As a advertising marketing consultant, I work on shopper accounts and guarantee their advertising is working (i.e., creating wealth for the enterprise). To gauge advertising success, I significantly like two benchmarks: the fee per lead benchmark (CPL) and the shopper acquisition prices benchmark (CAC).
These benchmarks are useful for everybody in enterprise to know, however particularly necessary for gross sales and advertising groups.
I work primarily within the B2B house, and the B2B price per lead benchmark is among the most precious metrics. B2B sales cycles can take a very long time, and it may be tough to find out the precise buyer acquisition prices, however you will need to get as shut as doable to those numbers.
To assist refine your advertising technique to decrease the prices of buying leads and clients, listed here are some useful CPL and CAC benchmarks, plus insights from a latest HubSpot survey of tons of of entrepreneurs. I wished to take a look at what the numbers inform us about CPL and CAC, alongside the behaviors of entrepreneurs in 2025.
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Most Efficient Methods for Decreasing CAC
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is how a lot an organization spends to get a brand new buyer.
HubSpot State of Marketing surveys have beforehand confirmed that CAC varies between firms and industries.
What reduces buyer acquisition prices will rely significantly in your trade, services or products, buyer, and most well-liked purchaser journey. The excellent news is that you could find knowledge with the fee per lead benchmarks by trade, and this could provide help to see how your web site performs.
I wished to search out some knowledge to see what may scale back CAC. I used HubSpot’s State of Marketing Survey to know what entrepreneurs are doing in 2025 and past. Secure to say, any advertising that’s getting the eye of the plenty is what’s shifting the needle for the enterprise.
Right here’s what I discovered:
- Consumer-generated content material (UGC) is voted as the highest advertising technique for 2025.
- In the event you use UGC in advertising, contemplate what type of media your viewers is most engaged with. For instance, entrepreneurs report short-form movies as having high ROI.
- Take into consideration your viewers. Each B2B and B2C companies are primarily concentrating on millennials.
- Authenticity appears to be main the cost for almost all of entrepreneurs. Of entrepreneurs surveyed, 92% plan to keep up or make investments extra in model consciousness. I might argue that branding and authenticity go hand-in-hand with video.
Advertising and marketing Channels With the Highest and Lowest CAC
Being aware of the channels you’re utilizing and the way a lot these channels price is one other solution to decrease the price of buying clients.
Advertising and marketing Channels With the Lowest CAC
In line with First Sage Page, natural advertising channels with the bottom CAC embody electronic mail advertising and public talking for B2B, in addition to social media advertising and webinars for B2C.
For paid channels, the bottom CAC channels are:
- Direct Mail and PPC/SEM for B2B.
- Fb Advertisements and PPC/SEM for B2C.
When measuring your CAC, contemplate your gross sales cycle and time to shut leads.
I used to work in a B2B advertising company, and yearly, we’d run an inexpensive unsolicited mail marketing campaign. Nonetheless, the marketing campaign outcomes typically didn’t present up for years. The purchasers we did get have been glorious, although! The takeaway is that whereas low CAC is fascinating, you will need to steadiness this with effectivity.
Advertising and marketing Channels With the Highest CAC
The tables above additionally present us the best CAC by channels for B2B and B2C.
I wished to research the advertising persons are doing in 2025. It’s secure to imagine that these channels are thought to decrease the CAC.
Let’s check out social media in 2024. Apart from LinkedIn, each B2B and B2C companies prioritize the identical social media platforms. The favourite is Fb, adopted by Instagram, Linked (for B2B solely), YouTube, and TikTok. B2C manufacturers favored LinkedIn final, which is sensible.
Professional tip: It could be that channels with the best CAC help channels which have decrease CAC. In the event you’re doing a number of advertising, contemplate media mix modeling to determine how channels, reminiscent of a better CAC channel, help others.
An instance from the media combine modeling article I wrote completely demonstrates what I imply: As pictured above, radio advertisements have a excessive CAC for B2B. Nonetheless, a marketer discovered that radio advertisements elevated clicks and engagement in social media by 25%. Advertising and marketing channels all have totally different roles to play and must be measured individually and collectively.
Most Efficient Methods for Decreasing CPL
Cost per lead (CPL) tells you the way a lot you’ve spent on advertising earlier than you get a lead. A lead may be the shopper’s contact data or curiosity within the enterprise’s services or products.
One efficient solution to decrease CPL is with advertising automation. Utilizing AI instruments like HubSpot’s AI, Breeze, will increase inbound leads by 99%. In the event you can improve high quality leads with minimal effort — utilizing AI — CPL will lower.
Kyle Denhoff, HubSpot’s Senior Director of Advertising and marketing, efficiently diminished price per lead with creator companions. Denhoff says, “Creators have grow to be one in every of our high development drivers in lower than three years. Some long-term creator partnerships minimize our price per lead by 30-40% in comparison with advertisements on Meta and Google. We’ve now bought over 100 creator companions, and so they’re driving about 50% of our media community attain and demand.”
