Research report

The 2026 Lead-Gen Benchmarks

Last updated 9 September 2026

What leads actually cost right now — and the one factor that separates advertisers who profit from those who just spend.

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Everyone's cost to reach a customer went up — Meta CPMs rose ~20% year over year and median cost per acquisition sits near $38. But cost is the wrong thing to obsess over. This report compiles the latest public 2025-2026 benchmarks and cross-checks them against DEUS's own live campaigns. The conclusion: the advertisers who win in 2026 aren't paying less per lead — they're reaching people already looking.

2.19%

Median Meta CTR

$27.66

Avg Facebook cost per lead

+20%

Meta CPM year over year

Part 1

What a lead actually costs

Meta 2025 — platform benchmarks

Avg CPC (Traffic)	$0.70
Avg CPC (Lead-gen)	$1.92
Median CTR	2.19%
Median CPM	$13.48
Avg lead-form conversion	7.72%
Avg cost per lead	$27.66

Home services — cost per lead

Home improvement (blended)	$45 – $228
Roofing (shared)	$80 – $120
Roofing (exclusive)	$150 – $300+
Roofing — Google avg	~$187
HVAC (blended)	~$104
HVAC (non-branded)	~$149
Home & improvement search	~$91

A real, exclusive, high-intent lead in the trades costs $90–$300. That's the number to beat — and why lead quality beats lead price.

Part 2

Cost isn't the problem. Cold is.

14.6%

Warm lead conversion

1.7%

Cold lead conversion

8.5x

The gap

Conversion by intent signal

Intent-prioritized accounts	21.3%
Not intent-prioritized	8.4%
Intent-informed outreach	10 – 14%
Average cold call	2 – 3%

Intent also compresses time: warm leads close in 30–60 days vs 90–180 for cold.

Stop paying to interrupt people who aren't looking. Pay to reach the ones who already are. That's an 8–25x swing in conversion — far bigger than any CPC optimization.

Part 3

What it looks like live

DEUS live Meta data — traffic campaigns, 90-day (Jun–Sep 2026) vs benchmark

CTR	2.67% vs 2.19% (22% higher)
CPC	$0.61 vs $0.70 (13% cheaper)
CPM	$16.39 vs $13.48 (22% higher — tracking the ~20% YoY rise)

The CPM comparison is against a 2025 benchmark, and Meta CPMs rose roughly 20% year over year — so paying more per thousand impressions in 2026 is the market, not the campaign. What a campaign can still control is who sees the impression.

The intent-targeted campaign
One campaign in that account targets a DEUS Signal intent list rather than a broad interest audience. Over the same window it ran at 11.18% CTR and $0.29 CPC — roughly five times the median Meta CTR, at less than half the median cost per click. Same creative discipline, same account, different audience source.

Impressions cost everyone more this year. Click-through went up anyway — and on the intent-targeted campaign it went up five-fold. You don't win the auction. You win the targeting.

Turn the benchmark into an advantage

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