Imagine you just had your best month in business with plenty of new leads. But this month, you’re on track to do about half of that, and you didn’t change anything.
Odds are, a broken lead form is at least part of the problem. If you aren’t getting as many leads as normal, you should evaluate the cost of losing leads and figure out how to fix the problem.
Keep reading to learn how to restore that higher number of website leads.
Determine the Cost of Leads
Before you can consider the cost of losing leads, you should know how much each good lead costs your business. A lot of factors go into the cost, so the cost for one business may not be the same as yours.
No matter your industry, you should know how much a lead costs. That way, you can set a budget for marketing and content creation to help get more leads and sales.
Even if you don’t have a broken lead form, here are a few things to think about regarding lead costs.
Content Creation
The first thing to consider is your website content. If you have a contact form as a lead form, you should add more to your contact page.
You can talk briefly about your offer, and you can encourage people to contact you with questions or to start working with you. But if you aren’t a writer or web designer, you may need to pay someone else to create that for you.
If you use a blog to generate leads and embed a lead form in each post, you should also consider how much a blog post costs you. You may need to pay a writer as well as someone to upload the content to your site.
The cost of maintaining your website and email service can also come into play. Consider how much you spend on content creation and how that affects your overall cost per lead.
Digital Advertising
A lot of businesses have taken to using social media for marketing and advertising, and it can be a great way to generate leads. You can pay for ad space on a social network so that you can reach more potential customers.
Your ads may lead to your contact page or to a lead page specifically to convince people to contact you or join your email list. If you use ads, you can view your campaign performance to see how much each lead costs.
Even if you don’t use paid ads, spending time on social media marketing can affect your cost per lead. You can track how much you spend on social media marketing for a good estimate regarding your lead costs.
Marketing Specialists
Whether you want to generate leads through your website, social media, or both, you may need to hire help. Hiring a marketing specialist can help you generate more potential leads.
You may be able to decrease your cost per lead with the right strategies. But if all of those leads head to a broken lead form, you will lose all of that money and those potential sales.
It won’t matter how well you design your lead form or how many people click. If the form breaks for even a day, you could miss out on customers and sales.
Lead Rewards
You should also factor in the cost of creating and offering rewards when people join your email list. Many businesses offer things like free eBooks or checklists.
If you want to encourage a quick sale, you can also offer a coupon when someone signs up for emails. That way, they can get a good deal if they buy, and you can get an easy sale.
But offering freebies and coupon codes can dig into your profits. You should consider the money you lose when calculating the cost of both good leads and the cost of losing leads.
So if you sell a product for $100 but offer a 10% off coupon, your cost per lead would be $10.
Product or Service Value
If you offer a high-end product or service, your cost per lead may be higher or lower than a business offering something cheaper. But it’s important to consider how much marketing or advertising you do.
And if you offer a coupon, for example, your cost per lead could be much higher. If your product is $1,000, a 10% off coupon would cost you $100 instead of $10 for a $100 product.
You shouldn’t lower your prices to generate more leads. However, you should be aware of what marketing and lead rewards can do to your cost per lead.
And losing a high-value lead could cost your business a lot more than losing a lead for a smaller product or service.
How to Calculate the Cost Per Lead
Calculating your lead cost isn’t too difficult with a calculator or a little bit of mental math. First, you should add up all of the costs associated with your website and marketing.
If you spend $1,000 on social media ads and $5,000 on building your website and blog, you would have spent $6,000 on lead generation.
Now, you need to determine how many leads you get, assuming your form is active. You can go into your email or email marketing software to see how many leads you get each day or week.
Maybe you get 10 leads per day or 300 in a month. Your cost per lead formula would look like this:
$6,000 divided by 300 = $20
You would spend $20 per lead. In that case, the cost of a broken lead form is $6,000.
How Much Does the Average Lead Cost?
The average cost per lead can vary widely. If you create your website yourself and use a free WordPress plugin to capture leads, you could spend nothing on lead generation.
You could also keep a low budget if you run your business social media accounts. And if you only use organic engagement, you won’t have to spend money on leads.
