The total affiliate program cost required to acquire one new customer through the affiliate channel, calculated as total affiliate spend divided by the number of new customers acquired. NCAC is the most important economic metric for affiliate programs whose primary goal is new customer acquisition. Formula: NCAC = Total Affiliate Program Cost ÷ Number of New Customers Acquired via Affiliate. Example: $15,000 monthly affiliate spend ÷ 300 new customers = $50 NCAC. How NCAC relates to other metrics: NCAC depends on both affiliate ROAS and new customer rate; a program with strong ROAS but low new customer rate (many returning customer conversions) has a poor NCAC because the affiliate spend is largely buying returning customer orders, not new customer acquisition; a program with modest ROAS but very high new customer rate (most conversions are genuinely new) has efficient NCAC even if raw ROAS looks lower. Comparing NCAC across channels: NCAC enables apples-to-apples comparison of affiliate channel efficiency against paid search, paid social, and other customer acquisition channels; if affiliate NCAC is $50 and paid social NCAC is $120 for the same customer profile, affiliate is the more efficient acquisition channel and warrants more budget allocation. Optimizing NCAC: new customer commission premium (pay higher commissions only on new customer conversions) aligns publisher incentives with the NCAC goal; publisher type tier that favors content publishers (who drive higher new customer rates) over coupon publishers (who drive lower new customer rates) improves NCAC; publisher recruitment targeting audiences who are not current brand customers improves new customer rate and therefore NCAC.
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