What CPL is and when it can fool you
Cost per lead (CPL) is what you pay for one contact — a form, a phone call, a quote request. It sounds simple, but it's easy to draw the wrong conclusions from it.
In short
- ✓CPL = spend ÷ number of leads
- ✓A low CPL can hide poor-quality leads
- ✓Track cost per customer, not cost per lead
- ✓Lead quality beats volume
How it's calculated
CPL = ad spend ÷ number of leads.
Example: £1,500 spent, 30 leads → CPL = £50.
The low-CPL trap
A low CPL isn't automatically good. You can have lots of cheap, poor leads — people who don't buy.
What matters is cost per CUSTOMER. 10 leads at £50 of which 3 buy beats 30 leads at £20 of which 1 buys.
📌 Concrete example
Campaign A: CPL £20, 30 leads, 1 customer → cost/customer £600. Campaign B: CPL £50, 10 leads, 3 customers → cost/customer £167. B wins, even with a higher CPL.
Common mistakes
- ⚠️Optimising only for a low CPL, ignoring quality.
- ⚠️Not tracking whether the lead becomes a customer.
What to keep an eye on
- →Cost per customer (not just per lead)
- →The lead → customer conversion rate by source
How eFlo helps you
eFlo links leads to the final result and optimises towards the sources that bring in real customers, not just cheap contacts.
Want to see how your business is doing?
eFlo turns concepts into tasks, reports and recommendations for your account.
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