Your Marketing Gets More Expensive Every Year — Here's What To Do About It

CAC up 222%, organic reach at 2-3%, 51% bot traffic. The classic channels still work, but they keep getting more expensive. CMO Kai Viertel explains why owned audiences and community-building are the counterweight.

CMO Column #1

Why I'm writing this column

I'm Kai, co-founder and CMO of SendSeven. I've worked in digital marketing for over 14 years. From social media at ProSiebenSat.1, through performance marketing and demand generation at MessengerPeople and Sinch, to building SendSeven, I've seen every channel from the inside.

Let me be upfront: paid advertising works (still). We keep investing in paid ourselves at SendSeven. But for years I've watched businesses pour more and more money into marketing and get less and less out of it. Rising click costs, shrinking reach, dwindling attention. That's not bad luck. That's a structural problem.

And it doesn't hit everyone equally. An online shop, a bakery chain, or a D2C brand has it easier: customers buy again regularly, and lifetime value absorbs the rising acquisition costs. But what if your product isn't a repeat purchase? A SaaS tool, an agency, a consultancy, an IT service provider, a manufacturer, a trades business running project work? Then every increase in click prices hurts immediately, because the next deal doesn't automatically show up.

That's exactly who I'm writing for. My goal with this column: share honestly what I'm seeing, what the numbers say, and what we're drawing from it for our own marketing. No consultant-speak. No buzzwords. And no "paid is dead" shouting. Just a sober look at how SMBs can complement paid reach with community and owned channels to become more independent over time.

Let's get into it. Starting with the money.

The 222% math: why acquiring new customers keeps getting more expensive

Imagine you launched an online shop in 2015. Acquiring a new customer might have cost you 25 euros back then. Today, in 2026? According to an analysis by SimplyBusiness based on HubSpot data, customer acquisition costs (CAC) have risen more than 222% over the past eight years.

That means: the same customer who cost you 25 euros in 2015 costs you 80 euros today. Or more. In B2B SaaS, CAC now runs between 500 and 800 euros per new customer. And the trend is accelerating: since 2023 alone, costs have risen another 40 to 60% according to Mobiloud.

Why? Three drivers at once. First: more competition for the same ad slots. Second: platforms are turning the pricing screw. Meta CPMs are climbing at double-digit rates, with Instagram at around 8.50 euros per thousand impressions (Affect Group, Q2 2025). Third: audience attention is declining, so every impression is worth less.

Does that mean paid advertising doesn't work anymore? No. It works. We use it ourselves. But it gets more expensive every year for the same result. And anyone who builds their growth exclusively on paid reach is running on a hamster wheel that keeps spinning faster.

Paid isn't the problem. The problem is when paid is your only plan. Then you're at the mercy of the next CPM increase, with no fallback.

Social media is getting harder

Okay, you might think, then we'll just post more organically. Doesn't cost anything. True. But the return keeps shrinking.

Facebook shows your business posts to only 2 to 3% of your followers on average (industry consensus, 2025/2026). You have 1,000 followers? 20 to 30 see your post. No boost, no ads. Instagram has cut organic reach by up to 65% from its peak (industry reports). Over the past six months, average reach across platforms has dropped another 47% (awareness-marketing.de).

The cause is no secret. Platforms prioritize paid content. Your organic post isn't competing with other organic posts. It's competing with ads that make the platforms money.

On top of that, there's a new problem: AI-generated content. According to Gartner's forecast, by 2026 around 48% of all business social media content will be AI-generated. Europol experts estimate that up to 90% of all online content is machine-generated. The result? Feeds are filling up with interchangeable content. Your carefully written post gets buried in a flood that algorithms favor, because it feeds the engagement pattern that maximizes ad revenue.

Social media is still an important channel. But as your only source of reach? Risky. The rules of the game keep changing, and you have no influence over them.

The generation that's ditching your feed

While businesses get louder, users are getting quieter. Especially the younger ones.

A 2025 study by Zebracat shows: 52% of Gen Z prefer direct messages over public comments or feeds. 43% would rather use Close Friends features than the open feed (SQ Magazine). The big stage? Too loud, too toxic, too exhausting for them.

The phenomenon has a name: doom-scrolling fatigue. And since March 2026, it has a court ruling too. A US court held Instagram and YouTube liable for addictive design targeting minors (NPR/CNN, March 2026). More than 2,400 lawsuits are pending.

