Why it matters: See which sources bring suitable work and which problems need attention before spending more.
Cheap enquiries can still be expensive customers.
A low-cost enquiry looks good in a report. It helps less if the person wants a service you do not offer, is outside your area or never buys. A more expensive enquiry may be for exactly the work you want.
Start with three questions: was it suitable work, did it become a job, and has it paid? Keep the enquiries still waiting separate from those that ended without a sale.
A simple example
Would you choose the A$30 lead or the A$60 lead?
Imagine two sources, each costing A$3,000. Source A brings 100 enquiries and five paid jobs. Source B brings 50 enquiries and ten paid jobs.
A has cheaper enquiries. B costs less per paid job. That is a more useful comparison, but it still does not tell you which work made more profit. Some enquiries are unfinished, and the cost of doing the jobs is missing.
- Source A: per enquiry
- $30
- Source B: per enquiry
- $60
- Source A: per paid job
- $600
- Source B: per paid job
- $300
Illustrative example. Costs shown are for acquiring the job, before doing the work. Amounts are AUD, excluding GST.
Find where the work stops.
Good enquiries can stall when a call goes unanswered, a question waits for a reply or a quote needs clarification. The problem might be what happens after the enquiry arrives.
The reverse matters too. If people get a useful answer but keep asking for work you cannot do, your marketing team needs to know. More enquiries are not always the answer, especially when you are already busy.
- Compare suitable enquiries, paid jobs and the cost of bringing them in.
- Check how long each source takes to produce work.
- Keep unknown sources visible. Do not fill them with guesses.
How Gibson connects the picture.
A tracking number on your website can connect calls with the source that brought the visitor. Where the systems support it, we link website forms and booking records to your customer system, then follow the enquiry into quotes, jobs and payment records.
We check what can be linked before setting it up. A call and a form about the same job should not become two sales opportunities. Missing source details stay unknown.
You get the gaps explained and an agreed action plan. Your ads or marketing team gets useful information about suitable enquiries and paid work, so they can make better decisions. They keep control of the ads; Gibson does not manage them.
What you can do next
Ask where your paying work came from.
Pick a recent group of enquiries and follow them through to the outcome. If you cannot see the connection, Gibson can help bring the records together, explain the gaps and agree the next actions. Customer contact happens only when agreed with your business.
See the calculations, sources and checks
The evidence
What the published sources say.
Constant Contact reports concerns about customer acquisition, marketing cost and time, and understanding what works among businesses in Australia and New Zealand.
These are combined regional survey findings, not Australian-only results or proof that your business has a particular gap. They explain why it is useful to connect marketing with actual outcomes.
Constant Contact: Australian and New Zealand small-business marketing research ↗Australian Government guidance recommends setting digital goals and tracking whether advertising and promotions lead to sales.
Choose the outcome you need to understand before choosing a headline metric. Guidance supports the method; it does not establish how common the problem is.
business.gov.au: measure your digital performance ↗Google explains that conversion delays can leave recent results incomplete.
Give enquiries comparable time to become work. Do not compare fresh enquiries with older completed jobs as if they were equally finished.
Google Ads: time to conversion ↗The measures that make this useful.
- Cost per enquiry
- Source spend ÷ genuine new enquiries linked to that spend
Shows acquisition volume and price, but does not establish quality.
- Cost per suitable enquiry
- Source spend ÷ enquiries meeting agreed suitability criteria
Helps your ads team distinguish inexpensive contacts from useful demand.
- Cost per paid job
- Source spend ÷ paid jobs confirmed in the records in the same group of enquiries
Connects spend with paid work. It does not establish profitability without the cost of doing the work.
- How many enquiry results are known
- Enquiries with a recorded final outcome ÷ enquiries reviewed
Shows how much of the source comparison is supported. An unknown result does not mean the enquiry was lost.
- Time to paid work
- Payment date minus original enquiry date
Compare similar follow-up periods and show open work separately from completed outcomes.
Worked value example
The cheaper lead can be the more expensive customer.
Illustrative calculation. All inputs assumed. AUD; amounts exclude GST. Not a customer result, forecast or Gibson price.
Assume two sources each receive A$3,000. Source A brings 100 enquiries and five paid jobs. Source B brings 50 enquiries and ten paid jobs. Both groups have had the same 30-day follow-up period. All records and amounts below are fictional.
- Source A: cost per paid job
- $600
- Source B: cost per paid job
- $300
- Source A: cost per enquiry
- $30
- Source B: cost per enquiry
- $60
- Source A: cost per suitable enquiry
- $150
- Source B: cost per suitable enquiry
- $100
- Source A: outcome completeness
- 80%
- Source B: outcome completeness
- 90%
Source A: A$3,000 ÷ 100 enquiries = A$30 per enquiry; A$3,000 ÷ 5 paid jobs = A$600 per paid job. Source B: A$3,000 ÷ 50 = A$60 per enquiry; A$3,000 ÷ 10 = A$300 per paid job.
B’s enquiries cost twice as much, but its recorded paid jobs cost half as much to acquire. That changes the question your marketing team should investigate. It does not prove that moving the budget will reproduce the result.
Show every assumed input
- Source A spend
- $3,000
- Source B spend
- $3,000
- Source A enquiries
- 100
- Source B enquiries
- 50
- Source A suitable enquiries
- 20
- Source B suitable enquiries
- 30
- Source A paid jobs
- 5
- Source B paid jobs
- 10
- Source A paid revenue
- $10,000
- Source B paid revenue
- $18,000
- Source A open or unconfirmed final outcomes
- 20
- Source B open or unconfirmed final outcomes
- 5
What would change the result? The groups still include 20 unresolved outcomes for A and five for B. Margins, work mix and fulfilment costs are not supplied, so neither source is proved more profitable. Thirty days is a shared illustrative review window, not a recommended window for every business.
From work on our own CRM
A neat chart can still be built on the wrong labels.
In a published account of our own CRM cleanup, we found blank and incorrect industry labels. We mapped the records to the CRM’s existing categories, prepared them for review and logged the changes. The work concerned customer industry categories, not marketing attribution. It is a practical reminder: a chart can faithfully display a label that was wrong in the first place.
What to take from it: For a source comparison, check a sample against the original enquiry records. Keep an unsupported source unknown rather than filling the gap with a guess.
This is Gibson’s own published account of CRM data cleanup. It does not demonstrate an advertising saving, improved attribution or additional sales.
Read our CRM cleanup case study ↗Give enquiries time to become paid work.
Compare enquiries that arrived around the same time and give them the same amount of time to become work. A campaign bringing longer projects can look worse if you compare its unfinished enquiries with completed jobs.
- Look at call handling and email or form replies separately. Then bring them together by where the customer found you, counting one request for work once.
- Show how many paid jobs are behind each comparison. A few jobs do not establish a reliable winner.
- Keep unfinished enquiries visible, including how long they have been waiting. Choose a review period that fits how your customers buy.