Sales Forecasting in Lifetimely: Plan Your Growth
At a glance: Forecasting is a new capability that helps you plan and test future growth scenarios using your historical performance and Lifetimely’s predictive LTV insights — so you can move forecasting out of spreadsheets and into your profitability dashboard.
Definitions
Forecast: A projected view of sales outcomes over a selected period, based on your inputs and Lifetimely’s underlying LTV data.
Forecast Period: The future time range you want to forecast (e.g., next quarter, next financial year).
Reference Period: The historical period used as the baseline for the forecast (e.g., prior financial year).
LTV cohort data: Lifetimely’s cohort-based LTV model used to project existing customer revenue forward.
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): The estimated average cost to acquire one new customer.
Total sales growth: The increase in sales/revenue, expressed as a percentage, added to the forecast over and above sales generated from the explicit existing and new customer sales forecast. This allows you to make an easy adjustment to the overall forecast in addition to the explicit results generates from using historic data and marketing investment. The Forecast calculation is:
Sales = (Existing Sales (LTV roll-forward) + New Sales (Marketing Spend / CAC)) x Total Sales Growth
Marketing investment: The amount you choose to invest in marketing, expressed as a percentage of sales.
Lock In: Saving a version of your forecast so it can be referenced later and optionally tracked as a goal.
How it works
Forecasting combines two sales/revenue streams:
- Existing customer sales projected forward using your LTV cohort data (an LTV roll-forward).
- New customer sales estimated from your marketing investment, CAC, and historic sales profile.
It then let's you make an additional growth adjustment on top.
Forecast calculation:
Sales = (Existing Sales (LTV roll-forward) + New Sales (Marketing Spend / CAC)) x Total Sales Growth
Key benefits and use cases
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Data-driven scenarios | Test how changes in marketing investment and growth targets impact sales from new and existing customers. |
| Speed & accuracy | Generate forecasts quickly using your historical performance and predictive LTV context. |
| Goal setting | Lock in a forecast and add it as a goal on your dashboard for ongoing tracking. |
| Flexibility | Export forecast outputs to CSV for use in external models and planning tools. |
Create a new forecast
1) Define your inputs
Navigate to Forecasting and set the following:
- Forecast name: Give your scenario a clear name (e.g., “Q1 2026 Aggressive Marketing”).
- Forecast period: Choose the future time range you want to project.
- Reference period: Choose the past period you want to use as your baseline.
- Expected revenue growth rate: Your target % sales growth over the forecast period, over and above the explicit sales generated from new and existing customers.
- Expected % of revenue to invest in marketing: The share of projected sales you plan to allocate to marketing.
- Expected CAC: The average cost you expect to pay to acquire a new customer.
2) Review the generated forecast
Once your inputs are set, Lifetimely generates a forecast showing:
- New customers: Revenue attributed to customers acquired during the forecast period.
- Existing customers: Revenue from customers acquired before the forecast period, projected using cohort LTV.
- Expected marketing investment: Marketing spend calculated from your planned % of revenue.
3) Adjust, lock in, or export
- Adjust: Refine projected figures as needed to match your plan.
- Lock in: Click Lock In / Save to store the forecast. Locked forecasts can be added to your dashboard as goals.
- Export: Download a CSV (with or without formulas) to share or use in external financial models.
Managing forecasts
Reviewing saved forecasts
All saved or locked forecasts remain available for review. You can create, edit, and delete scenarios to compare different growth strategies over time.
Tracking performance
After locking a forecast and adding it to your dashboard, you can track actual performance against your forecast goals to stay aligned with your plan.
FAQs
What data is the forecast built on?
It uses your historical sales data and Lifetimely’s predictive LTV cohort data to project existing-customer sales, plus your inputs to estimate new-customer sales.
Can I share a forecast with my team or investors?
Yes. Export the forecast as a CSV and share it outside the platform.
How often should I create a new forecast?
Many businesses forecast annually, then update quarterly (or whenever strategy and performance shift).