Paid ads. Reviewed October 29, 2026
Cost per lead
Also called: CPL
Cost per lead is total marketing spend on a channel divided by the number of calls, forms or chats it produced, and it is the number to judge a campaign on rather than cost per click.
In practice
Compare it across channels: Local Services Ads, Google Ads, Meta ads, lead marketplaces and the website itself. Then weigh it against the lead's quality, because a $30 Facebook lead that rarely answers the phone and a $90 LSA call from a homeowner at home are not the same thing.
Only leads count. Clicks, impressions and likes are not in the denominator.
For example
Skill Mammoth's 2026 contractor campaigns produced Facebook leads at about $31 each.
Related terms
- Cost per clickCost per click is what an advertiser pays each time someone clicks an ad, set by an auction, so it varies by trade, by city and by how many competitors are bidding on the same term.
- Cost per acquisitionCost per acquisition is what it costs in marketing to win one paying customer, which for a contractor means a booked and completed job, not a lead.
- Local Services AdsLocal Services Ads are the pay-per-lead ads at the very top of Google for home service searches, shown with a Google Verified or Google Screened badge after a background, license and insurance check.
- LeadA lead is a person who contacted the business about work by phone, form, text, chat or booking, before anyone has checked whether the job is real.
Want this handled, not explained?
Skill Mammoth builds the site you own, gets you found on Google and ChatGPT, and texts every lead back in under 60 seconds. Month to month, every price published.