Measuring a campaign: the three figures that count
The ad networks’ dashboards overflow with figures: impressions, reach, clicks, “engagement”. They have one thing in common: none of them pays your bills. Three measures are enough to run a campaign, and you can count them on one hand.
1. Cost per request
Budget spent ÷ requests received (forms + calls). It is THE campaign figure: it tells you what a real contact costs, and it can be compared from one campaign to another, one channel to another, one month to the next. Beware the measurement trap: if half your requests come by phone and you count only the forms, your cost per request looks twice as expensive, and you will cut a campaign that was working.
2. Conversion rate
Customers signed ÷ requests received. This figure does not judge the campaign: it judges everything that happens after: the speed of the call-back, the quality of the first exchange, the quote. If it drops, the reflex “the campaign is sending me bad contacts” is possible, but check your own chain first: did the call-back slip during the busy week? The two causes are treated differently, and confusing them gets healthy campaigns cut.
3. Cost per customer
Cost per request ÷ conversion rate, or more simply: budget ÷ customers signed. This is the final verdict, the one you compare with what a customer brings you. As long as the cost of a customer stays well below their value (average job, margin, repeat business), the campaign makes money, even if the cost per request looked “expensive” at first sight. The reverse is true too: cheap requests that never sign are an expense, not a performance.
Where the figures come from: the awkward question
These three measures require one thing the ad networks do not do for you: knowing what becomes of each request. Who called, after which campaign, called back when, signed or not. Without this tracking, you know your spending to the cent and your results by gut feeling. A rigorously kept notebook is enough at first; a CRM linked to the campaigns does it without heroic discipline: every request arrives already attached to its campaign, and the calculation does itself.
The reading pace: weekly, not daily
Looking at the figures every day makes you seasick: a campaign breathes, and a bad Tuesday means nothing. The right ritual takes twenty minutes a week, always on the same day: the three figures, their trend over four weeks, and at most one decision (increase, reduce, change one element). Decisions made on one day of data are almost always mistakes: the same principle as “don’t judge in three days” from the budget guide.