Marketing Healthcare Practice: Understanding Cost Per Lead (CPL): This tells you how much you spend, on average, to generate one new inquiry.

PatientGain.com tracks leads from all sources: phone calls, appointments, online forms, chatbot interactions, and email inquiries. What is a lead? Leads are inquiries from new potential patients:
New patient inquiries, leads, referrals, contact-us, appointments, SMS/Text Messages, click on “directions” – For Urgent care and walk in clinics. See example of SPOC app below, this app increases your healthcare practices’ CPL. This app can be installed on any healthcare website, it is HIPAA compliant and comes with leads management, SMS/texting to patients and includes awesome support.

How to Calculate CPL of a Medical or Dental Practice

1. Determine the Total Marketing and Advertising Spend: Add up all expenses for the chosen period. This can include:
   • Ad spend (PPC, social media ads, etc., per month)
   • Software and tools (CRMs, analytics platforms, per month)
   • Labor costs (time spent on campaign creation and management, per month)
   • Content creation for SEO (copywriting, research, per month)
   • Technical infrastructure (website costs per month)
2. Count the Number of Leads Generated: Tally the total number of new leads acquired from the campaign or platform during the same timeframe. A lead is typically someone who has shown interest in your product or service by providing their contact information.
3. Divide: Plug your numbers into the formula:
   CPL = Total Marketing Spend / Number of Leads Generated 

Example 1 of CPL of a dental practice
If your practice spends $2000 for marketing and adverting, per month, and generates 50 leads per month, the CPL is $40 ($2000 / 50 = $40 per lead). 

Example 2 of CPL of a family, primary care practice
If your practice spends $3000 for marketing and adverting, per month, and generates 300 leads per month, the CPL is $10 ($3000 / 300 = $10 per lead). 

Why CPL is Important – Lower the CPL, the more likely higher operating margins

• Measures Efficiency: CPL helps you understand how much your business spends to acquire one new potential customer. 
• Identifies Effective Campaigns: By tracking CPL across different campaigns and platforms, you can determine which are most efficient and where to adjust your budget. 
• Supports Profitability: A good CPL allows you to assess if your marketing efforts are aligned with your business’s financial goals and potential revenue from each lead. 

Example 1 Cost Per Lead (CPL) urgent care practice.

Location So California. 9 exam rooms, 3 MDs and 4 NPs. Serving 90+ patients per day. Open 7 days a week. Majority of the new patient website inquiries, leads, referrals, contact-us, appointments are originating from Organic SEO -Google Search. Hence the new patient acquisition cost is extremely low. In the month of Sep, there are 1149 attributed new leads. With the cost of the PLATINUM+ service $1999/mon, divided by $1149 = $1.74 per lead.

Example 2 Cost Per Lead (CPL) Family & primary care practice.

Location Texas. Has been in practice for 18 years. Using PLATINUM+ service.

This customer is a Primary, Family care provider with sub-focus on women’s health services. They are using They are using PLATINUM+ monthly services, and there are no Google ads or Social Media ads. Majority of the new patient website inquiries, leads, referrals, contact-us, appointments are originating from Organic SEO -Google Search. Hence the new patient acquisition cost is extremely low. In the month of May, there are 691 attributed new leads. With the cost of the PLATINUM+ service $1999/mon, divided by $691 = $2.89 per lead.

Example 3 Cost Per Lead (CPL) Med spa practice

Location Western USA. 2 locations, total of 7 providers. Owned by a NP. In one of the most competitive areas in US. 41% of the new patient website inquiries, leads, referrals, contact-us, appointments are originating from Organic SEO -Google Search. 32% from ads on Google PPC. 13% are searching for the brand – so these are “direct” leads. Hence the new patient acquisition cost is extremely low. In the month of Sep, there are 534 attributed new leads. With the cost of 2 locations the PLATINUM+ service $3000/mon, ads budget $4000 per month. CPL is $7000 divided by 534 = $13.10 per lead.