Why Not
Why has Only Once not happened? Why isn’t it everywhere? Why are reacquisition and AdWaste the norm and not the exception? The answer lies in understanding how the digital marketing landscape evolved over the past two decades, creating systemic barriers to better customer engagement.
First, the rise of Big Adtech has created a seductive narrative around endless customer acquisition. Fuelled by venture capital and the growth-at-all-costs mindset, companies have prioritised top-line expansion over sustainable profitability. The ability to precisely target users and measure immediate results has made digital advertising irresistible. This has created a self-reinforcing cycle: more ad spend leads to more sophisticated targeting capabilities, which encourages even greater ad spend. The ease of reaching customers through platforms like Google and Meta makes it simpler to reacquire lost customers than to maintain engagement.
Second, technological limitations have prevented brands from creating true “hotlines” with their customers. Traditional HTML emails, SMSes and push notifications lack interactivity, making it difficult to maintain engagement within these channels. The inability to create compelling two-way engagement means brands struggle to maintain consistent connections with their customers, forcing them back to paid channels for reacquisition.
Third, the “Not for Me” problem has plagued customer communications. Without sufficient data and personalisation capabilities, brands send largely irrelevant messages that fail to engage customers. The lack of zero-party data means brands rely heavily on observed behaviours and third-party data, leading to superficial understanding and generic experiences. This creates a vicious cycle: poor engagement leads to customer inattention, which leads to more spend on reacquisition.
The industry structure itself perpetuates these problems. Email Service Providers (ESPs) and SMS players have become commoditised, focusing on delivery rather than innovation. Marketing clouds acquired point solutions but failed to create truly integrated platforms. Traditional pricing models based on message volume or Monthly Active Users (MAUs) meant vendors had no incentive to reduce waste. Meanwhile, walled gardens like Google and Meta grew more powerful, making brands increasingly dependent on their platforms for customer reach.
Organisationally, marketing teams are measured on acquisition metrics rather than customer lifetime value. CMOs are rarely positioned as profit drivers, focusing instead on campaign metrics and channel performance. The separation between acquisition and retention teams creates silos that make it difficult to build coherent customer experiences. Without clear ownership of customer relationships, brands default to constant reacquisition through paid channels.
The result? A marketing ecosystem optimised for continuous acquisition rather than sustainable engagement. Brands have lost control of their customer relationships, becoming dependent on adtech platforms even to reach their own customers. The acceptance of reacquisition as “normal” has meant that few question the massive waste in digital advertising spend.
Only now, as acquisition costs soar and privacy regulations disrupt traditional targeting, are brands beginning to reconsider this unsustainable model. The emergence of new technologies like AMP/CSS for interactive emails, WhatsApp and RCS as alternatives to SMSes, AI for true personalisation, and platforms that unify customer data and engagement finally makes Only Once technically feasible. The question is no longer whether brands should shift from acquisition to retention, but how quickly they can make this transformation.
The past two decades of digital marketing have been dominated by the acquisition mindset. The next decade will belong to those who master retention through Only Once.
