Two metrics that look the same and aren't
Open any agency report. The first chart, big and proud, shows your Cost Per Lead trending down month over month. ₹520 in February, ₹460 in March, ₹390 in April. The agency takes credit. You feel good. You renew.
Now do the math the agency report doesn't show you:
- Spent: ₹50,000
- Leads: 128 (CPL: ₹390 — looks great!)
- Booked appointments: 38 (booking rate: 30%)
- Showed up: 23 (show rate: 60%)
- Completed consults: 18 (consult-complete rate: 80%)
- Bought: 5 (close rate: 28%)
- Cost per acquired customer: ₹10,000
You bought 5 customers for ₹50,000. The fact that your CPL dropped is irrelevant — what matters is whether the same lead conversion rates held. Usually they didn't, because cheaper leads are cheaper for a reason.
Where the funnel actually leaks
The 4-step funnel from lead to sale has 4 multiplicative conversion rates. A 10% improvement at any single step compounds with the others. A 10% degradation at any step destroys ROI everywhere downstream.
Most clinic owners focus on the first step (CPL). Most leakage happens at steps 2–4:
- Lead → Booking — fails because of slow reply, weak qualification, friction in the booking link
- Booking → Showed up — no-shows; the topic of our no-show field guide
- Showed up → Consult complete — patient walks in, hates the parking / reception experience / wait time, walks out before the consult
- Consult complete → Sale — the actual conversation. Usually the only step the clinician thinks about.
Cheaper CPL with worse downstream rates is a worse business than expensive CPL with great downstream rates. Always.
Run the math on your own funnel
The only way to know which step is leaking is to measure each rate honestly. Our cost-per-appointment calculator walks you through the 4 inputs and shows you the unit economics in 30 seconds. Plug in your real numbers. Don't round up.
Once you have it, compare against the Pleomatic network median (50% booking rate, 85% show rate, 40% close rate). Whichever step is furthest below the median is where your money is leaking. That's where the next ₹50,000 should go — not into more ads.
What good agencies report on (and bad ones don't)
If your monthly report doesn't have at least these four numbers, you're being managed by a tool, not a team:
- Leads-to-bookings rate — measures lead qualification + WhatsApp speed
- Show-up rate — measures the booking-to-show sequence (reminders, pivot-to-rebook)
- Consult-complete rate — measures the in-clinic experience
- Close rate — measures the clinician's sales conversation
The first three are the agency's responsibility. The fourth is yours. If the report doesn't separate the four, the agency is either hiding which one is broken or doesn't measure it.
