Cost per qualified lead is the only marketing number your CFO believes

Reach, engagement and impressions are diagnostics. The report your finance team reads has one line.

We report reach and engagement because they explain why a campaign is moving. But the number we are accountable for is cost per qualified lead — a lead the sales team agrees is worth a call.

That requires two things most campaigns skip: tracking that follows a lead from the ad to the CRM with its source attached, and a written definition of “qualified” that sales and marketing both signed.

With those in place, optimisation becomes boring in the best way: cut the audiences and creatives that produce cheap unqualified leads, fund the ones that produce expensive qualified ones, and report the trend monthly.

Without them, every campaign review turns into an argument about whose leads were bad.