Go-to-Market and Customer Acquisition Strategy

Introduction

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the integrated managerial system through which an organization identifies attractive customers, creates market access, communicates value, converts demand into revenue, and develops repeatable growth. It is broader than promotion or sales. A firm may possess a technically superior product and still fail because it targets an unattractive segment, enters through an unsuitable channel, carries excessive acquisition costs, or designs a sales process that cannot scale.

For entrepreneurial firms, GTM decisions are particularly consequential. Start-ups operate with limited capital, incomplete information, weak brand recognition, and rapidly changing assumptions about customers and competitors. Their task is not simply to “launch”; it is to discover a commercially viable system and then improve its repeatability. The central strategic question is therefore: Which customers should be served, through what value proposition and route to market, using which acquisition motion, at what economic and organizational cost?

This chapter examines market selection, entry strategy, channel architecture, customer-acquisition motions, scalability, strategic fit, measurement, and governance. It treats GTM as a system rather than a collection of disconnected tactics.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Distinguish market segmentation, targeting, positioning, and market entry.
2. Evaluate direct, indirect, digital, partner, and hybrid channels.
3. Select among product-led, sales-led, partner-led, and hybrid acquisition motions.
4. Design a GTM system consistent with customer needs, resources, economics, and competitive conditions.
5. Calculate and interpret core acquisition metrics such as CAC, conversion rate, payback period, and LTV.
6. Develop an experiment-based GTM plan and assess its scalability, risks, ethics, and strategic fit.

1. The Architecture of a Go-to-Market System

A GTM system links six decisions:

1. Market selection: Which customer groups and use cases merit attention?
2. Value proposition: Why should the selected customer choose this offering?
3. Market access: How will customers discover, evaluate, purchase, receive, and use the offering?
4. Acquisition motion: Who or what performs the work of converting prospects into customers?
5. Economics: Does the system produce sufficient contribution relative to acquisition and service costs?
6. Learning and governance: How will the firm test assumptions, protect stakeholders, and adapt?

These decisions are interdependent. A low-price software product may be appropriate for self-service purchase but unsuitable for a costly enterprise sales force. A complex medical device may require clinical evidence, specialist distributors, training, and regulatory approval. A consumer product may require retail partners because the firm lacks physical distribution. Thus, “best channel” has no universal answer; suitability depends on the relationship among the product, customer, market, and organization.

A useful distinction is between strategy and execution. Strategy determines the chosen market, positioning, route to market, and economic logic. Execution concerns campaigns, sales scripts, onboarding, partner recruitment, and operational routines. Strong execution cannot rescue a structurally unsuitable strategy, although disciplined execution is necessary to test whether the strategy is sound.

2. Selecting Target Markets

Segmentation

Segmentation divides a broad market into groups with meaningfully different needs, behaviors, willingness to pay, or access requirements. Common bases include:

• Firmographic: industry, firm size, revenue, location, and ownership.
• Demographic: age, income, occupation, education, or household structure.
• Psychographic: values, identity, risk orientation, and lifestyle.
• Behavioral: usage frequency, purchase triggers, switching behavior, and technology adoption.
• Needs-based: the problem experienced, desired outcome, urgency, and constraints.
• Contextual or jobs-to-be-done: the situation in which a customer hires an offering to make progress.

Needs-based and behavioral segmentation are often more actionable than descriptive categories. “Small businesses” is broad; “independent clinics that lose appointments because reminders are manual” identifies a problem, context, and possible trigger.

Targeting

Targeting evaluates segments using both attractiveness and organizational fit. Relevant criteria include segment size, growth, urgency, willingness to pay, competitive intensity, accessibility, customer concentration, regulatory burden, and strategic relevance. A segment can be large yet unattractive if it is expensive to reach or dominated by powerful incumbents.

Entrepreneurial firms commonly begin with a beachhead segment: a narrow group in which the problem is acute, customers are reachable, references can be created, and learning can transfer to adjacent segments. Narrow targeting is not necessarily a limitation. It can produce a stronger value proposition, faster feedback, and more efficient use of scarce resources.

Positioning

Positioning defines the place an offering occupies in the target customer’s decision framework relative to alternatives. Effective positioning identifies:

• the target customer;
• the important problem or desired outcome;
• the category or frame of reference;
• the distinctive benefit; and
• credible reasons to believe.

