Paid acquisition
Winning new customers through paid advertising, such as search, social and shopping ads, rather than through unpaid channels.
What it is
It covers the whole job around the ads: research, strategy, creative, launch, measurement and the changes that follow. The goal is customers, not clicks or traffic.
Why it matters
For lead generation and e-commerceFor most growing companies it is the part of growth that can be turned up or down at will. That makes it the lever boards and founders reach for, and the line of the budget that gets the closest questions.
In practice
It is judged by what a new customer costs and what that customer is worth over time, read per channel and in total.
A common mistake
Treating it as a media buying task. The ads are a small part of the work; research, testing and reading results decide whether the spend pays back.