CPL is the average marketing spend required to acquire one qualified lead, calculated as total spend divided by lead volume.
CPL (Cost Per Lead) is the headline efficiency metric for most performance marketing in financial services. It answers a simple question: for every pound spent, how many prospects did the campaign deliver?
Formula: CPL = Total ad spend / Number of leads
Compared to e-commerce, financial advice has long sales cycles, strict compliance overlays and high lifetime values. That means CPL is only meaningful when paired with downstream quality metrics such as lead-to-appointment rate, appointment-to-client rate and average case value.
For UK financial advisers and brokers, CPL ranges widely by niche and platform. Mortgage and insurance leads can sit in the £20–£80 range on Meta, while pension transfer or high-net-worth leads routinely exceed £150–£300.