A positioning statement is an internal strategic tool, not merely an advertising slogan. For example: “For regional logistics firms that need accurate delivery forecasts, our platform is a predictive planning system that integrates existing fleet data, unlike spreadsheet-based planning, because it deploys within two weeks and provides auditable forecasts.”

Segment Attractiveness and Fit Matrix

A practical screening tool scores each segment against selected criteria. Scores should be based on evidence where possible rather than optimism. A weighted score can be expressed as:

where S_j is the attractiveness score for segment j, w_i is the weight assigned to criterion i, and r_ij is the rating of segment j on criterion i. Weights should sum to 1, and ratings must use a consistent scale. This is a prioritization aid, not an objective truth; different ratings or omitted criteria can change the result. Strategic fit, regulatory exposure, and ethical consequences should not be hidden inside a purely financial score.

3. Market Entry Strategy

Market entry concerns how the firm establishes an initial position. Important choices include timing, geography, customer scope, offering scope, and mode of access.

Entry Timing

A first mover may shape standards, secure scarce partners, and build brand awareness. However, early entry also involves educating the market, bearing technological uncertainty, and making mistakes before customer needs are well understood. A fast follower may learn from pioneers and adopt improved technology, but may face entrenched switching costs. The appropriate choice depends on appropriability, network effects, regulatory timing, and the firm’s capacity to sustain experimentation.

Entry Scope

A firm may launch narrowly by geography, customer type, use case, or product configuration. Narrow entry supports learning and operational control. Broad entry can create visibility and network benefits but increases complexity. Start-ups should distinguish learning objectives from scale objectives: an initial market may be selected because it provides high-quality learning even if it is not the eventual largest market.

Entry Modes

Common modes include:

The mode should reflect the strategic importance of customer knowledge. If direct feedback is essential for product-market learning, excessive intermediation may be harmful during the early stage. If local regulation or infrastructure is decisive, a capable partner may be indispensable.

4. Channel Architecture

A channel is the route through which value, information, payment, and often service move between provider and customer. Channels perform functions such as awareness creation, evaluation support, transaction processing, delivery, installation, financing, and after-sales service.

Direct Channels

Direct channels include a company website, internal sales force, owned retail, direct outreach, app stores, and customer success teams. They provide greater control over pricing, data, messaging, and customer experience. They also require investment in demand generation, sales capability, logistics, and support.

Indirect Channels

Indirect channels include distributors, agents, value-added resellers, consultants, marketplaces, brokers, and strategic partners. They can accelerate access to trust, expertise, geography, and installed customer relationships. Their costs include commissions, margin sharing, slower feedback, channel conflict, and the risk that the intermediary prioritizes competing products.

Channel Selection Criteria

A channel should be evaluated across customer preference, reach, trust, speed, control, economics, capability requirements, scalability, and strategic learning. The relevant question is not “Which channel is cheapest?” but “Which channel creates the required customer outcome at an acceptable total cost and risk?”

Channel conflict occurs when routes compete for the same customers, often through inconsistent pricing, lead ownership disputes, or differing service levels. Governance mechanisms include clear account rules, partner segmentation, lead-registration policies, pricing discipline, shared forecasts, service standards, and transparent performance measures.

5. Customer-Acquisition Motions

Product-Led Growth

In a product-led motion, the product itself generates much of the discovery, trial, conversion, expansion, or referral process. Freemium access, free trials, templates, collaboration features, and usage-triggered upgrades are common mechanisms. Product-led growth is most suitable when customers can experience value quickly, implementation is relatively simple, marginal distribution cost is low, and users can adopt without extensive organizational approval.

Its central managerial challenge is not merely attracting sign-ups but creating activation: the point at which a user experiences meaningful value. A large number of registrations with weak activation is not evidence of product-market fit. Product-led systems require strong onboarding, product analytics, lifecycle communication, experimentation, security, and customer support.

Sales-Led Growth

In a sales-led motion, specialized personnel guide discovery, evaluation, negotiation, procurement, implementation, and expansion. It is appropriate where the problem is complex, contract value is high, buying groups are large, risk is significant, or customization and integration are material.

Sales-led systems can support high revenue per account but are constrained by hiring, training, sales-cycle length, management capacity, and service delivery. A sales process should define stages, exit criteria, decision roles, evidence requirements, and forecast rules. “Pipeline” is not equivalent to demand; opportunities require verified need, authority, timing, and a credible next step.

