Can you spot ad platform lies?
In this Just Ask Ian video, we show how to dig into your ad data and uncover your REAL cost per lead.
Despite what ad platforms say, they don’t have access to all of the data needed to fully measure your cost per lead. Google and Facebook want you to believe their data is accurate, but…well…it’s not.
With SegMetrics, you can finally get a trustworthy, verifiable, lifetime measure of the value of your ads.
Watch the video to learn how.
Video: “How to track your REAL cost per lead (not what ad platforms say)”
Video Transcript
Ever felt like your ad platforms are lying to you about your cost per lead? Let’s say you’re spending a thousand dollars to get what Facebook says are $10 leads, but when you check your real business results, the math just isn’t adding up.
Today I’m gonna show you how to track your real cost per lead by looking at qualified leads through your entire funnel, not just ad clicks.
Here’s the problem with relying on your ad platform data. They’re only showing you part of the story. Facebook might tell you, you got a hundred leads for a thousand dollars at $10 per lead, but don’t take their word for it. How many of those leads actually made it into your system? How many of them are qualified?
How many of them made it through your nurture sequence, and how many of them actually became paying customers?
Most ad platforms count anyone who clicked or fill out a form as a lead, regardless of whether they’re actually a good fit for your business. Plus, they can’t see what happens when someone leaves their platform. This leaves a massive blind spot in your marketing data.
This means you’re making budget decisions with incomplete information. You might be pumping money into channels that generate cheap clicks, but terrible customers while overlooking channels that bring in less leads, but higher quality prospects. Without seeing the full funnel, you’re essentially flying blind with your marketing budget.
Let’s open up SegMetrics to see how to track your real cost per lead across your entire funnel. We’ll start with the advertising report, which gives you a complete view of ad performance far beyond what the platforms themselves show. Right at the top you’ll see your overall cost per lead.
You can also drill down to view CPL at the campaign ad set, and even individual ad level. From here, sort through your campaigns to identify which ones deliver the lowest CPL. Pay attention to whether those channels are actually producing a strong ROI or if they’re quietly burning your budget. Now let’s dig deeper with SegMetrics advanced filtering.
The most accurate way to track your best qualified leads is by tagging them inside your connected email tool. Every business defines qualified leads differently. It could be webinar registrants, attendees. Booked calls or people who downloaded a lead magnet , whatever your criteria are, make sure you’re tagging those actions consistently.
For this example, we’ll say a qualified lead is anyone who enters one of our funnels just apply a filter using the appropriate tag or data. Now watch what happens when we do this. Our Facebook cost per lead jumps from $70 to $141, and Google Ads goes from $182 to $413. This is our real cost per qualified lead, a much more accurate reflection of what we’re paying for prospects who actually convert.
Now we can see the true revenue generated by each paid channel along with our actual customer acquisition costs. The amount of ad spend it took to turn those qualified leads into paying customers. You can also break down your return on ad spend at every level, ad account, campaign, ad set, and individual ads, and we can go even deeper by opening the data explorer.
Here you can customize the exact metrics you want to analyze. For example, if you want to know how long it takes qualified leads to convert, simply select the average days to purchase metric. That gives you a clear picture of your sales cycle and how long it typically takes leads to become customers.
You can even export this data or send it to a custom dashboard to track these metrics over time. These are the numbers that truly matter for making smart business decisions. Start looking at the true metrics that help you drive more qualified leads that eventually become strong paying customers.
This is a game changer for your marketing budget allocation. Instead of chasing cheap clicks that don’t convert, you can now invest in channels that bring in higher quality leads. You might find a more expensive channel is delivering better ROI when looking at qualified leads and those cheaper channels, or just wasting your time and money with tire kickers.
Next Steps
🚀 Want to see how SegMetrics helps you optimize your ad ROI? Get your free Ad Attribution Audit from one of our marketing analytics experts. Start here.
📺 Want 60-second deep-dives into the thorniest challenges around marketing analytics? Check out all of the Quick Take videos on our YouTube channel.
💰 Ready to optimize your ROAS? Start your 14-day FREE trial now and test drive SegMetrics with your own data.
