The goal of customer acquisition payback of a year or less is a good one, though it’s useful to point that it’s very difficult to achieve in a company’s early years. Salesforce.com and Concur, now very successful, didn’t realize annual revenues in excess of customer acquisition costs until year 3. (See “How Much Capital is Required for SaaS Marketing: http://saasmarketingstrategy.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-much-capital-is-required-for-saas.html)

But by aiming toward that goal and using marketing automation tools or techniques to carefully manage CAC, SaaS companies should be able to build an efficient marketing machine that will yield a positive CAC ratio over time.

Peter Cohen
SaaS Marketing Strategy Advisors
http://www.saasmarketingstrategy.com

Marketing automation is where SaaS players need to focus their efforts in 2010 and marketing needs to become more accountable to revenue. Marketo looks to be positioned healthily to take advantage of it.

I think marketing automation will be the focus of “This Week in SaaS” this week. Last week’s here if you’re interested: http://bit.ly/55dCpk

One of the surest signs of a successful SaaS business today is the degree to which marketing is measurable and where the economics of CAC vs. LTV make sense.

Great companies like Salesforce.com, ConstantContact, Omniture and others all had this as a significant factor.