Your customer acquisition cost is rising and the explanation changes every quarter but the trend does not.
Q1 it was seasonality. Q2 it was platform algorithm changes. Q3 it was competitive intensity in your category. Q4 it was creative fatigue. Each of those explanations was partially true. None of them explained why the CAC recovery that was supposed to follow each external factor never quite materialised.
The CAC trend that persists across four different quarterly explanations is not an external problem. It is a structural one. It means the system converting and retaining the customers being acquired is not working efficiently enough to make acquisition competitive. When your conversion rate is below where it should be, platforms charge you more because the signal you are sending them is weak. When your retention is below where it should be, you are replacing churn with acquisition spend rather than compounding the base you have already built.
The CAC line is the last place the problem shows up. It is never the first place to look for the cause.
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