What is the difference between marketing CAC, sales CAC, and fully loaded CAC in B2B attribution reporting?
Quick Answer: Marketing CAC measures only the cost of acquiring a customer through marketing spend, such as paid media, content, events, and marketing personnel tied to demand generation. Sales CAC includes the cost of the sales function required to close that customer, while fully loaded CAC combines marketing, sales, and any other acquisition-related overhead to show the true cost of winning a customer in B2B attribution reporting.
Detailed Explanation
In B2B attribution reporting, these CAC definitions differ by how much of the acquisition stack they include. Marketing CAC is the narrowest view and isolates spend tied to pipeline creation and lead generation; it is useful for channel efficiency but can understate the real cost of growth if sales execution is expensive. Sales CAC adds the direct cost of the sales team, including commissions, salaries, tools, and enablement associated with converting qualified opportunities into customers. Fully loaded CAC is the most comprehensive metric, incorporating marketing, sales, and relevant overhead such as revenue operations, customer acquisition technology, and other shared costs allocated to new-logo acquisition. For board-level and unit economics analysis, fully loaded CAC is the most defensible measure because it reflects the true cash cost of acquiring each customer, not just the cost of generating leads or closing deals.
Key Technical Drivers
- Marketing CAC = total marketing acquisition spend ÷ new customers; use it to compare channel efficiency, but do not treat it as true business acquisition cost.
- Sales CAC = sales expense attributable to new customer conversion ÷ new customers; include comp, commissions, SDR/AE costs, and sales tooling tied to closing.
- Fully loaded CAC = marketing + sales + allocated acquisition overhead ÷ new customers; this is the best metric for margin analysis, payback period, and investor reporting.