what is the acquisition cost of a user for a web portal?

Some marketing activities are designed to motivate different behavior depending on where the customer or user is in the sales process. For example, at a basic level, most businesses acquire, convert and retain customers. Think about all of the activities that generate new potential customers and convert them to actual purchasing or using customers (from a portal perspective, a customer may simply be using the service and not necessarily purchasing - depending on the business model). That cost or investment divided by the number of newly acquired customers in a given time period is your acquisition cost.

For example, you invest $50 in print advertising and $50 in banner ads to attract customers to your portal. The total is $100 and you have acquired 10 customers since you started your marketing activities: 100 / 10 = 10 acquisition cost.