What does that mean for your business? Users are retreating to where they have control. Into DMs. Into small groups. Into channels they subscribed to themselves. If you want to reach these users, you have to be where they're going: in private, direct channels. Not in the public feed.

51% bots, 58% zero-click: where your website traffic actually goes

Maybe you're thinking: fine, social media is tough. But we still have our website. SEO. Content marketing. That still works, right?

Let's look at the numbers.

According to the Imperva Bad Bot Report 2025 (Thales), 51% of all internet traffic is automated. For the first time, more bots than humans. 37% of traffic comes from malicious bots. In other words: if your analytics tool shows 10,000 visitors a month, maybe only 4,900 of them were real people.

And of the real people? 58 to 69% of all Google searches end without a click (SparkToro/Datos). The user gets their answer directly in the search results. Your website? They don't need it anymore. AI Overviews make the problem worse: according to Position.digital, they cut clicks to the first organic result by 34.5%.

Gartner forecasts a 50% decline in organic search traffic by 2028. That's not a worst-case scenario. That's the assessment of one of the world's most respected research firms.

To sum up: half your website traffic is bots. Of the real visitors, many never even land on your site because Google delivers the answer itself. And the rest will be cut in half again by 2028. That doesn't mean SEO is pointless. But it does mean you shouldn't bet everything on it.

GEO isn't a lifeline yet

Now someone might argue: but there's Generative Engine Optimization. If Google is generating the answers itself, let's just optimize for AI search engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini.

Good idea. In theory. In practice?

A study by AirOps covering 45,000 AI citations shows: only 30% of brands stay visible from one AI answer to the next. In other words: you can be cited today and not tomorrow. Same question, different day, different answer. A stable ranking the way you know it from Google doesn't exist in AI search.

GEO matters. We invest in it ourselves. But as of today, it isn't a reliable traffic source to build your business on. It's an experiment, not a foundation.

Owned audiences: the counterweight

Five trends at once: rising acquisition costs, declining organic reach, users retreating into private spaces, shrinking website traffic, unstable AI citations. Each of these trends on its own makes paid marketing more expensive. Together, they make one thing clear: you need a counterweight.

The goal isn't to switch off all your ads tomorrow. The goal is to gradually complement paid reach with your own channels. And to shift the balance over the long term.

The distinction is simple. Rented reach: you rent reach from Meta, Google, TikTok. The rent goes up every month. An algorithm update can cut your reach in half overnight. Owned audience: email list, WhatsApp newsletter subscribers, Telegram channel followers, SMS contacts, browser push subscribers. These people have actively opted in to hear from you. No algorithm stands in the way.

The difference in numbers: a WhatsApp Business API message reaches an open rate of 90 to 98% (Mobilesquared/industry consensus). Email sits at 20 to 25% (DMA/Mailchimp). A social media post at 2 to 3%. And your opt-in contacts belong to you. No platform update can take them away.

There's also a strategic advantage: Experian reports that consistently using first-party data can cut customer acquisition costs by up to 50%. You know your customers. You know what they buy, when they buy, and how they want to be reached. Owned audience doesn't replace paid overnight. But it makes paid more efficient and reduces your dependence on it over time.

The most expensive way to win a customer is cold outreach. The cheapest is when an existing customer actively recommends you and says: get the tool that actually works.

Community builds customers: the referral flywheel

Now I hear the objection: that sounds great for D2C and e-commerce. But we're a SaaS company. Our customers don't buy on impulse from a WhatsApp newsletter.

True. And that's exactly why the next step matters so much: building a community. This applies to every industry, but especially to B2B and SaaS.

Community doesn't mean opening a forum and hoping for the best. Community means being consistently helpful. Publishing thought-leadership content. Sharing practical tips and how-to content. Communicating real product news transparently. Being visible and useful within your own niche.

Why? Because an active community triggers three things paid can never deliver:

1. Organic sharing: if people find your content valuable, they share it. Every shared post is free reach with an audience that already trusts the person sharing it. According to WebFX, word-of-mouth marketing generates five times more sales than paid advertising.
2. Referrals: 91% of B2B decision-makers trust personal recommendations (Bain & Company). Referred customers have a 16% higher lifetime value than non-referred ones. That's not a marketing channel. That's trust that saves you money.
3. Platform reviews: a healthy community actively reviews you on G2, Capterra, OMR Reviews, Trustpilot. 77% of B2B buyers check reviews before purchasing (The Smarketers). And since G2 acquired Capterra, these reviews increasingly influence AI search citations too.

