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What should you look at in a paid traffic report?
Atualizado em 22 de julho de 2026
In a paid traffic report, look at five metrics: cost per lead, lead qualification rate, cost per sale, ROAS and funnel conversion rate. They tie the budget to cash. Reach, impressions and clicks do show up in the report, but they serve as context, not decisions.
The five metrics that matter to the owner
Each useful metric answers a management question. If a number doesn't change any of your decisions, it doesn't need to be on the report's front page.
- Cost per lead (CPA). How much you pay for each contact generated. Read it by trend: CPA falling or steady with the same volume signals a healthy operation; CPA rising with no explanation calls for investigating creative, audience or offer.
- Qualification rate. Of the leads generated, how many have real profile and intent to buy. It's the metric that keeps CPA honest: a cheap lead that doesn't buy ends up costing more than an expensive lead that closes.
- Cost per sale. How much budget it took for each closed deal. Compare it against the product or service margin: if the cost per sale fits the margin, the campaign pays for itself; if it doesn't, no pretty click saves it.
- ROAS (return on ad spend). How much revenue each dollar of media generated, when the sale is trackable. Use it alongside cost per sale, never alone, and understand what ROI is realistic for your sector before judging the number.
- Funnel conversion rate. Where contacts get lost between the ad, the page, the service and the close. It shows whether the problem is in the media or in what happens after the click, which completely changes the fix.
Vanity metrics: what decorates and doesn't decide
Impressions, reach, clicks, likes and followers measure exposure, not results. They have technical use for whoever operates the campaign, like diagnosing creative or targeting, but they don't answer the owner's question. The warning sign is a report that opens with these numbers front and center and hides cost per sale in the last pages. When the budget is discussed, the first question should always be the same: how much came into the cash register for every dollar that went out. This also depends on the amount invested, so it's worth cross-checking the report against the rule for how much to invest in paid traffic per month.
In practice, in the countryside
In the companies we serve in Birigui, Araçatuba and the region, the most common mistake is measuring the campaign by noise: lots of WhatsApp messages, lots of likes, the phone ringing off the hook. When we cross-reference contacts with actual sales, sometimes the noisy channel is the worst in cost per sale and the quiet channel is what sustains the month. A good report for a mid-size countryside company fits in a thirty-minute conversation: budget invested, leads, qualification, sales and what changes next period.
If your current report doesn't answer how much each sale cost, it's worth reviewing the operation's structure. That reading is part of our paid media management work and can start with a conversation on desigual's WhatsApp.
Perguntas relacionadas
Which paid traffic metrics actually matter?
The ones that connect budget to money: cost per lead, qualification rate, cost per sale, ROAS and funnel conversion rate. Each one answers a decision question, like keeping, adjusting or cutting a campaign. Metrics that change no decision are decoration.
Do a lot of clicks and reach mean the campaign is good?
Not necessarily. Reach, impressions and clicks show the ad is being displayed, not that it's selling. A campaign can have great display numbers and a bad cost per sale at the same time, and only the second piece of information pays the bills.