CAC Allocation
Compute CAC per GTM motion, rank the motions by efficiency, and see where the next marginal dollar should go.
Overview
CAC Allocation is the CRO's portfolio view of acquisition cost. It computes the fully-loaded CAC for each of the nine GTM motions, PLG, community, partner, SEO/AEO, events, paid, automated and manual outbound, and ABM, ranks them by efficiency, and recommends where the next marginal dollar should go. It is how you defend CAC economics across the whole portfolio rather than one channel at a time.
Two efficiency measures
Where a motion has new ARR, it uses spend-to-ARR (dollars spent per dollar of new ARR, lower is better), the cleanest cross-motion comparison. Where it has customers but not ARR, it falls back to CAC per customer. A motion missing both spend and any acquisition figure is reported as unmeasurable rather than assigned a fabricated CAC, so the ranking is honest about what you can actually compare.
The canonical ordering
When two motions tie on efficiency, the recommendation biases toward the structurally cheaper one, following the canonical ordering PLG < Community < Partner < SEO/AEO < Events < Paid < Outbound < ABM. The result is a single, defensible reallocation, shift marginal budget from the least efficient measurable motion toward the most efficient, with the cheaper motions preferred all else equal.
Deterministic
The allocation is deterministic: the same spend and acquisition always produce the same CAC, ranking, and recommendation, so the number holds up in a board review. It computes CAC only where the inputs support it, and never invents an acquisition figure to make a motion look better than it is.