Why a single blended CAC lies
Most clinics track one acquisition cost across the whole business. It feels tidy and it's almost useless. A clinic can post a healthy blended CAC while quietly overspending to acquire low-value patients and underspending on the procedures that pay the lease.
The average is a number you can report but can't act on. The split is what tells you where to move the next dirham — and it usually contradicts the gut feel about which campaigns are "working".
The cohort method: splitting CAC by procedure
For each new patient, attribute the campaign spend and the booked consult to the procedure named in the enquiry. Then follow that cohort: first-treatment value, whether they rebook, and how long the cash takes to come back. Blended CAC for the cohort is simply qualifying spend divided by first-time patients in it.
It isn't exotic analytics — it's disciplined attribution plus patience. The hard part is clean tracking at the point of enquiry, which is exactly what most clinic funnels lose.
What we see across the cohort
The table below is indexed to the lowest-CAC cohort rather than quoted in currency — because absolute CAC swings hard by market, season and offer, and a dollar figure would imply a precision we don't have. The shape travels between clinics; the magnitude does not.
| Procedure cohort | Blended CAC (indexed) | Booked-consult rate | First-treatment value | Payback profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Injectables (tox / filler) | 1.0× (lowest) | High | Low–medium | Slow on first visit, fast on repeat |
| Memberships / skincare | 1.2× | High | Recurring | Compounds — best LTV:CAC over 12 months |
| Laser & skin (devices) | 1.6× | Medium | Medium–high | Faster — higher first ticket |
| Body contouring | 2.3× | Lower | High | Fast per patient, lower volume |
| Surgical / consult-led | 2.8× (highest) | Low | Very high | Long cycle, high value |
What to do with the split
Once you can see it, the moves are obvious. Stop judging injectable campaigns on first-visit value — judge them on 12-month repeat, where memberships and skincare quietly win. Give device and body work the budget their payback justifies even though the CAC headline looks scary. And put your best creative and fastest follow-up on the consult-led procedures, where one booked patient covers a lot of cheap clicks.
The split changes the question from "which campaign has the lowest CAC" to "which procedure funds the chair" — and those are rarely the same answer.
Methodology and caveats
Method: for each new patient we attribute qualifying campaign spend and the booked consult to the procedure named in the enquiry, then track that cohort's first-treatment value and repeat behaviour for 12 months. Blended CAC = qualifying spend ÷ first-time patients in the cohort.
Caveats: a single cohort of eight clinics across the GCC and UK, 2025. Figures are indexed, not currency, and deliberately so. This is directional, not a public benchmark and not a substitute for your own numbers — run the same split on your account before you reallocate a dirham. The only CAC that matters is yours.