But if you need help creating your website or managing your social media, you need to consider how much those services cost. You should also consider how much it will cost you to run ads.
If you run a lot of ads and manage a big marketing team, your lead cost could be high, especially if you aren’t generating a ton of leads. But getting more leads could reduce your cost per lead, even with higher marketing costs.
What Broken Lead Forms Cost
A broken lead form can cost a lot. If you know what your leads cost when the form is active, you can multiply the cost per lead by the number of leads you think you’ve lost.
Now, if you don’t know what your average leads cost with an active form, you have a couple of options. You can review your website analytics to see how many people visit your lead page each day or week.
Then, you can use your marketing budget for that same period to find an average. You may not get the most accurate number, but it can help you start.
That way, you can still use the following steps to calculate the cost of losing leads.
Take Your Average Number of Leads
Consider how many leads you get on average per day, week, or month. You should get this number from when you have an active lead form or an estimate if you don’t have that figure.
Using an average is better than trying to calculate the loss per day if you get more leads on weekends for example. The average can help whether your form is down for a day or much longer.
Perhaps you average 10 leads in a day, so 70 a week, or about 300 each month.
Subtract Your Current Number of Leads
Next, you should calculate your current average number of leads. If you only have one lead form, you would be missing your entire average.
But if you have two forms and one breaks, you might lose about half. Using the previous example, that would mean losing 5 leads a day, 35 a week, and 150 a month.
If you don’t have multiple lead forms, consider creating a few. That way, you can still bring in some leads if your main form breaks in the future.
Consider Conversion Rates
You should also consider how many leads convert into customers or clients. Do this both before and after the form broke.
If your average before the issue was that 2 converted to sales, that means you have a 20% conversion rate. With no active forms, you would lose all of that.
But with two lead forms, you can still expect about one lead per day.
You may still be getting the same amount of traffic to your website or lead page. But if the contact form or lead form doesn’t work, you could lose out on all or a portion of that traffic becoming leads.
Calculate Your New Lead Cost
From here, you can calculate how much each lead costs when you have a broken form. Taking the example from above, perhaps you still have one lead form that works.
You’re getting five leads per day, which is about half of what you got before. If you haven’t changed your marketing budget, that means each lead costs double what it did when the form worked.
You may still have the same conversion rate, but that doesn’t mean your cost per lead will be the same. Consider if you still spend an average of $6,000 a month for lead generation, and you get 5 leads per day or 150 per month.
You can use the same formula to calculate your new cost per lead.
$6,000 divided by 150 = $40 per lead
If you kept the average cost per lead from before, you would lose about $3,000 per month with a broken form.
Why Does a Broken Lead Form Matter?
Once you figure out how much each lead costs, you can get a rough idea of how much losing website leads can cost you. But there’s more to the problem of a broken lead form.
You need to calculate how long the form breaks. And you may not be able to tell how many leads you lost in that time.
However, you should aim to fix the form as soon as you can. Consider a few issues a broken lead form can cause aside from the cost of losing leads.
Wasted Marketing Dollars
If you spend tons of money on digital ads leading to your lead form, you could waste that money. The waste is especially bad if the only thing on the page is your contact form or email signup form.
If your ad links to a blog post or another page with information, leads could still learn about your business. But they won’t be able to contact you or sign up for emails.
You can also lose money if you paid people to create the page you use in your ads. While you can still use that page when you fix the lead form, it may take longer for you to earn back the money you spent.
Lost Know, Like, Trust
The know, like, trust factor is an essential part of growing a business and getting sales. First, your customers need to get to know you through your website, emails, or social media.
If they can’t get on to your email list, they won’t be able to learn about you. Then, they won’t be able to figure out if they like you. Worst of all, they won’t be able to trust you as easily.
When someone trusts you, they will be more interested in buying from you. A broken lead form can keep you from interacting with your target customers.
People who fill out forms are already interested in what you do. And not having an easy way to connect with you could make you lose a customer, even if you don’t lose money.
Lack of Communication
Email is one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. You have direct access to their inbox, and you know that your message will reach people on your list.
When you rely on social media or your website to communicate with others, you give up that control. Social media platforms can make it hard for businesses to reach their followers without paying for ads.
