Instead of just buying leads from partners like wholesalers or agencies, consider acquiring them. If your business has a more effective way to monetize that deal flow (e.g., higher margins, better LTV), you can generate more profit from their leads than they can. This turns a variable marketing expense into a profit-generating asset.

The pool of potential media buyers extends beyond traditional media. Any business paying a "toll" to Google or Facebook for customers is a strategic acquirer for a media asset that owns a direct audience in its niche. This reframes media M&A as a CAC-reduction strategy for non-media companies like Uber.

6AM City treats its reliable cost-per-subscriber from Meta lead ads as the baseline for evaluating all other growth tactics. For any new initiative, like a community event, they compare the cost against the number of subscribers it would have generated via Meta ads. If a $5,000 event doesn't yield 5,000 subscribers, the ROI is considered negative.

Lifetime Value (LTV) is meaningless in isolation. The key metric for investors is the LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. A ratio below 3:1 indicates you're overspending on growth. The 3:1 to 5:1 range is healthy, while anything over 5:1 is world-class and attracts premium valuations.

Emanuel's agency, Endeavor, used its unique position representing global talent to identify undervalued sports and entertainment properties. By acquiring these localized assets (like UFC), they could apply their global infrastructure to unlock massive value that the original owners couldn't access, capturing 90% of the value instead of a 10% agent fee.

Media companies can scale paid acquisition infinitely by selling a low-ticket digital product (e.g., a guide) on the thank-you page after a free newsletter signup. If even a small percentage buys, the revenue can offset ad costs, making subscriber growth free or profitable.

The old investment banking model of mass-emailing a deal to many potential buyers is ineffective for media assets. Selling a media company now requires a custom, hands-on process targeting a handful of highly specific, strategic buyers, as the universe of potential acquirers has shrunk and their needs have changed.

A marketing agency acquired its industry's largest trade publication not to become a publisher, but to create a powerful lead generation engine. Owning the trusted media source for his target clients (real estate agents) provided an unmatched top-of-funnel strategy, driving high-quality leads directly to his agency.

Lacking market comparables, Nexla priced its initial enterprise deals by first understanding the customer's internal cost to solve the same problem. They then proposed a price that was a clear fraction—like one-fifth or one-tenth—of that internal cost, making the ROI immediately obvious and justifiable for the buyer.