Partner-Led Growth

Partner-led growth uses another organization’s relationships, capabilities, credibility, or infrastructure. Partners may refer leads, resell the product, implement it, embed it in a broader solution, or create complementary value. Partner-led models scale access but demand partner economics, enablement, certification, incentives, conflict management, and quality control.

A partner strategy should specify the partner’s job, expected customer value, financial reward, required investment, data-sharing rules, and termination conditions. Recruiting many inactive partners is less valuable than developing a small number of productive ones.

Hybrid Motions

Hybrid systems combine motions, such as self-service adoption followed by sales-assisted expansion, or direct enterprise sales supported by implementation partners. Hybrid design should be intentional. If ownership, pricing, and customer responsibility are unclear, the result is duplication rather than complementarity.

A useful principle is to assign each motion to the stage where it has comparative advantage. Product may create initial usage; sales may manage complex procurement; partners may provide implementation; customer success may drive adoption and renewal.

6. Acquisition Economics and Measurement

Metrics should reflect the causal structure of the GTM system. A dashboard that reports impressions and leads but ignores retention and contribution can reward unprofitable growth.

Conversion Rate

For a defined funnel stage:

The denominator must be stated precisely. A trial-to-paid rate differs from a visitor-to-lead rate. Rates should be measured over a defined cohort and period.

Customer Acquisition Cost

A commonly used blended customer acquisition cost is:

The period, cost categories, and attribution method must be specified. Blended CAC can conceal major differences among channels; cohort or channel-specific CAC is often more useful. Costs may include salaries, commissions, advertising, events, software, agencies, and allocated overhead, depending on the decision purpose.

Customer Lifetime Value

For a simple subscription business with stable conditions, an approximate gross-margin lifetime value is:

Here, revenue and churn must use the same period, gross-margin percentage is expressed as a decimal, and churn is assumed to be reasonably stable. The formula is an approximation for a non-contractual or simplified recurring-revenue setting. It is unreliable when retention changes substantially over time, expansion revenue is material, cohorts differ greatly, or the business is transactional. A cohort cash-flow model is preferable in those cases.

Payback Period

If monthly contribution margin per new customer is stable:

The result is measured in months when both terms are monthly. Contribution margin should account for variable servicing and delivery costs, not merely revenue. A short payback period improves cash resilience, but a longer period may be acceptable where retention is strong and financing is available.

Worked Example

An enterprise software firm spends $120,000 on sales and acquisition marketing in one quarter and acquires 30 new customers. Its blended CAC is therefore:

CAC = $120,000 ÷ 30 = $4,000 per customer.

Each customer generates $1,000 in monthly revenue, has a gross margin of 80%, and incurs $150 in monthly variable support cost. Monthly contribution margin is therefore ($1,000 × 0.80) − $150 = $650. The approximate payback period is $4,000 ÷ $650 ≈ 6.15 months. This calculation assumes that the acquisition spending and customer count are comparable in scope and that contribution remains stable. It does not establish profitability because retention, expansion, implementation cost, overhead, and financing costs remain relevant.

7. Designing a Scalable GTM System

Scalability means that output can grow without a proportional increase in complexity, cost, or quality failure. It is not synonymous with automation. A channel can produce rapid volume while degrading customer experience or increasing hidden service costs.

A scalable GTM system typically has:

• a clearly defined ideal customer profile;
• repeatable acquisition and qualification criteria;
• documented messaging and sales processes;
• measurable activation and retention events;
• standardized onboarding with appropriate customization;
• data infrastructure that connects marketing, sales, product, finance, and service;
• unit economics that improve or remain viable with growth; and
• governance for privacy, fairness, security, and channel conduct.

Founders should distinguish repeatability from scalability. A founder may personally close ten customers through relationships, but this is not yet a repeatable sales system. Repeatability exists when another trained employee can achieve comparable outcomes using a documented process. Scalability exists when the process can expand across customers, regions, or teams without unacceptable deterioration.

The principal constraints may be market demand, sales capacity, implementation labor, infrastructure, partner quality, cash flow, or regulatory approval. Growth should therefore be modeled as a system of bottlenecks rather than as a single marketing target.