Relating to CPL, you need to spend much less cash per lead. However what does a very good CPL seem like? Nicely, that depends upon industries and channels, however right here’s a take a look at CPL for various channels in keeping with Visitor Queue.
In the event you’re questioning what is an effective CPL, then you may confer with averages as proven within the desk beneath.
Advertising and marketing Channels With the Highest and Lowest High quality of Leads
Not each lead is an effective lead — they don’t all have the necessity or need to purchase a services or products out of your firm. To make sure you’re reaching your target market, here’s a breakdown of channels entrepreneurs use to draw the best high quality leads.
Advertising and marketing Channels Leading to Highest High quality of Leads
In line with First Page Sage, advertising channels that consequence within the highest ROI (and, subsequently, assumed the best high quality of leads) embody:
- Public talking.
- Thought management and search engine marketing.
- Webinars.
- E mail advertising.
- Podcasts.
First Web page Sage presents this data in a desk with the time to outcomes.
With this new knowledge in thoughts, I need to nod again to what I mentioned earlier concerning the unsolicited mail marketing campaign. The very best ROI lead era channels are:
- Principally medium to very exhausting to execute.
- Costly.
- Take time.
Our unsolicited mail marketing campaign took years to repay, however we bought high quality leads. It was no less than low-effort and low-cost, although.
The reality is that generating high-quality leads for your enterprise isn’t simple, and it’ll take time.
Professional tip: Make these channels as environment friendly as doable so you may get probably the most out of them. For instance, AI can assist write content material, generate blogs from video transcripts, and vice versa. Use the suitable software program (Marketing Hub, for instance) with built-in AI to assist streamline processes. The extra streamlined you’re working, the better the probabilities you’ll carry your CPL in keeping with price per lead benchmarks.
Josh Ames is a HubSpot and GTM Supervisor at Phocas Software, and he’s utilizing HubSpot’s AI to do extra testing.
Ames says, “HubSpot’s knowledge enrichment characteristic rapidly improved our knowledge high quality, resulting in more practical campaigns and higher alignment. 92% of firms in our CRM had no less than one new enrichment property populated by the brand new characteristic. AI means that you can go from A/B testing to A to Z testing and rapidly discover out which advertisements or posts are the almost definitely to carry out the very best together with your viewers.”
Advertising and marketing Channels Ensuing within the Lowest High quality of Leads
Advertising and marketing that ends in low-quality leads is advertising finished poorly. Seemingly, you’re not reaching your viewers in a means that resonates, otherwise you’re utilizing advertising channels that your viewers doesn’t use.
For instance, HubSpot’s Consumer Trends Report discovered that Millennials’ primary channel for product discovery is social media. Contemplating that entrepreneurs in B2B and B2C companies are concentrating on Millennials, a social media presence is a should!
Bear in mind what I mentioned earlier? The highest three social media channels utilized by entrepreneurs are:
- B2B: Fb, Instagram, LinkedIn.
- B2C: Fb, Instagram, YouTube.
Advertising and marketing Channels With Lowest and Highest CPL
What is an effective CPL? Much like CAC, one other solution to decrease the price of producing leads is to look to channels with the bottom prices.
Advertising and marketing Channels With the Lowest CPL
Customer Queue recorded data CPL by channel. Utilizing the fee common, the bottom CPL channels included:
- search engine marketing ($31).
- E mail advertising ($53).
- Webinars ($72).
It’s necessary that you just discover your trade to find out what returns a low CPL for you. The information discovered by Customer Queue conflicts with First Web page Sage, which listed search engine marketing because the third costliest channel with medium to excessive time to get outcomes.
There’s no one-size-fits-all in metrics, and even companies inside the identical class (B2B or B2C) have to dig into their area of interest knowledge accordingly. For instance, the B2B SaaS price per lead benchmark could also be totally different from B2B typically.
Advertising and marketing Channels With Highest Price per Lead
Sticking with Customer Queue’s data on CPL by channel, they discovered the channels with the best price per lead included:
- Commerce reveals ($811).
- PPC ($181).
- Content material creation ($92).
CPL and CAC Are Important Elements of the Puzzle
Now that which methods and channels are the simplest for reducing CAC and CPL, you may confidently refine your advertising technique to draw new clients and leads whereas additionally saving cash.
Whereas I like to trace CPL and CAC, fascinated by the larger image, how advertising channels affect one another (keep in mind media combine modeling), and the time to shut a deal is important. As I realized by placing this text collectively: The channels with the bottom CPL that carry the best high quality leads are additionally the channels that take the longest to see outcomes.
Editor’s be aware: This publish was initially printed in July 2022 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.