The flywheel: helpful content attracts a community. The community shares and recommends. Recommendations bring in new customers. New customers become part of the community. This isn't a replacement for paid. It's the force multiplier that makes paid more efficient and lowers your dependence on it.

For SaaS companies like us, that means concretely: we invest in columns like this one, in guides, in honest insights. Not because we think a blog post will bring us a customer tomorrow. But because we know that 92% of B2B buyers start their search process with a provider they already know (Data-Mania). If you want to be the provider people think of, you had to be visible beforehand.

8 channels, one inbox: how to build your owned audience

An owned audience isn't a single channel. It's a system. And the more channels you run, the more resilient it becomes. If one channel goes down, you still reach your customers through the others.

Here are the eight channels that belong to you:

1. WhatsApp: 90-98% open rate, 45-60% click rate. Over 3 billion active users worldwide, newsletters and broadcasts straight to the phone. Service messages are unlimited and free.
2. Telegram: channels with unlimited subscribers, a free bot API. Ideal for communities and broadcasts in the DACH region.
3. SMS: 95%+ delivery rate, works on any phone, no internet required. Perfect for time-sensitive messages like appointment confirmations or flash sales.
4. Email: the classic. 20-25% open rate. Works best combined with WhatsApp — anyone who doesn't open your newsletter gets the summary via WhatsApp.
5. Browser push: notifications delivered straight to the browser. Chrome, Firefox, Edge. No app download needed. Great for news and offers.
6. Messenger: Facebook's chat channel. For customer service and automated workflows.
7. Instagram DM: direct messages on the channel your customers are already using. Reactive, but valuable for customer service.
8. Live Chat: the widget on your website. Visitors become contacts, contacts become customers.

Here's the key point: you don't need eight different tools for this. A unified inbox brings all channels together in one place. Your team replies from a single spot. Whether the message came in via WhatsApp, email, SMS, or live chat.

And the community? It lives on the same channels.

The advantage of owned channels: they're not just for selling. WhatsApp broadcasts can share practical tips. Telegram channels can serve as a mini-community. Email newsletters can carry thought-leadership content. Every channel is both a sales tool and a community tool at once. Building an owned audience and building a community aren't two separate projects.

Getting started: collecting opt-ins

Every owned audience starts with an opt-in. Someone has to actively say: yes, I want to hear from you. That sounds like a hurdle. It isn't, if you approach it the right way.

Three proven approaches:

• Website widget: a newsletter widget on your website. Visitors sign up, you have a contact. Works for WhatsApp, email, and browser push simultaneously.
• QR codes at point of sale: a WhatsApp link as a QR code at the checkout counter, on the packaging, in your store. The customer scans it, taps "Start," and becomes a subscriber.
• Click-to-WhatsApp in existing channels: in your next email, on your Instagram bio, in the order confirmation — a link that takes people straight into a WhatsApp chat with your business.

For a concrete build-out plan, read our article on 7 opt-in strategies to grow your subscriber base in 2026.

The first step costs you nothing

Let me sum up. The thesis of this column isn't: turn off your ads. The thesis is: complement paid with owned. Build channels that belong to you. Invest in a community that works for you. Shift the balance step by step.

Why? Because owned audiences make your paid advertising work better. Because a community generates referrals and reviews that no ad budget can buy. And because in the long run, you become less dependent on platforms whose prices you don't control.

Getting started is simple. At SendSeven, you start for free. Pay as you go: 0 euros base fee, usage-based billing. Your first 100 test messages are free. Service messages on WhatsApp? Unlimited and free. Marketing messages in Germany? About 0.11 euros per message. No contract lock-in. No minimum term.

For comparison: a single click on an Instagram ad costs you anywhere from 1 to 4 euros depending on your industry. For the same amount, you can reach 9 to 36 people via WhatsApp — people who will open your message with over 90% probability.

Here's how to start: connect your WhatsApp number in 5 minutes. Send your first 100 test messages for free. Build your first contact list. All GDPR-compliant, with European hosting.

The question isn't paid or owned. The question is: when will you start putting your marketing on two legs instead of one?

Start free now

This is the first issue of my CMO column. Next time: the WhatsApp newsletter playbook. How to build 1,000 subscribers in 90 days. In the meantime, check out our articles on 10 newsletter templates for the DACH region and the KPIs that actually matter.

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