by more than 50% since the launch.
But if I can add a remark, I was not focused on the cost to acquire a user, but simply to be able to acquire some. The first objective is to understand how a client is interested by your plateform (the value of your freelancers) and how much you would get out of a client and then try to optimize its acquisition process.
I'd happy to share more with you if you want.
Alexandre
