Annual contract value is easy to calculate, but dangerously incomplete. If you're not leading with Lifetime Value (LTV), you're missing the one number your CFO actually cares about: long-term profitability.
In an industry long driven by advertisers and ad impressions, publishers are learning to think more like SaaS businesses. That means understanding, not just what a subscriber pays today, but what they’re worth over time. And that’s where Lifetime Value (LTV) becomes the most important metric in your toolkit.
Why does this matter to CFOs?
Because growth without retention is just churn in disguise. And with acquisition costs rising and platform algorithms in flux, keeping the customers you have has never been more valuable, or more cost-effective.
Kassian Goukassian, founder of falkemedia and one of the panelists at Evolve, summed it up:
“If you know your LTV, you can justify the investment. You can show the board why retention tactics, better onboarding, or deeper personalization make financial sense. It’s a north star metric that connects product, marketing, and finance.”
Too often, CFOs are handed fragmented numbers, broken out by product, campaign, or subscription tier. But Abi Spooner, of Atlas Consulting, pointed out the problem with this siloed view:
“Annual contract value gives you a snapshot, but it doesn’t tell the story. Subscriber relationships today span multiple formats, print, digital, events, memberships. LTV helps you measure that relationship in full.”
Rather than tracking isolated transactional revenue, forward-thinking publishers are calculating aggregate customer value across every touchpoint. That means:
This shift also allows publishers to optimize for long-term value instead of short-term gains—a message that resonates much more clearly with CFOs than click-throughs ever could.
At Evolve, Matt Lindsey, CEO of Mather Economics, reminded attendees that every marketing and product decision now impacts retention:
“We’re past the point where you can afford to lose 20% of your base each year and make it up in acquisition. Retention is the new growth, and LTV is how you track that.”
The good news? Publishers are in a unique position to extend LTV organically by building content-driven communities. From gated podcasts to professional development series to events, publishers can now create engagement loops that turn one-time subscribers into multi-year brand advocates.
Want to hear the whole story from Matt and Abi, check out their session from evolve nyc 2025.
Want to reframe retention and profitability in a way the board actually cares about
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