The Multi-touch cost per lead report gives you a calculated cost per lead for each of your Google Ads, Facebook, and Microsoft Advertising campaigns based on the attribution model of your choice. With this report, you can measure which campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and individual ads are driving the most cost-effective leads for your business.
Getting started
Your multi-touch cost per lead report is viewable by all levels of users in your account, including administrators, managers, and reporting users. The multi-touch cost per lead report requires the following:
- Visitor tracking with your company's JavaScript snippet installed on your website.
- Form tracking enabled on your account.
- One or more of the following integrations for each company where you'd like to measure cost per lead:
Google Ads integration
Facebook Ads integration
Microsoft Advertising integration
Need to print, export, or save a report? You can follow the instructions in this article to do so.
Activate multi-touch cost per lead reporting
Use these instructions to access your multi-touch cost per lead report for a specific company.
- Click Analytics on the left navigation bar.
- Select Reports at the top of the page.
- Choose the company whose multi-touch cost per lead report you'd like to view.
- Choose Multi-Touch CPL from the Acquisition header on the left.
- If you haven't done so already, click Activate Multi-Touch Cost per Lead to enable CPL reporting for all companies in your account.
- Once you've activated your report, Google Ads data will start populating within 24 hours (with a 48-hour data freshness window).
Note: For Facebook Ads and Microsoft Advertising, you'll need to add tracking templates to your ads in order to start receiving CPL data.
- If you see a message that says, "You need an active integration," you'll need to integrate Google Ads, Facebook, or Microsoft Advertising for that company in order to pull in campaign and cost data for reporting.
CPL for Google Ads
Google PPC calls to telephone numbers in your website pools, as well as calls to your Google Ads calls details forwarding tracking numbers are included in your CPL report.
If you have an active Google Ads integration, but your report is showing cost per lead data as "n/a" you'll need to re-authorize your Google Ads integration to ensure your data can be sent to CallRail. After you authorize Google Ads, it will take up to 24 hours for your first batch of CPL data to populate.
Follow these steps to authorize your Google Ads integration and receive cost per lead data.
CPL for Facebook Ads
In order to receive cost per lead data for your Facebook ads, you'll need to add URL tracking parameters to each of the Facebook ads you're currently running.
Follow these instructions to set up your Facebook ads for CPL reporting.
CPL for Microsoft Advertising
In order to receive cost per lead data for Microsoft Advertising, you'll need to add a global tracking template to your Microsoft Advertising campaigns.
Follow these instructions to set up Microsoft Advertising for CPL reporting.
Choose an attribution model
You can calculate cost per lead based on our five attribution models. Each model attributes lead credit to different milestones in the sales funnel. Choosing different attribution models will change your cost per lead total based on how that model weighs each milestone.
Learn more about attribution modeling and how we calculate cost per lead.
- Once you've opened your CPL report, click the Attribution drop-down menu within the filter panel above the chart to choose an attribution model.
- Select an attribution model to see your cost per lead calculation for that model. Your report initially loads with the 50/50 Model selected, but you can change models anytime.
- Select the First Touch Model to give 100% credit to the first touchpoint a customer engaged with.
- Select the Lead Creation Model to give 100% credit to the last touchpoint before a customer calls, texts, or submits a form and becomes a raw lead.
- Select the 50/50 Model to split cost per lead credit evenly between the First Touch milestone and the Lead Creation milestone.
- Select the Qualified Model to give 100% credit to the last touchpoint before a customer is scored as a qualified lead. Leads can be scored manually or through keypad scoring.
- Select the W-Shaped Model to split cost per lead credit evenly between the First Touch milestone, Lead Creation milestone, and the Qualified milestone with one-third credit assigned to each.
Add sources to cost per lead reporting
The three integrations that allow you to automatically pull cost per lead data into your report are Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Microsoft Advertising.
You can also add in manual sources with their spend amounts for a full side-by-side comparison of cost per lead across your campaigns.
Use this help article to learn how to add or edit sources to your cost per lead report.
Filter report data
Use the filter panel above the report to apply filters to your report. Each column illustrates which of your sources, campaigns, ad groups, or keyword/ad ID sets are generating raw and qualified leads.
- Use the Date filter to determine the range of time your report should show.
- Use the Keyword/Ad ID filter to sort your data based on PPC keywords or the individual ad level.
- Use the Raw Leads/Qualified Leads filter to filter your report by total leads or leads marked as qualified leads via manual scoring or through keypad scoring.
- Use the graph drop-down to select a time interval for your report. You can view by hours, days, weeks, months, or years.
- Click Add Filter to apply additional filters, such as Sources, Campaigns, Ad Groups, and Interactions.
FAQs
What's the difference between a raw lead and a qualified lead?
Raw leads include all leads that have contacted your business, regardless of whether or not they are a high-quality lead. Qualified leads are potential customers that have been qualified manually, through Keypad Scoring. Your cost per qualified lead totals will always be higher because qualified leads are further down the sales funnel, resulting in fewer total leads captured.
Why does my data for today look incorrect?
Google has a 48-hour window where the data we’re pulling from the Google Ads API might not be correctly attributed. This means that if you're looking at reports for the previous two days, you will likely see what appears to be "unsettled" data with incorrect attribution. After 48 hours, all the data should match the correct campaign attributions. We recommend waiting 48 hours for accurate reporting on your Google Ads CPL.
Read more about Google's data freshness policy.
How does measuring CPL work over time?
Time is an important factor for cost per lead reporting. Often times, First Touch and Lead Creation milestones do not occur in the same week or month, which means that attribution data can backfill over time. When you’re using website pools, we won’t have a customer’s First Touch session data until they call one of your tracking numbers (the lead creation event). That means a First Touch can backfill in your CPL reports and lower your cost per lead for that time frame.
Here’s an example: In January, Jim clicks on a Google PPC ad, browses a couple of pages of your website, but doesn’t make a call. In February, Jim googles your company name to find your website again (a Google Organic touchpoint) and makes a call to the tracking number on your website. Jim’s first touch is the first Google PPC ad he clicked on, but that session data for January (when he clicked the ad) won’t show on your January CPL report until he calls you in February and we’re able to capture that session data. So once Jim calls your tracking number as his lead creation event, your January first touch will populate and lower the cost per lead for that First Touch source.
What about cookie expiration?
Our JavaScript snippet has a default cookie expiration of one year. You can also set a custom cookie expiration for your account. Once a visitor’s cookies expire or a visitor clears their cookies, they’ll be treated as a new visitor.
Learn about cookie duration settings for the JavaScript snippet.
How are outbound calls attributed?
Outbound first touches (ex. Sales team reaching out to potential customers) will show as a first touch unless session data reveals when the customer calls again that they had interacted with advertising before the outbound call. The outbound call will still be recorded in the visitor timeline.
How have Apple's in-app tracking updates in iOS 14+ affected what can be tracked?
To accommodate Apple's recent changes to user privacy options, Google has stopped using gclids (Google click IDs) for ad clicks in Safari and Google apps. They have been replaced with click IDs which track groups of users in aggregate instead of individually. This applies solely to visitors who are interacting with your site via iPhone, and only if they have enabled Apple's new privacy features.
Previously, we weren't able to post these interactions as conversions. However, as of March of 2023, we can now post those conversions and have started doing so automatically.