And people have to head to your website individually to connect with you there. You can’t guarantee that your customers will visit your site each week or day.
Even if someone isn’t ready to buy yet, getting them on your email list means you can stay in touch until they are ready. Then, you will have an easier time making that sale.
How Can Lead Forms Break?
Multiple things can cause a broken lead form on your website. Knowing how your lead form breaks can help you fix it more easily. But you should also consider how many lead forms you have and if one is the problem or more.
That way, you can determine if you’re losing all of your leads or a fraction. While losing any leads isn’t good, knowing that some things work can keep your business running while you figure out the problem.
Here are a few things to consider when you’re losing website leads.
Unsuccessful Update
If you recently updated your website, that may be part of the cause. Consider what plugins you use to host your lead forms if you use WordPress.
Whether you updated the plugin or WordPress as a whole, you should see if the two are compatible. If not, you may need to update one or the other or switch to a new lead form plugin.
With other website hosts, you can check the software and any extensions or apps you use. And if you use an embedded lead form, you may need to replace it with one that has the correct coding.
Broken URL
Whenever you create a contact page or lead page, you should consider the URL you want to use. Changing it later could cause the page to break, so no one will be able to access your lead form.
If you do decide to change the URL, you should use a 301 redirect. That way, you can make sure you redirect the old URL to the new one.
Even if you start sharing the new link, the old link will still be out there. Whenever someone finds an old blog post or social media post, a 301 redirect can take them to the correct place on your website so that you can capture more leads.
New Website Domain
Similarly, if you decide to change your entire website name, you will also need to use a 301 redirect to keep your lead forms active. You may decide to change your domain if you rebrand your business.
Rebranding can come in handy if you want to focus on a different niche or offer a new product. But it can cause a broken lead form.
If you don’t recreate the lead forms under your new domain, you should have your old domain link to the new site. Most website hosts let you set up parked domains that you can redirect to your main URL.
Bad Email Address
If you change your main email address, you may also cause your contact forms to break. When a contact form leads to an old address, a couple of things can happen.
First, the email may go through, but you may never get it if you don’t check that email inbox. The email may also bounce back to the sender if you accidentally have to form go to an address you don’t use at all.
This shouldn’t happen with a form to join your email list, but it can happen if you change email marketing providers. When switching email marketing services, make sure you edit all of your lead forms so that they go to the new list.
How to Fix Your Broken Lead Forms
Once you determine why you’re losing leads, you can fix the issue. If you have multiple lead forms, you should check that all of them are okay.
That way, you can get your leads back to what they were before the problem began. Consider a few ways to fix broken opt-in and website contact forms.
Update Your Website and Plugins
Go through your website and verify that everything is up to date. Check the website software as well as any plugins or apps you added.
Consider if you need to update your website theme or get rid of old plugins or files. As you check your site, you may find that you have an older version of a theme or plugin. Your solution could be as easy as a quick update.
You should check for updates to your site at least weekly. That way, you can stay on top of your plugins and software and avoid broken lead forms in the future.
Verify the Submission Email
If your contact form is the issue, you should check which email address messages go to. Make sure you can access that inbox and that you know the login information.
If not, you can change the email address to an inbox that you do use. Be sure to check your email each weekday so that you can respond to customers and clients without making them wait.
Make Confirmation Easy
If your email list signup form works, you may notice that you aren’t gaining as many subscribers. In this case, you can verify your email signup process.
Make confirming emails as easy as possible for your leads. Set up your email marketing software to automatically send a confirmation as possible. Let people know they need to check their email and confirm the signup.
That way, you can make sure they make it on to your list. This is especially important if you have leads in Europe because your emails need to follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Don’t Let a Broken Lead Form Cost You
A broken lead form may seem like a small issue you can deal with later. But if you rely on those lead forms to bring in customers, letting the issue sit could cost you a lot of money.
Luckily, you don’t need to worry about broken lead forms. You can have someone test the forms regularly to ensure you keep your business up and running.
Are you ready for help testing your lead forms? Get started with a weekly or monthly plan today.