What Are Customer Acquisition Costs and Why Is It Important to Calculate Them?

Dr. Meng-Mei Maggie Chen | July 21, 2021

By Dr. Meng-Mei Maggie Chen This article lays out why it's important to differentiate distribution costs from customer acquisition costs (CAC). Distribution costs refer to commissions paid to travel agents, OTAs, discounts to tour operators, etc. Whereas customer acquisition costs include the distribution costs, website-related costs, sales & marketing department salaries (after all, they are here to acquire customers), social media costs, advertising, loyalty and brand-related expenses, channel manager fees, etc.    Why can't we calculate the customer acquisition costs? Because there is no account called "customer acquisi...