When you're spending, know what's actually working

Once you're paying for ads and campaigns, the danger flips: not "how do I start" but "which of these is quietly wasting my money?" Most owners with a budget can't say which campaign brings paying customers, so they keep funding the losers and starve the winners. The fix is to track every campaign to one number — what it costs to get a paying customer — and let that, not hope, decide where the money goes.

Do this

1. Give every campaign its own way to be tracked — a dedicated phone number, a promo code, a landing page, or a tagged link.
2. For each one, track three things: what you spent, how many leads it brought, and how many became paying customers.
3. Do the one calculation that matters: spend ÷ customers = your cost to get a customer.
4. Each month, cut or fix any campaign that costs more than a customer is worth, and move that money to the ones that pay.

Your campaign scoreboard

One row per campaign, updated monthly. This is the whole system:

CAMPAIGN SPENT LEADS CUSTOMERS COST/CUST KEEP? ----------------- ------ ----- --------- --------- ----- Facebook - spring $300 18 6 $50 ✓ scale Google Ads $400 12 5 $80 ✓ keep Flyers (mailer) $250 4 1 $250 ✗ kill Radio spot $600 9 2 $300 ✗ kill

Compare COST/CUST to what a customer is worth (~$360 in the last lesson). The winners are obvious, and so are the money pits. Feed the winners; cut the rest. You're not guessing anymore — you're investing.