Agree what a worthwhile opportunity looks like
Start with the work your business wants and has the capacity to deliver. Agree the service area, suitable products or projects, the customer’s role and any practical requirements. Someone researching a future purchase can still be valuable, but they need a different response from a customer ready to request a quotation.
Write the criteria clearly enough for two colleagues to reach broadly the same judgement on an enquiry. Record why something doesn’t fit. Marketing can act on a wrong location, product mismatch or timing issue; a general label such as “poor lead” gives it very little to work with.
Review the journey with the sales team
Choose a manageable sample of recent enquiries and review it with the people who handled them. Record the source where known, suitability, first response, appointment or quotation, outcome and any reason for a loss. Keep customer details in your approved systems rather than a shared public tool.
Follow the enquiry until you can see where progress stopped. Missed calls need a different response from enquiries outside your area. Unclear product information may delay a quotation even when the advertising reached the right person. Establishing the cause helps you choose a change that can actually address it.
Lomax + Wood and Timberlook: two different lead-generation briefs
Lomax + Wood needed paid search to reach people considering premium timber windows and doors. The account rebuild removed irrelevant targeting, strengthened negative keywords and paused unfocused Performance Max activity. Those decisions changed which searches the budget supported.
Timberlook’s strategy had to serve homeowner interest and the development of its installer network. It produced an average of more than 550 qualified leads a month, split between social and the website. Understanding those two audiences was central to deciding which responses were useful.
The reporting needs to reflect those different jobs. For Lomax + Wood, the question is the cost of reaching people considering premium timber products. For Timberlook, homeowner enquiries and interest in joining the installer network need to be distinguished and followed through their relevant sales routes.
Separate a targeting problem from a sales-handling problem
Consider an installer receiving enquiries outside its service area. Campaign locations, landing-page coverage and the way the area is described all deserve review. A manufacturer receiving homeowner requests may instead need a clearer route to a stockist or installer, while specification questions go to a technical team. The next action depends on the kind of enquiry.
When an enquiry does fit, check what followed. Was the call returned? Did the customer get an appointment, a technical answer or a quotation? Was there a reason to follow up? Recording what happened lets marketing and sales discuss the same evidence, including product fit, missing project detail and price objections.
Use a cost measure that reflects the decision
Divide campaign spend by all enquiries to calculate cost per enquiry. Divide the same spend by the enquiries meeting your agreed criteria to calculate cost per suitable enquiry. These measures answer different questions, and neither includes the full cost of winning a customer, such as sales time.
Use the calculator with figures from the same period. If you compare campaigns, keep the definition of suitability consistent. Otherwise a change in the calculation can look like a change in performance.
What does a suitable enquiry cost?
Use figures from the same period. This is a simple calculation, not a forecast or an audit.
Inputs stay in this page and are not sent or saved. These calculations exclude other acquisition costs, such as sales time.
Choose a change to targeting or sales follow-up
Agree one specific intervention and a review period. It might be tighter geographic targeting, clearer project criteria, a revised landing page, a better call-handling arrangement or a defined follow-up step. Record what changed so the next comparison has a useful basis.
Bring margin, capacity and fulfilment into that decision. More enquiries for work the business struggles to deliver may create pressure without much value. A smaller improvement in a suitable, profitable category can justify more attention.
Review enquiry criteria as your business changes
Review the criteria when your offer, team or market changes. New capacity may make a previously unsuitable project worth pursuing; a change in the range may alter which customers you want to reach. Regular feedback helps the agency adapt without treating every short-term fluctuation as a lasting shift.
At each review, ask which opportunities the strategy is creating and what happens to them. Those answers give both teams a clearer basis for improving demand, response and sales follow-up.
