Cost per lead
Cost per lead is ad spend divided by every form submission and inbound call.
Cost per lead in full arch is quoted anywhere from fifteen dollars to seven hundred and fifty dollars. That is not a performance gap, it is several different definitions of the word lead being priced against the same word. A fifteen dollar lead is usually a broad audience form fill with no screening. A seven hundred and fifty dollar lead is usually already screened for radius, candidacy and funding.
The metric is not useless. It is the right number for judging creative and audience performance week to week. It is the wrong number for judging a business, and it is the number most often used for exactly that.
The formula
Divide total ad spend by the number of leads, meaning form submissions and inbound calls with a working phone number.
cost per lead = ad spend / leads
What is included and what is excluded
Counts
- All form submissions with a working phone number
- All inbound calls from new patients
- Leads that will later fail radius, clinical or financial screening
Does not count
- Clicks, page views and impressions
- Duplicate submissions from existing pipeline patients
- Invalid or disconnected numbers
A worked example
Two practices each spend 6,000 dollars and count leads differently.
- 01Practice A counts every submission: 120 leads
- 02$6,000 / 120 = $50 per lead
- 03Practice B counts only screened leads: 30 leads
- 04$6,000 / 30 = $200 per lead
The same $6,000 buys a $50 lead and a $200 lead depending only on the definition used.
How this differs from
- Cost per qualified lead
That figure divides by screened leads only, so it is always higher and always more useful.
- Cost per seated arch
This prices a phone number. That prices a case with money against it.
- Lead
The stage definition decides what this metric is dividing by.
These definitions come from our published measurement standard. Read The Arch Standard for the reporting rules they sit inside, or see every term.
Want this measured in your practice? A consult walks through how we track it, if that is useful.
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