Everyone loves showing off their CPL. “Look! We’re getting leads for $22!” Cool. Are they buying anything? Because I’d rather pay $150 for a qualified lead that has a real problem, needs the service, is in the service area and is ready to talk... ...than $22 for someone who filled out a form because the ad caught their attention for 3 seconds. This is where a LOT of businesses get marketing wrong. They optimize for: Cost Per Lead When they should ultimately be optimizing for: Cost Per Customer. Example: Campaign A: $25/lead 100 leads = $2,500 5 customers = $500 CAC Campaign B: $125/lead 40 leads = $5,000 15 customers = $333 CAC Campaign B's leads cost 5X more. And they're actually cheaper. That's why whenever somebody asks me: “What's a good cost per lead?” My answer is: It depends. What's the lead quality? What's your close rate? What's a customer worth? What's your margin? How much did you spend to acquire the actual customer? CPL is a marketing metric. CAC is a business metric. And I'll take profitable customers over cheap leads every single time.