In a recent piece in BusinessWeek, there's an in-depth look at the revamp of eBay's (NASDAQ: EBAY) website. That is, the company is trying to bring back buyers – who have been moving to rivals like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).
It's a smart move and I also think it shows the importance of a key concept: the lifetime value (LTV) of customers.
Generally, LTV involves the following: the profit per unit sold times the average units sold minus the costs of customer acquisition. This should be calculated over a period of time – say 24 to 36 months.
"We actually look at bookings just as much as revenue when we look at the LTV equation," said Jason Blessing, who is a general manager at Taleo (NASDAQ: TLEO). "We feel this gives us a clearer picture of what we are spending to get new year bookings. We feel that we are operating at peak performance if we are getting $2+ in new bookings for every $1 we spend on sales and marketing."
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