Count calls and form leads separately before you work out cost per lead

If your business gets leads by phone and through forms, it is tempting to add them together and divide your spend by the total. The result is one tidy cost per lead. It is also a number that hides most of what you need to know.

Both count, on the platforms' own definitions

Google describes a conversion as an interaction that leads directly to a behaviour valuable to you, and a phone call is one of the examples it gives. Google also describes lead forms, which let people submit their details inside your ad. So a call and a form can each be a lead, and neither is wrong to count. The question is whether they should be counted together.

Why a blended number misleads

Suppose one source sends mostly calls and another sends mostly forms. The blended cost per lead tells you the average, not which source produces customers. A call from a buyer who wants an answer today and a form from someone browsing are different events. I have not got a source for how often either type qualifies, and I would not trust one from outside your business anyway. Your own records are the only evidence that counts.

The fix is simple: give each lead type its own row and work out the three costs for each. They are cost per lead (spend divided by leads), cost per qualified lead and cost per customer. The cost per lead calculator shows the equations for each.

How to do it

1. Decide what makes a call a lead, for example a conversation about a service you sell, and not a wrong number or a supplier.
2. Record the type of each lead when it arrives: call, form or message.
3. Record who qualified it and what became of it.
4. Split spend between the types only where you can. If one campaign produces both, say that, and do not invent a split.
5. Work out the three costs for each type over the same period.

What to watch

Small numbers mislead. A month with a handful of calls can swing the cost per customer a long way, so look at a longer period before you change anything. Google also keeps lead form leads for a limited time, 60 days according to its help page, so copy the outcome into your own records instead of relying on the platform.

More on measuring is in measuring cost per lead and the mistakes that distort it, and on how each source delivers leads in lead sources and how each one delivers leads.

A disclosure

This site is published by Web Marketing International FZCO, which sells WhatsApp lead tracking. I sell it, so weigh it as you would any supplier, and ask any supplier how it separates calls, forms and messages in its reports.