ADAURA · PRACTICAL GROWTH GUIDE
Getting leads but no sales? Check the whole journey.
Start by separating unsuitable enquiries from suitable people who get lost during the sales process.
Start here: Use one row per enquiry and record source, suitability, first useful reply, next action, stage and loss reason. Keep unknown outcomes separate from lost enquiries. Review enquiries old enough to have completed the normal sales cycle.
Find the stage where people leave.
A low cost per lead does not tell you whether the business is acquiring customers efficiently. Review a group of enquiries from the same period and allow enough time for the normal sales cycle. Count the enquiries received, the people reached, the enquiries that fit your offer, the meetings or quotations, and the sales. Keep one definition of a qualified enquiry so the comparison means something.
Separate a campaign problem from a sales problem.
If many enquiries ask for something you do not sell, cannot use your service or sit outside your service area, review the audience, ad message, offer and form. If suitable people enquire but cannot reach a person, wait for a reply or receive no useful next step, review ownership and follow-up. Both problems can exist together. A falling close rate does not automatically mean the ads are bringing poor leads.
Measure customers alongside enquiries.
Calculate cost per qualified enquiry as advertising spend divided by qualified enquiries. Calculate media cost per customer as advertising spend divided by customers acquired from that spend. This is only the media portion of acquisition cost: a full customer acquisition cost also includes relevant marketing and sales costs. Compare groups with similar sales cycles, offers and source information. Do not treat a WhatsApp click as a completed sale.
Choose one change you can assess.
Record the main reason each lost opportunity did not progress. Then choose the most common fixable problem: clarify the offer, change the qualification questions, assign an enquiry owner or make the next step easier. Check the result against the same measures before increasing spend. If there are only a few enquiries, review the conversations rather than drawing a strong conclusion from percentages alone.
A practical enquiry review
- Unsuitable enquiry: check the promise, targeting and qualification.
- Suitable but unreachable: check contact details, response attempts and channel.
- Connected but stalled: check the next step, objections and follow-up owner.
- Proposal sent but not won: review the decision criteria and recorded loss reason.
Illustrative example, not a client result: an academy receives relevant course enquiries, but counselling calls are unassigned. Changing ad targeting will not assign those calls. First give the enquiries an owner and a scheduled next action.