
Just as important as setting prices via markup , knowing the conversion rate and ROI is discovering the profit that each of your customers can pass on to your e-commerce business in a given period.
With this information, you will be able to know (in the end) whether the cost of acquiring a certain target audience compensates or not in relation to the return that this audience gives to your e-commerce.
The formula to calculate the life cycle of your online store's customers is:
Where:

As an example, let's say that in your online store:
- Customers buy 6 times a year (on average);
- Each customer spends BRL 157,90 (on average) on each purchase;
- Each customer spends 7 years (on average) shopping at your store;
- The gross margin (profit on each sale) is 40%.
When we apply the formula to these values, we get:

Now you know that, over a 7-year lifecycle, each of your customers contributes R$2.652,72 in purchases to your virtual store.
Let's suppose you spend R$ 52,10 on sponsored links , SEO content , and digital marketing in general to acquire each of these customers, generating a return of R$ 2.652,72 over 7 years. Would that be a good deal for you? The answer to this question is a starting point for evaluating whether your online store is worthwhile and for making optimization decisions.