Cost per inquiry (cost per lead)

Cost per inquiry, also called cost per lead, is your ad spend divided by the number of inquiries it brought. An inquiry might be a brochure request, a quote form or a phone call. Google's cost per action formula works the same way: marketing cost divided by the number of actions.

The figure depends on what you count. A newsletter sign-up and a quote request are not the same inquiry, so count them apart. Example: a tour operator spends $2,000 in a month and gets 40 quote requests. That is $50 per inquiry. These numbers are an example, not a benchmark.

Related: cost per booking · conversion rate · landing page