What is a good cost per lead (CPL)?

A good cost per lead does not exist as an absolute number: it is whatever is profitable in your situation. The cost per lead is what you pay on average to bring in one enquiry through lead generation. Whether that cost is “good” depends entirely on what a lead delivers later. In B2B, where one customer is sometimes worth thousands of euros or a multi-year contract, a lead may well cost tens of euros or more and still be comfortably profitable. Customer Impact works B2B, never for webshops, and there the value of a lead weighs more heavily than the price.

Why is the lowest CPL not always the best?

Because cheap leads are often bad leads. You can keep your cost per lead artificially low by attracting broad, untargeted traffic, but then your pipeline fills up with enquiries that never become customers. You pay little per lead, but a lot per customer. A more expensive lead that does fit your offer ultimately delivers more profit. That is why we look beyond the CPL and always link it to the CAC, the actual cost of winning a customer.

How do you determine what a lead may cost?

By working back from your customer value:

• Conversion to customer. If one in five leads becomes a customer, you can pay less per lead than when one in two converts. What a healthy ratio is is explained in what is a good conversion rate.
• Customer value. What a customer delivers over the whole relationship, not just the first order.
• Margin. How much room you have left after costs to invest in acquisition.
• Source. A lead from a targeted campaign is often worth more than one from broad reach.

Only once you know those figures do you know which cost per lead is still profitable for you.

What does Customer Impact steer on?

On the price per customer, not just on the price per lead. A report full of cheap enquiries looks nice, but means nothing if no revenue follows. So we measure right into your pipeline: how many leads become customers and what they contribute. That prevents your budget going to volume instead of to results. Want to know which cost per lead is right for you? Check out our lead generation service or request a tailored calculation via /en/pricing/.