Cost Per Lead
Total campaign spend divided by the number of qualified leads it produced — the efficiency measure of any lead-gen channel.
Cost per lead is what you paid to generate one qualified prospect: total channel spend divided by the number of leads it produced. It lets an investor compare wildly different channels — direct mail, cold calling, PPC, cold email — on a common footing and decide where the next dollar goes.
The trap is comparing cost per lead without quality attached. A channel with a cheap cost per lead but weak intent can lose to a pricier one that delivers motivated sellers, which is why cost per lead is always read alongside cost per deal — the metric that actually pays the bills.
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