# Marketing Investment — Monthly acquisition spend

This number only makes sense divided by the new customers it generated: that gives you the real CAC. Marketing spend without precise return measurement is a black box that may be destroying value.

## Where to find it

Add up the month's spend in Meta Ads Manager + Google Ads + any paid influencer or affiliate. If you have several ad accounts, add them all — it's total acquisition spend, not just one channel.

## If it's off

Without proper attribution, budget concentrates in the most visible channels (Meta, Google) even if they are not the most efficient. Real CAC can be 2–5× higher than the "official" CAC reported by the platform.

## LATAM Benchmarks

| Status | Range |
|---|---|
| Healthy | Marketing / Revenue < 20% and LTV:CAC > 3× |
| Alert | Marketing / Revenue 20–35% |
| Critical | Marketing / Revenue > 35% without LTV to justify it |

## How to improve it

Calculate CAC by separate channel: Meta Ads, Google, organic, referrals. The most efficient channel is typically 3–5× cheaper. Redirecting 30% of budget from the expensive channel to the cheap one can reduce blended CAC by 40%.

Related metrics: [Default Rate](https://www.uniteconomicscalculator.com/en/glossary/default-rate.html) · [Monthly Revenue](https://www.uniteconomicscalculator.com/en/glossary/monthly-revenue.html) · [Active Customers](https://www.uniteconomicscalculator.com/en/glossary/active-customers.html)

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