Cost Per Enquiry (CPE)
Harsh Kyada, Founder · Reference
What it actually costs to get a real person's contact details, meaning a form fill, a call, or a WhatsApp message, from a piece of content or an ad.
Cost per enquiry (CPE)is the total ad or content spend divided by the number of real enquiries it produced, meaning a form fill, a phone call, or a WhatsApp message, not a click or a view. It answers the question that actually matters to a business: what did it cost to get one real person's contact details.
Why it's better than cost-per-click or reach
Reach, impressions, and cost-per-click are the easiest numbers to make look good, and the least connected to whether the phone rings. A click that never becomes a conversation isn't worth anything to the business paying for the ad. CPE forces the measurement back to the outcome that actually matters.
A real example
Envision Realtors' cost per qualified enquiry (the stricter version of this metric, see CPQE) dropped from ₹560 to ₹184 in 90 days, mostly by leading every ad with a founder walkthrough instead of a generic property shot. That's the kind of change CPE is built to catch, and cost-per-click never would have.
How we report it
Every campaign we run for a client is reported back as cost-per-enquiry, not likes, reach, or impressions. See how this plays out in our lead generation service.
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