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Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Cost Per Lead (CPL) is total spend on a channel or campaign divided by the number of leads it generated. It lets a marketer compare how efficiently different channels convert budget into prospects, independent of how much was spent overall.
Formula
Worked example
A B2B software campaign runs paid search and paid social in parallel over one month in the Czech market. Paid search spends €14,000 and generates 220 form-fill leads, giving a CPL of €63.60. Paid social spends €9,000 and generates 300 leads, giving a CPL of €30. On raw CPL, social looks more than twice as efficient, so the planner shifts an additional €5,000 from search to social for the next month.
How it is used
Planners use CPL to reallocate budget toward the channels producing prospects most cheaply, usually reviewed weekly alongside spend pacing. The recurring mistake is shifting budget purely on CPL without checking lead quality: a channel with a low CPL often produces leads that convert to sales at a much lower rate, so cheaper leads can mean a higher real cost per customer.
The common mistake
Don't compare CPL across channels unless the lead definition and qualification bar are identical in each channel's tracking setup.