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Total spend divided by total leads across every channel. This is your real average cost to win one enquiry.
Job value × profit margin × leads you win. Pay more than this for a lead and marketing is losing you money.
The channel bringing you leads for the least money. It is usually where extra budget should go first.
CPL stands for cost per lead. It is what you pay, on average, to get one enquiry from a customer. You work it out by dividing what you spent on a channel by the enquiries it brought in.
Published Google Ads benchmarks for trade businesses put cost per lead roughly in these ranges. Use them as a rough guide, not a target, because your own job value decides what you can afford.
| Trade | Typical CPL |
|---|---|
| Plumber | £20 to £45 |
| Emergency plumber | £25 to £60 |
| Electrician | £20 to £50 |
| Heating engineer | £30 to £65 |
| Roofer | £35 to £80 |
| Builder | £40 to £100 |
| Landscaper | £15 to £40 |
| Painter and decorator | £15 to £40 |
| Plasterer | £15 to £35 |
Cost per lead counts every enquiry. Cost per acquisition (CPA) only counts the ones that turn into paid jobs. If you win one in four leads at £40 each, your cost per acquisition is £160. Both matter, but CPA is the number that tells you whether marketing is making money.
Cost per lead is what you pay, on average, to get one enquiry. Divide what you spent on a channel by the genuine enquiries it brought in. £600 on Google Ads for 15 enquiries is a £40 cost per lead. Count calls, forms and messages from real customers only, not spam or sales calls.
A good cost per lead sits well below your break-even figure. As a rough guide, keep it under 10 to 15% of your average job value, so £300 to £450 at most on a £3,000 job. Small, quick jobs need a much lower figure than big renovations, so judge it against your own numbers.
It depends on the trade and the channel. Published Google Ads benchmarks put most trades between £15 and £100 per lead. Plasterers and decorators tend to sit at the low end, while roofers and builders sit higher because each job is worth more. Your own numbers matter more than any average.
Break-even cost per lead is the most you can pay for a lead before marketing starts losing you money. Multiply your average job value by your profit margin and by the share of leads you win. A £3,000 job at 30% margin, winning 1 in 4 leads, gives £225.
Use your monthly SEO fee as the spend, and the enquiries from Google search and your Google Business Profile as the leads. Call and form tracking make this accurate. SEO often costs more per lead in the first months and less as rankings grow, so compare it over three to six months.
Move budget to your cheapest channel first, then fix what wastes money on the others. The usual culprits are ads showing outside your area, broad keywords, slow or unclear landing pages and missed calls. Reply to enquiries fast, because a lead you never answer still counts in the cost.
It depends on your trade and job value more than the platform. Compare each channel in the calculator above: the one with the lowest cost per lead that still brings real jobs is where extra budget should go first.
CPL is the cost of one enquiry. CPA, cost per acquisition, is the cost of one paid job. Divide your CPL by the share of leads you win to get CPA: £40 CPL at a 25% win rate is a £160 CPA.
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