The Hidden Costs of Not Building Your Email List in 2025

If you’re running a Shopify store in 2025, you’ve probably noticed something alarming: your ad dollars don’t go as far as they used to. Whether it’s Meta, Google, or TikTok, the cost of acquiring a customer (CAC) has skyrocketed. What’s worse—your competitors are bidding on the same audiences, driving costs even higher.

But here’s the truth: brands that don’t invest in building their email list are paying 2–3x more for growth than those who do. Paid ads can bring people to your store, but if you’re not capturing them for future engagement, you’re essentially renting traffic instead of owning it.

CAC Trends in Ecommerce (Meta, Google, TikTok Ads)

In 2025, CAC is at an all-time high:

• Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram): CPMs are up nearly 30% year-over-year, as competition intensifies and data privacy changes limit targeting precision.
• Google Ads: CPCs for shopping campaigns have jumped as brands fight for limited inventory space, especially in competitive categories like apparel and beauty.
• TikTok Ads: While still cheaper than Meta, costs are climbing fast as big-box retailers and DTC giants shift spend here.

For Shopify merchants, this means acquiring a new customer can easily cost $30–$50 per sale—and even more in saturated markets. Without a retention strategy, that’s a growth model that simply doesn’t scale.

ROI Comparison — Paid Ads vs. Email List Marketing

Here’s where the math gets interesting.

• Paid Ads ROI: You spend $1,000 → you might get 25–30 sales if your CAC is $35–$40. That’s fine—but only if customers come back.
• Email List ROI: You spend the same $1,000 on ads, but this time you capture leads with a welcome popup or SMS opt-in. Suddenly, you’re not just getting sales—you’re building an owned channel you can market to for free (minus email/SMS platform costs).

Industry benchmarks:

• Average email ROI: $36 for every $1 spent.
• SMS open rates: 98%+, with click-through rates that crush paid ads.
• Retargeting via email/SMS is 5–10x cheaper than reacquiring the same customer through ads.

When you compare lifetime value (LTV) against CAC, the winners are always the brands that own their list.

How Privy Helps Stores Future-Proof With Owned Channels

Building your list doesn’t have to be complicated. With Privy, Shopify brands can:

• Capture visitors before they bounce with high-converting popups, spin-to-wins, and banners.
• Sync email and SMS campaigns for post-purchase flows, abandoned cart reminders, and win-back campaigns.
• Segment your audience so customers see the right offers at the right time (instead of blasting everyone with the same discount).
• Automate nurturing sequences that drive repeat purchases without paying for more ads.

By focusing on list growth, you turn every ad click into a long-term relationship—not just a one-time sale.

Own Your Audience, Own Your Growth

The ecommerce landscape in 2025 is clear: brands that rely only on paid ads will struggle to stay profitable. Rising CAC makes it unsustainable to buy every customer over and over again.

But when you invest in building your email list, you unlock a growth engine that compounds:

• Cheaper retargeting.
• Higher customer lifetime value.
• More predictable revenue.

With Privy, Shopify merchants can future-proof their business by building owned channels that cut through the noise—and the ad costs.