alt Hacker News> I doubt the ROI would be so high if organic results stood any chance.
This is just the same fallacy. In what world are people going to organically share ads for this company on their Facebook feeds? Who is going to Google the company name before they know about it?
Every business needs to proactively acquire customers.
Distribution and CAC are top of mind values for any growth business. It has been this way long before Google and Meta existed. Digital advertising actually makes it cheaper and easier than ever to acquire customers at scale.
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A lot of people enter the company or product name into the browser's search field and reach their intended target through an ad at the top of the results. If they proceed to purchase something, does this count as a conversion? I think it does. Unlike traditional advertising, this didn't influence the customer's decision to buy at all.
CAC-LTV by itself is not a great long term strategy. But it can appear like one in the short term to investors.
So there is a plethora of companies happily dumping investor money into paid customer acquisition.
Blue Apron was a classic example of borderline fraudulent growth metrics and a cash grab IPO before the customer acquisition funnel collapsed.
Information can travel without people paying for it do so.
Ban most ads and everything will still work fine.