“I almost canceled my most profitable ad campaign because I was measuring response every week instead of every month.”
“I stuck with an email offer that worked great although those leads took much longer to convert.”
One of these marketers understands the value of knowing how long it takes to convert a prospect into a customer. He can market smarter, report results accurately, and get the best ROI,
Which kind of marketer are you?
Understanding how long new leads take to purchase gives you insight into how long the customer journey is, when you should evaluate results, and how many overall new leads ever purchase your products.
Most importantly, you understand more about the sales channels that are driving revenue over time so you can replicate what’s working and improve the ROI of your campaigns.
Getting Real Answers
Most marketers ask business questions like:
- “Where did I find my best customers?”
- “Did that lead generation campaign really drive any sales?
Many try to find the answers by analyzing last-click attribution data—the only information they may have.
But here’s the thing: the longer prospect take to purchase the less likely you are to get an accurate answer that way. In today's privacy-focused environment, simple last-click tracking is fundamentally broken. It fails to connect the dots across channels and cannot tell you about the customer’s history—specifically, which initial channel generated the lead, and how subsequent email, SMS, and content interactions nurtured them over time.
It also can’t show you the customer journey over time so you know to stick with the ads, emails, message and offers that are driving in revenue.
One Customer’s Experience
One Wicked Reports customer learned that only 4.4% of new leads from his Facebook ads ever purchased. Yet over time those ads have generated over $800,000 in revenue on a Facebook expenditure of $125,000.
Crucially, over half of his leads took longer than a week to purchase. This gap between the click and the sale is where platform-side attribution (like Meta's own reporting) loses visibility, meaning last-click attribution will actively lead him to kill his most profitable, long-tail campaigns.
FAQ
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Why is knowing the 'time to buy' crucial for marketing ROI?
Understanding how long your leads typically take to convert prevents the premature cancellation of valuable, long-term profitable campaigns. It ensures you evaluate results after a full buying cycle has passed, allowing you to accurately identify and scale sales channels that drive revenue over time.
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Why is last-click attribution insufficient for measuring leads that take time to purchase?
Last-click attribution only credits the final touchpoint before a sale, ignoring the entire customer history, including the initial ad or email that generated the lead, and all subsequent nurturing steps. When leads take a long time to convert, last-click data cannot provide the full, accurate multi-touch customer journey needed for scaling.
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What reports can marketers use to understand lead velocity and the customer journey?
Marketers need multi-touch attribution reports that track the lead from the first click (e.g., Wicked Reports' First Click attribution) through every interaction to the final purchase. Reports that show 'time to convert' and 'customer cohort value' are essential for understanding the velocity and profitability of different sales channels over time.
