Let's TalkLet's TalkCheap leads are the expensive kind. What matters is cost per qualified enquiry, how fast you answer, and how early you can disqualify the ones that were never going to buy.
Almost nobody knows, because the reporting stops at the enquiry. Send us 90 days of leads with outcomes and we will show you cost per qualified lead by source, how many were never going to buy, and how much of the loss was response time rather than lead quality.
Four failures we see repeatedly in this vertical, and what each one actually costs.
A form that asks two questions produces enquiries at a wonderful cost per lead and a sales team that spends its week on people who were never going to buy. Cost per lead is the easiest number to improve and the least informative one to report, because the cost of working an unqualified enquiry lands on someone else's time.
A local enquiry is usually sent to three businesses, and the one that answers first typically wins regardless of who was cheapest to acquire. Most businesses respond in hours and believe they have a lead quality problem. The same leads convert at a different rate when answered in under a minute.
Buying leads from a marketplace looks like a clean cost per lead until you account for the same enquiry being sold to three competitors, the disqualification rate, and the fact that you are renting demand rather than building any. It has a place as a stopgap; as a strategy it means never owning the channel.
Qualification questions feel like friction and get removed, which inflates enquiry volume and deflates close rate. Asking the two or three things that actually predict a fit - budget band, timeline, location, job type - loses enquiries that were never going to close and makes the forecast mean something.
Business outcomes rather than dashboard metrics. None of these is a guaranteed number - where we do guarantee something, it is written into the offer above.
The real deliverables, not a list written to make a proposal look thicker.
Not the general agency pitch. The reasons that only apply to this kind of business.
Adding qualification removes enquiries that were never going to buy, and the headline lead number falls. The number of jobs usually does not - it often rises, because sales time moves to the right people. We explain that trade before we make it, because the first month's report will otherwise look like a failure.
Marketplace leads are often sold to several competitors at once, starting a race decided by who calls first and who discounts most. Your own site, profile, reviews and customer list produce enquiries that come to you alone. We shift the balance toward those over time.
Much of the revenue lost in service businesses disappears after the enquiry - quotes sent late, never followed up, or not explained. We look at quoting speed, follow-up and close rate alongside the advertising, because improving them makes every lead source more valuable.
Leads with outcomes attached, so cost per qualified lead by source becomes visible. This routinely reverses which sources look good.
Sub-minute automated response before any media change, because it moves conversion on the leads you already have and needs no new budget.
The two or three questions that predict fit, in the form and the first reply. Enquiry volume falls, close rate rises, and the forecast starts meaning something.
With evidence rather than instinct, which is only possible once outcomes are attached to sources. Usually the cheapest source is the first to go.
Budget follows cost per booked job against average job value. A source costing three times more that closes at five times the rate is comfortably the better source, and cost per lead will never tell you that.
The parts of this that come from having run it in this industry before rather than from running it well in general.
A quote sent and never followed up is often a job lost to whoever called back. A simple, polite follow-up sequence converts quotes that would otherwise go quiet, and it costs nothing in advertising.
For larger jobs, the ability to pay over time can decide whether a customer proceeds. Presenting financing options clearly - as a way to pay rather than a discount - increases the number of quotes that become jobs.
Heating, cooling, roofing and landscaping all have predictable peaks. Booking maintenance and early work before the rush smooths the calendar and captures customers before competitors are fully booked and their prices rise.
A fast reply from someone who cannot answer the customer's question is little better than a slow one. Getting the first contact to a person who can talk about the job and give a sense of price converts better than an instant generic acknowledgement on its own.
The clearest demonstration we have of the difference between lead volume and lead value. A multi-state clinic group was measuring form fills; we moved the conversion onto the booked appointment, which changed the traffic the platforms went looking for. Cost per lead fell 57% in two weeks and the group scaled to 500+ leads a day across twelve states - but the number that mattered was that those leads were now people who attended.
Read the full case studyOur cheapest lead source had a four percent close rate. We had been giving it more budget every month because the cost per lead looked good.
Answering in under a minute changed our close rate more than switching agencies did.
Adding three qualifying questions cut our enquiries by a quarter and nearly doubled booked jobs.
Because cost per lead is trivially improved by asking less and qualifying nothing, and the cost of that lands on your sales team's week rather than in the marketing report. A source at three times the cost per lead that closes at five times the rate is comfortably better, and cost per lead will never show it. Attaching outcomes to sources routinely reverses which ones look good.
It is frequently the largest single factor. A local enquiry is usually sent to three businesses and the first to answer typically wins, whoever was cheapest to acquire. Most businesses reply in hours and conclude they have a lead quality problem. The same leads convert at a materially different rate answered in under a minute, which is why we fix response before touching the media.
As a stopgap while you build a channel, sometimes. As a strategy, no - the same enquiry is typically sold to several competitors, the disqualification rate is high, and you are renting demand rather than building anything you own. The cost per lead looks clean because the cost of competing for a lead three other businesses also bought is not in the invoice.
Yes, deliberately. Fewer enquiries, more of them real, and a close rate that starts predicting revenue. The enquiries lost were mostly people outside your area, outside your budget band or not ready for months - all of whom would have consumed sales time and closed at close to nothing. It reads worse on a volume report and better on the invoices.
That page covers local growth as a whole - catchment, map pack, call tracking and paid working together. This one is specifically about enquiry volume and quality: what a qualified lead costs, how fast you answer, and how early you can disqualify. A business that wants more enquiries and better ones reads this; a business that wants the whole local picture reads that.
Written for owners weighing this up, whether or not they work with us.
This is one part of a bigger service. Here is the whole of it, and the closest neighbours.
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