Cost per lead is the total you spend divided by the number of enquiries it produced. On its own it is a meaningless number — a $200 lead can be excellent or ruinous depending entirely on what a customer is worth to you. This page covers how to work out your own target and what actually moves the number.
Work out your own target first
Three numbers give you everything: what an average customer is worth, what share of leads you close, and what you are willing to spend to acquire one customer. If a customer is worth $3,000, you close one in four, and you will spend a fifth of revenue on acquisition, then you can afford $600 per customer, which is $150 per lead. That arithmetic takes ten minutes and it is the only benchmark that matters to your business.
What drives cost per lead up or down
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Category competition | Largest single driver — some categories cost several times others per click |
| Landing page quality | Often the cheapest fix available; the same traffic converting twice as well halves the cost |
| Keyword intent | Broad terms are cheap per click and expensive per lead |
| Geography | Dense urban markets cost more |
| Channel | Search costs more per lead than social, and usually converts far better |
| Lead definition | Counting every form fill flatters the number and hides the real cost |
The trap
Optimising cost per lead in isolation reliably produces cheaper, worse leads. Broaden the targeting and the cost falls while the close rate collapses — the metric improves and the business does not. The number worth managing is cost per customer, and any report that shows one without the other is showing you half the picture on purpose or by accident.
Why we publish benchmarks and not our prices
Market ranges are genuinely useful for planning. Our own fees depend on scope, so a headline number would be misleading either way — instead you get a written quote for your specific situation the same business day you ask, with no call required first.
See lead generation services, whether Google Ads are worth it, and performance marketing.