8. Experimentation and Decision Discipline

Early GTM planning involves uncertainty about customer pain, willingness to pay, channel access, conversion, retention, and competitive response. The appropriate response is structured experimentation.

A GTM experiment should specify:

1. the assumption being tested;
2. the target population and channel;
3. the intervention;
4. the primary success metric;
5. a time period or sample rule;
6. a decision threshold; and
7. possible actions after the result.

For example, a firm might test whether a compliance-focused message increases qualified-demo conversion among regulated clinics. It should define “qualified,” avoid changing multiple variables without explanation, and examine downstream outcomes rather than selecting the most flattering metric.

Experiments need not always be randomized. Interviews, concierge pilots, pricing conversations, landing-page tests, controlled outreach, and cohort analysis can generate evidence. However, managers must distinguish correlation from causation. A rise in sales after a campaign may reflect seasonality, a competitor’s failure, or an unrelated product change.

9. Strategic Fit, Ethics, and Governance

GTM decisions affect customers, employees, partners, competitors, and communities. Ethical acquisition requires truthful claims, informed consent, respectful targeting, fair pricing practices, accessible communication, and protection of personal data. Dark patterns—interfaces designed to manipulate users into unwanted actions—may improve short-term conversion while damaging trust and creating legal exposure.

AI can support segmentation, lead prioritization, personalization, forecasting, conversational assistance, and sales enablement. Its use requires attention to data quality, explainability, bias, privacy, security, and human oversight. Automated scoring may systematically disadvantage groups if historical data reflect unequal access or biased decisions. Firms should document data provenance, test disparate outcomes where appropriate, limit sensitive-data use, and provide escalation routes.

Regulatory requirements vary by jurisdiction and industry. Relevant issues may include privacy and marketing consent, consumer-protection law, advertising substantiation, competition law, accessibility, sector-specific approvals, data residency, and contractual liability. Legal compliance is a minimum standard; responsible strategy also asks whether the practice is fair, sustainable, and consistent with the firm’s stated values.

Illustrative Case: MedRoute Analytics

Background

MedRoute Analytics is a fictional early-stage firm offering software that helps outpatient clinics reduce missed appointments. The platform integrates scheduling data, sends reminders, and provides managers with attendance analytics. The founders initially targeted all healthcare providers and planned to sell through a national distributor.

Problem

After six months, the firm had many demonstrations but few conversions. Clinics differed substantially in software systems, approval processes, and perceived urgency. The distributor generated introductions but did not provide implementation support. CAC was high, onboarding was inconsistent, and customers disputed whether the product produced measurable savings.

Analysis

The founders segmented the market by clinic type, missed-appointment frequency, scheduling-system compatibility, and decision authority. Independent specialty clinics with high appointment value, frequent no-shows, and compatible systems scored highest. Large hospital systems had attractive potential but long procurement cycles and complex integration requirements. The team also discovered that the product’s value was not merely reminders; it was improved capacity utilization supported by measurable reporting.

Approach

The firm selected independent specialty clinics as a beachhead. It adopted a hybrid motion: targeted sales outreach for clinic owners and operations managers, a guided product trial for evaluation, and certified implementation partners for integration. The firm introduced a standardized baseline report showing missed appointments before activation and a post-launch report after eight weeks. Pricing was simplified into a platform fee plus a usage component. The distributor was retained only for regions where it met training and service standards.

The company defined activation as successful integration, configured reminder workflows, and a completed first performance report. It tracked lead-to-demo conversion, demo-to-trial conversion, activation, retention, implementation time, CAC, and contribution margin. Marketing claims were revised to state that outcomes depend on patient population, workflow adoption, and message quality rather than promising a guaranteed reduction in no-shows.

Outcome

In this illustrative scenario, conversion initially declined because the target market was narrower. However, activation improved, implementation time fell, and customer references became more relevant. The firm learned that a smaller, better-defined market produced stronger evidence and more predictable economics than broad distribution. It later developed an enterprise offer for larger systems, using lessons and integration standards from the beachhead segment.

Learning Points

The case illustrates five principles. First, segmentation must connect customer characteristics to a genuine buying problem. Second, a channel partner is valuable only when incentives and capabilities align. Third, product-led trials require an operational definition of activation. Fourth, evidence of customer outcomes strengthens both sales and retention. Fifth, narrowing the initial market can increase—not reduce—the probability of later scale.

