Sustainability for Predicting Customer Lifetime Value: A Mediation–Moderation Effect Across SEO Metrics in Europe

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between sustainability and customer lifetime value (CLV) through the mediation–moderation effect of search engine optimization (SEO) metrics of websites. We obtained a data sample of 296 European sustainable firms from both industrial and technological industries. Based on the theory of source credibility, the firm’s official website, where SEO techniques are applied, is more credible regarding its sustainability activities than other sources such as social media, paid advertising, etc. As a result, we show that sustainability is a precursor of financial performance over time in sustainable firms, represented by CLV. Furthermore, we found that the value of the moderating variable, website traffic, alters the indirect effects produced by the mediating variable called website relevance (domain authority), thereby demonstrating a moderated mediation effect. The contribution of this research to the body of literature is twofold. First, it deepens the understanding of how sustainability predicts marketing outcomes based on both digital and customer metrics over time. Second, we rely on recent literature on prediction-oriented modelling (PLS-SEM) to support that it is not suitable for estimation by reflective measurement models due to the woozle effect.