Winner rate vs cost per lead: which number to follow, and when
Some kinds of ads bring cheap leads but rarely scale. Others scale often but cost more per lead. Here is how to read both numbers and pick the one that fits the job in front of you.
Notes from the work · Tag
#cost-per-lead
Reading cost per lead without fooling yourself
Cost per lead is the most useful number in a lead-gen account and the easiest one to misread. Here is how to compare it fairly, and how to tell a real difference from a lucky week.
Grade every ad twice: once for Meta's pick, once for yours
Meta decides which ads get the money. You decide which ads get the leads you can afford. In our data those two picks agree less than half the time, so every ad needs two grades.
We judge ads by cost per lead, not by what Meta chose to spend
Meta grades your ads by where it puts the money. We grade them a second time, by what a lead actually cost, and that second grade decides what our team makes next.
We test every new ad against your own results before you see it
Before a new ad reaches your inbox, Studio checks it against what has actually brought you leads at a good cost. If the read it is checking against is more than a week old, it refuses.
What 18,920 Meta ads say about cost per lead
We graded every Meta ad we ran for gyms, studios, med spas and salons. The popular formats are not the cheap ones, and Meta's favorite ad is often not yours.
See your own locations in it.
Book a walkthrough with David Steel. Bring last month's lead count and one location you are worried about.