Episode Details

Customer acquisition is getting harder.

E-commerce growth has slowed, consumer confidence remains under pressure and businesses are having to work much harder to justify where every pound of marketing budget goes.

So what does profitable growth look like when acquiring the next customer is becoming increasingly expensive?

In this episode of The Fractional CFO Show, Adam Cooper is joined by Daniel Dunn, CEO and Co-Founder of Paper Planes, a growth agency and technology platform helping D2C and e-commerce brands use data-driven postal marketing to acquire, retain and reactivate customers.

Dan's background spans Disney, data and insights consultancy dunnhumby, Tesco Clubcard strategy and managing major brand marketing investment before co-founding Paper Planes.

That experience gives him an interesting perspective on one of the biggest challenges facing founders today: balancing customer acquisition and business growth with profitability and return on investment.

The changing economics of customer acquisition

Dan explains why the environment for e-commerce and D2C brands has changed significantly since the growth experienced during the pandemic.

For years, businesses could increase marketing spend across channels such as Meta, Google and paid social and see relatively predictable growth.

Today, that equation is becoming more difficult.

Customer acquisition costs are under pressure, consumers have more choice and founders need a much clearer understanding of which marketing activity is genuinely creating incremental growth.

That means moving beyond top-line revenue and asking better questions about marketing ROI, profitability and where the next pound of investment should go.

Marketing needs both creativity and data

One of the central themes of the conversation is Dan's view that marketing is both an art and a science.

Great creative still matters. Brands need campaigns that attract attention, communicate effectively and stand out in crowded markets.

But creativity needs to sit alongside data-driven decision-making.

For founders working with more limited budgets, understanding the return generated by different marketing channels becomes particularly important. The objective isn't simply to spend more. It's to understand what works, remove ineffective spend and continually improve how capital is allocated.

Acquisition versus customer retention

We also explore the increasing focus on customer retention and reactivation.

Businesses naturally spend a lot of time thinking about how to acquire new customers, but Dan argues that many overlook the value sitting within their existing first-party customer data.

Once a business has paid to acquire a customer, there is an opportunity to build that relationship, increase customer lifetime value and encourage repeat purchases rather than continually paying to replace them with someone new.

For founders focused on sustainable and profitable growth, the balance between acquisition and retention is becoming increasingly important.

Why diversification matters

Another major theme is marketing diversification.

Many growing businesses become heavily dependent on a relatively small number of channels, particularly Meta, Google, email and paid social.

That can work extremely well, until performance changes.

Dan's advice isn't to abandon successful channels. Instead, businesses should understand which parts of their existing marketing spend are generating the strongest returns and continually allocate a small proportion of budget towards testing something new.

His recommendation to founders is simple: every quarter, try a new channel.

Testing doesn't necessarily require a larger overall marketing budget. It can mean identifying ineffective expenditure, reallocating it and using controlled tests to understand w