Sena builds a customer acquisition strategy from the category around the funnel, read from real-world data.
Acquisition spend is the largest discretionary line most commercial teams control, and it is committed against the narrowest picture available. Three patterns hold that picture in place.
Everything measured arrives from people who already made contact. The category buyers who purchased from somebody else this year sit outside every system the plan is built from.
One acquisition cost covers every buyer won, and the segments underneath it cost wildly different amounts to reach. The average conceals both the cheap group and the expensive one.
Credit lands where the final click happened, so the channels that created the demand rank below the ones that harvested it. Budget follows the ranking.
Sena is the decision AI with access to real-world data. It counts everyone purchasing the category in a market and reports which players they buy from, so acquisition planning starts from the buyers who exist and the positions they currently sit in.
Buyers held and buyers available are counted apart, so the reachable group is stated as a figure, per market.
Outlet type and channel are reported per segment, so the route to each group is named ahead of the spend.
Sena sets the size of each group against what reaching it would take, so segments are costed apart and then compared. The group carrying the best return is named first.
An acquisition plan is only as sound as two answers: whether the buyers counted included the ones outside the funnel and whether cost was read per segment before the budget was committed.
A customer acquisition strategy names which buyers a company intends to win, where those buyers already are, and what winning each group costs. The first of the three is where most plans go thin, because the buyers named are usually the buyers already visible.
Counted from the category, including the ones no system has met yet.
Downstream of the first. A channel plan built ahead of the buyer picture optimises the route to an audience chosen by default.
Customer acquisition cost divides acquisition spend by customers won over a period. It is arithmetic worth doing, and it describes one thing only: what a company paid for the buyers it managed to reach.
Three things sit outside it. The buyers it left unreached and their cost. The players those buyers went to instead. And the difference in cost between one segment and the next, which the blended figure averages away.
CAC measures the past efficiency of a funnel. An acquisition strategy needs the size and cost of the market outside it.
A CRM records what happened inside a company: the contacts, the deals, the sources, and the conversions. It is complete about that and silent about everything beyond it.
Category demand sits beyond it. Who purchases in the market, how often, at what price, and from which player. That reading is what turns an acquisition plan from an efficiency exercise into a targeting one, since it names the buyers available before the plan chooses which to chase.
Sena adds the category view and reads it beside the funnel data a team already connects.
Sena counts and costs each group from four collected inputs, applied per market.
| Input | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Receipts | What category buyers purchased and from whom, so the group available is a count, taken from spend already made. |
| Store captures | Where the category sells and at what price, which sets the route and the entry point per segment. |
| Geo-verified photos | Pack, price, and facing read off the image, so the outlets a segment uses are visible before the budget is set. |
| Stated preference | What would move a buyer away from the player holding them, which prices the switch. |
The team's own numbers form a separate row. CRM records and campaign data feed in through 250+ integrations, putting funnel cost beside the category around it.
The two compete for the same budget every year, and the comparison is usually made on cost alone.
| What it buys | What decides the ceiling | |
|---|---|---|
| Acquisition | Buyers a company has yet to hold. | The size of the category outside the current base. |
| Retention | More from buyers already held. | The room left inside the base, which is finite. |
Retention costs less per unit and reaches a ceiling. Acquisition costs more and keeps going, so a plan weighted entirely to one of them eventually stalls. Sizing both from the same category reading is what makes the trade-off arguable.
The spend is set in three places: an annual budget round, a channel review mid-year, and a segment being dropped from the plan.
Real people share what they buy and prefer, under explicit consent. Sena captures it directly at the source, so every figure traces back to where it came from whenever a number comes under question.
Sena works from what consumers agreed to share about their buying and returns each group with its size and the cost of reaching it.
Sena counts category buyers who have yet to make contact, so the size of the opportunity arrives before the pipeline does.
Sena reports what each group costs to reach beside what each group spends, so the two are weighed together.
Each segment cost opens to the individual purchases it was built from, dated to the day.
An acquisition cost describes the funnel that produced it, and the buyers outside that funnel decide whether it was a good one. Sena builds every figure from real-world signals captured when the question needs it, from category buyers who have yet to contact a company through to the dated capture a team pulls up if a segment cost looks wrong.
Records what category buyers purchased and from which player, so the group available to win is counted from spend already made.
Reads the price, pack, and facing in the outlets each group uses, which is where a route to that group starts.
Signal arrives from the consumer network under explicit consent. What would move a buyer away from the player holding them comes from that buyer.
CRM records and campaign spend attach over 250+ integrations, so funnel efficiency is visible next to the market outside it.
A segment cost travels with the market it was read in and the day it was taken, so a budget line opens to the buyers it was sized on.
Campaign exports and cost workings become one base, so every acquisition cost the team has recorded compares against the rest.
Four owners split the same budget, and each needs a different cut of the segment reading.
The plan. Needs the buyers outside the funnel counted, per market.
The route. Needs the outlets and channels each group already uses.
The entry point. Needs the price tier each group buys the category at.
The budget. Needs cost per segment, with the blended figure taken apart.
The same count of buyers outside the funnel, read on whatever the category leaves behind.
Category buyers per outlet type and price tier, with the players holding them today.
Households paying for the product elsewhere and the terms that would move them.
Subscribers on a competing tariff, and the switching cost each group states.
Category buyers held by another player, and the cost of moving each group.
One mechanism, applied per market and per category. Each step is documented, which is what keeps the cost defensible.
Real contributors share what they buy and pay under explicit consent in the markets named.
Sena groups category buyers by what they purchase, where they shop, and which player holds them.
Each group arrives with its size, its spend, and what reaching it would take.
Acquisition is usually planned from the funnel, because the funnel is the part a company can see in full. Sena counts the market the funnel sits inside.
| Capability area | Typical setup | Sena |
|---|---|---|
| Who is counted | People who made contact. | Every category buyer in the market, including those who have yet to make contact. |
| The cost figure | One blended CAC across the base. | Cost reported per segment, with the spread visible. |
| Where buyers sit today | Inferred from win and loss records. | Recorded share per player, so the switch has a named source. |
| Channel credit | Last touch. | The outlets and channels each group already uses to buy the category. |
| The entry price | Set from what current customers pay. | Read from the price tier each group buys the category at. |
| Retention trade-off | Argued on cost per unit. | Both sized from one category reading, so the ceiling on each is visible. |
| What comes back | A cost and a channel mix. | Groups ranked by size, cost to reach, and the player holding them. |
Three situations where counting the market outside the funnel changes the spend.
Count every category buyer in the market, including the ones who have yet to make contact, so the plan starts from a figure.
See purchase driver analysis →Report cost per segment, so a profitable group and an unprofitable one separate out of a single average.
See promotion ROI analysis →Read what would move buyers away from the player holding them, so a win-back campaign is costed on stated reasons.
See brand perception tracking →A cost per group is one input. The four decisions below are what it competes with.
Every growth decision Sena answers, in one place
Winning buyers already nearby
Measures the room left inside a market already served, where new category buyers are one of four levers.
Explore market penetration strategy 02Which player holds them now
Reports recorded share per player, which names where a won buyer would have to come from.
Explore market share analysis 03New segments and new channels
Weighs a move outside the current reach, where a new group needs a route as much as a message.
Explore market expansion strategy 04Where the budget gets split
Sets acquisition beside every other growth move competing for the same year.
Explore business growth strategyThe walkthrough counts every category buyer in one market, groups them by what they purchase and who holds them, and opens the purchases behind any segment cost while the team watches.
Name the market and the category, and we will count the groups.