Digital Gurus

CPL (cost per lead)

Cost per lead is what you spend, on average, to get one lead: someone who has shown real interest by enquiring, calling or booking.

Reviewed by Chris Day, COO Last reviewed

£300 spent 10 leads

  1. £30 customer
  2. £30 customer
  3. £30 customer
  4. £30 lead
  5. £30 lead
  6. £30 lead
  7. £30 lead
  8. £30 lead
  9. £30 lead
  10. £30 lead

£300 ÷ 10 leads = £30 per lead. 3 of them became customers.

Java Roasters' spend divided equally among the leads it brought in.

What it means for your advertising

CPL is CPA where the action is a lead. It's the everyday measure for a business that can't sell online, because the sale happens later, on the phone or in person.

What counts as a good CPL depends on what you sell. A lead for a £20,000 office fit-out is worth far more than a lead for a £30 coffee subscription, so read CPL against what a customer is worth.

An example

Java Roasters spent £300 and got 10 office coffee enquiries: a CPL of £30. 3 became customers worth £400 a month each, so each £30 lead was worth paying for.

Java Roasters is a fictional business, and its figures are illustrative.

How we handle it

Leads appear as conversions in your Performance Hub. We look at quality as well as cost, because cheap leads that never buy don't help you, and we'll ask how yours are turning out. Our pricing page shows what a campaign costs.

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