Challenges and Limitations

GTM frameworks simplify reality. Market boundaries may be unclear, customer needs may change, and competitors may imitate positioning or subsidize acquisition. Quantitative metrics can be misleading when attribution is weak, cohorts are immature, or retention has not been observed long enough. LTV estimates are especially sensitive to churn assumptions. Channel experiments may also create spillovers: a partner’s activity can affect direct sales, and a product change can alter conversion independently of marketing.

Strategic fit is difficult to score because capabilities are partly intangible. A company may have apparent market access but lack implementation expertise or working capital. Finally, optimization around short-term conversion can undermine brand trust, inclusion, product quality, and long-term relationship value. Managerial judgment remains necessary even in data-rich organizations.

Best-Practice Checklist

Before committing significant resources, a venture should be able to answer:

• Which specific customer and use case are being prioritized?
• What evidence demonstrates urgency and willingness to pay?
• What alternative does the customer use today?
• Which channel best supports discovery, purchase, delivery, and learning?
• Why is the selected motion product-led, sales-led, partner-led, or hybrid?
• What event constitutes activation and what outcome constitutes retention?
• Are CAC, contribution, payback, and retention measured by cohort or channel?
• What operational bottleneck will growth create?
• Which claims, data practices, and incentives require ethical or regulatory review?
• What result would cause the firm to continue, modify, or abandon the strategy?

Chapter Summary

A go-to-market strategy is an integrated system connecting target-market selection, positioning, entry mode, channels, acquisition motion, economics, operations, and governance. Effective segmentation identifies groups with distinctive needs and reachable buying contexts; targeting balances attractiveness with strategic fit; and positioning communicates a credible reason to choose the offering.

Direct channels provide control and learning, while indirect channels provide reach, trust, expertise, and infrastructure. Product-led motions work when users can experience value quickly; sales-led motions suit complex and high-risk purchases; partner-led motions leverage external relationships and capabilities; and hybrid motions allocate different stages to the actors best able to perform them. Scalability requires repeatability, measurable activation and retention, operational discipline, and viable economics.

CAC, conversion, LTV, and payback are useful only when their definitions, periods, cost categories, and assumptions are explicit. GTM experimentation should test clear assumptions and use downstream outcomes rather than vanity metrics. Finally, responsible acquisition requires truthful communication, privacy protection, fairness, accessibility, regulatory awareness, and appropriate governance of AI and automated decision systems.

Key Terms

Market segmentation: Division of a broad market into groups with meaningfully different needs or characteristics.

Target market: The segment or set of segments selected for concentrated strategic attention.

Beachhead segment: A narrowly defined initial market chosen to support learning, traction, and references.

Positioning: The intended place of an offering relative to alternatives in the customer’s decision framework.

Go-to-market strategy: An integrated plan for creating market access, acquiring customers, delivering value, and generating revenue.

Market entry: The manner and timing through which a firm establishes an initial position in a market.

Direct channel: A route in which the provider manages the customer relationship without an independent selling intermediary.

Indirect channel: A route involving distributors, resellers, agents, marketplaces, or other intermediaries.

Channel conflict: Tension arising when different routes compete for customers, revenue, or control.

Product-led growth: An acquisition and expansion motion in which product experience performs much of the conversion work.

Sales-led growth: A motion in which sales professionals guide customer evaluation and purchase.

Partner-led growth: A motion that relies on external organizations for referrals, selling, implementation, or complementary value.

Hybrid motion: A deliberately integrated combination of two or more acquisition motions.

Ideal customer profile: A description of the customer most likely to receive value, buy, remain, and fit organizational capabilities.

Activation: The point at which a user or account experiences a defined meaningful value event.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC): Acquisition-related cost divided by the number of new customers acquired.

Customer lifetime value (LTV): An estimate of contribution or gross profit expected from a customer over the relationship.

Payback period: The time required for customer contribution to recover acquisition cost.

Repeatability: The ability of a process to produce comparable results when performed by trained personnel.

Scalability: The ability to increase output without proportional increases in cost, complexity, or quality failure.

Review Questions

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the difference between segmentation, targeting, and positioning?
2. Identify two advantages and two risks of indirect channels.
3. When is a product-led acquisition motion most appropriate?
4. Define activation and explain why it is more informative than registration volume.
5. What does CAC measure, and why should its cost categories be specified?

