The Cost Per Lead metric is as old as the discipline of measurable marketing. And for most marketers today, especially SMEs, the only source of assurance that marketing dollars seem to be doing something. Over & over again, lead generation efforts are optimized for Cost Per Lead (CPL) – through search analytics, email response rates, online tracking tools; each by the way costing thousands of dollars by themselves to put in place. The pressure to be ruthless in identifying the best performing CPL vehicles & killing off the laggards is immense, even when intuition barks at the back about the “intangibles” that are not being or cannot be factored into the decision.
But often times, as we graduate up the scale of sophistication in our lead generation activities, the need to move beyond CPL introduces the world of more complicated metrics – Cost per Unit Sale, Revenue Per Spend, Conversion Metrics; the list has grown endless. And the methodologies to compute these have grown ever more complex & expensive to implement, thus retaining CPL’s position as the most preferred & most used metric to date.
Here’s an interesting article where Tom Scearce argues on what else can and should be used, alongwith CPL, to have a more holistic approach to lead generation – one that allows the utilisation of a wider arsenal of activites & thus enable reaching out to audiences in different phases on the buying cycle. In the B2B space, the search & buy phases are stretched over time. Also personal vendor relationships, extended credit periods & technology compatibility play a key role in final decision making on who to align with. Hence, multiple message combinations & buyer triggers need to be addressed before a prospect becomes a lead. A wider basket of metrics is not just advisable, but also the responsible course of action.
Posted by narayananrajgopalan (Naari) 
