August 4, 2026 · 2 min read · Agentive Scale
The three numbers that tell you if your marketing works
Impressions, reach and engagement are not results. Here are the three figures we put on every report, and how to read them without a marketing degree.
Most marketing reports are designed to look busy. Twelve charts, four colours, a "reach" number with a lot of zeros in it. You read it, you feel vaguely positive, and you have no idea whether the month made you money.
Three numbers answer that. If a report does not contain them, ask why.
1. Cost per real lead
Not cost per click. Not cost per "conversion" where a conversion is somebody scrolling to the bottom of a page. Cost per human being who asked you to contact them.
Take everything you spent last month — ad budget, agency fee, tools — and divide it by the number of genuine enquiries. That figure is uncomfortable the first time you calculate it. It is also the only spend number that means anything.
2. Close rate on those leads
A lead is not a customer. If you are closing 1 in 10, the problem might not be marketing at all — it might be that nobody calls back the same day, or that the price is presented badly, or that the leads are the wrong kind of people.
We ask every client for this number before we touch an ad account, because doubling the leads on a broken close rate just doubles the wasted time.
3. Revenue per customer, over a year
A restaurant customer is worth a lot more than one dinner. A dental patient is worth more than one cleaning. Once you know the twelve-month figure, the first two numbers change meaning completely — a lead that costs €40 looks expensive until you know the customer is worth €900.
What to do with them
Write the three numbers on one line, once a month. That is your whole dashboard.
- If cost per lead is falling and close rate is steady, the marketing is working.
- If leads are up and revenue is flat, look at your sales process before you spend more.
- If you cannot calculate them at all, that is the first thing to fix — before any campaign.
We do this on the first call with every client, usually in about twenty minutes, and we tell people when the honest answer is "you do not need an agency yet, you need to answer your phone faster."