Long Answer Questions

1. Explain how product characteristics, customer complexity, and organizational resources influence the choice between direct and indirect channels.
2. Compare product-led, sales-led, partner-led, and hybrid acquisition motions, including their principal scalability constraints.
3. Develop a market-entry strategy for a start-up entering a regulated industry.
4. Explain why repeatability should normally be demonstrated before aggressive scaling.
5. Discuss the ethical and governance issues associated with AI-enabled customer acquisition.

Analytical / Application Questions

1. A subscription business spends $90,000 on acquisition in one quarter and obtains 45 customers. Each customer produces $800 monthly revenue, has a 75% gross margin, and incurs $100 monthly variable service cost. Calculate CAC and the approximate CAC payback period. State the assumptions behind your calculation.
2. Compare two segments: Segment A is large but difficult to reach and highly competitive; Segment B is smaller but has urgent needs, accessible decision-makers, and strong product compatibility. Which should an early-stage venture prioritize, and what additional evidence would you seek?
3. Design a hybrid GTM system for a complex B2B software product. Assign responsibilities among product, sales, partners, and customer success, and identify three metrics that would reveal whether the system is scalable.

Multiple Choice Questions with Answers

Question 1

Which statement best describes a go-to-market strategy?

A. A short-term advertising campaign

B. An integrated system connecting market selection, access, acquisition, economics, and governance

C. A financial forecast prepared after launch

D. A product’s technical specification

Correct Answer: B. An integrated system connecting market selection, access, acquisition, economics, and governance

Question 2

What is the primary purpose of a beachhead segment?

A. To target every possible customer immediately

B. To eliminate the need for positioning

C. To provide a focused market for learning, traction, and references

D. To replace all indirect channels

Correct Answer: C. To provide a focused market for learning, traction, and references

Question 3

Which situation is most suitable for a product-led motion?

A. The product requires lengthy regulatory procurement and extensive customization

B. Customers can experience meaningful value quickly through the product

C. Every sale requires a field engineer and complex negotiation

D. The product cannot be evaluated before installation

Correct Answer: B. Customers can experience meaningful value quickly through the product

Question 4

A company spends $60,000 on acquisition and gains 20 new customers. What is its blended CAC?

A. $300

B. $1,200

C. $3,000

D. $12,000

Correct Answer: C. $3,000

Question 5

Which factor is a common risk of indirect channels?

A. Guaranteed control over customer data

B. Reduced need for partner governance

C. Channel conflict and weaker direct customer learning

D. Automatic improvement in gross margin

Correct Answer: C. Channel conflict and weaker direct customer learning

Question 6

In the simplified LTV approximation, which condition is required for consistency?

A. Revenue and churn must be measured over the same period

B. Churn must always equal zero

C. Gross margin must be expressed in currency rather than a decimal

D. CAC must be excluded from all analysis

Correct Answer: A. Revenue and churn must be measured over the same period

Question 7

What best distinguishes repeatability from scalability?

A. Repeatability concerns brand awareness, while scalability concerns pricing

B. Repeatability means comparable results from a documented process; scalability means expanding without unacceptable deterioration

C. Repeatability applies only to products, while scalability applies only to employees

D. They are identical concepts

Correct Answer: B. Repeatability means comparable results from a documented process; scalability means expanding without unacceptable deterioration

Question 8

Which metric most directly indicates that a user has experienced meaningful product value?

A. Impressions

B. Registrations alone

C. Activation

D. Market size

Correct Answer: C. Activation

Question 9

A hybrid GTM motion is best understood as:

A. Using multiple motions intentionally, with responsibilities allocated by comparative advantage

B. Running unrelated campaigns without ownership rules

C. Replacing sales with advertising in every market

D. Selling only through distributors

Correct Answer: A. Using multiple motions intentionally, with responsibilities allocated by comparative advantage

Question 10

Which practice is most consistent with responsible AI-enabled acquisition?

A. Using sensitive data without disclosure whenever conversion improves

B. Optimizing only for short-term click-through rates

C. Documenting data sources, testing for bias, and maintaining human oversight

D. Allowing automated scores to make irreversible decisions without review

Correct Answer: C. Documenting data sources, testing for bias, and maintaining human oversight