Paid Media Report · Hartley Law

Consultation requests

11% fewer vs prior 30 days

$121

Cost per request

14% higher vs prior 30 days

$4,846

Meta spend

1% higher vs prior 30 days

1,381

Website visits from the ads

147% more vs prior 30 days, most of it in the final week

Consultation request = someone who completed the consultation form on your website after clicking one of the ads, counted in your website analytics. Phone calls are tracked separately and are not included in this figure, so the true number of enquiries is higher than 40.

The story

The month in three moves.

One thing changed on the website, and it shaped everything else in the month.

Aug 5

The website changed how the form works

The consultation form kept working for visitors, but from that day it stopped sending the signal our ad tracking reads. The ads ran normally throughout. We have counted requests from your website analytics instead, which is why this report shows 40 where the ad dashboard shows 12.

Requests held while the platform was blind

Meta spent the last three weeks of the month with no completed-form signal to steer by, and requests still came in at 40 against 45 in the previous thirty days. Cost per request moved from $107 to $121.

514

Cheap attention is not the same as a lead

The two videos that hold attention best sent 514 people to the site in August and produced 0 consultation requests between them. Most of that traffic came in the final week at $1.26 a click, against $6.96 earlier in the month. Cheap clicks that do not enquire are not a saving.

Meta Ads

Where the money went.

August against the thirty days before it, on the same definitions for both periods.

Measure	Prior 30 days	August	Change
Spend	$4,802	$4,846	+1%
Consultation requests	45	40	-11%
Cost per request	$107	$121	+14%
Website visits from the ads	558	1,381	+147%
Cost per website visit	$8.61	$3.51	-59%
Different people reached	15,517	28,363	+83%

The month was really three different periods. Through the first week the account behaved as it had in July. From August 5 the tracking gap left the platform without a completed-form signal, and the cost of a click climbed to about $6.96. Then the new videos launched on August 24 and brought in 912 clicks in a single week at $1.26 each. That last week is why the visit and reach figures above look so much stronger than the request figures, and it is why we are not reading the averages for the month as a trend.

Campaigns

Campaign	Spend	Website visits	Requests	Cost / request
AC 01 - Website Leads - August Creatives	$4,508	1,333	32	$141
NZ 02 - Leads - Retargeting paused Aug 6	$215	6	2	$108
NZ 01 - Leads - Truck Accidents paused Aug 6	$123	42	6	$20
Total	$4,846	1,381	40	$121

The two smaller campaigns were paused on August 6, so their figures cover the first five days of the month only and are not comparable with the campaign that ran all month.

Creative

What held attention.

Ranked by the consultation requests each one actually produced, counted in your website analytics across the whole month.

The three ads that produced the most consultation requests in August. Hook is the share of people shown the ad who stayed past three seconds, hold the share of those who watched to the end. Tap any one to watch it.

#119 requests · $110 each

The most useful thing this month is that holding attention and producing enquiries are turning out to be two different things. 07/21 - Video - Two Year Deadline is the weakest of the videos at keeping people watching, 27% past three seconds, and it still produced 19 of the 40 requests at $110 each. The two videos that hold attention best sent 514 people to the site between them and produced 0. So we are not going to move budget toward the ads that look most watchable. We are going to keep following the ones that produce enquiries, and now that requests can be traced back to the individual ad we can do that every week rather than once a month.

Measurement

How we are counting.

What happened on August 5, what we have done about it, and the one thing we need from you.

Aug 5

What changed

Your website updated the consultation form. Visitors could still complete it, and your website analytics kept recording every one, but the version of the form our ad tracking listens for stopped being sent. That is why the ad dashboard shows 12 for August while your own analytics shows 40. No enquiries were lost, only the platform’s view of them.

This week

What we are doing

We are reconnecting our tracking to the form the site now uses, and pointing the campaigns back at that signal so Meta can once again steer toward people who complete it. We are also adding a check that tells us within a day if this signal ever stops again, rather than at the end of a month.

Your inbox

What we need from you

The number of consultation requests that reached your Zoho inbox in August, and which of them were the kind of case you want. Matching your count against ours is the only way to confirm nothing is being missed, and knowing which enquiries were worth having is what lets us aim the budget at more of them.

What's next

Three moves for September.

Each one comes straight out of the month above.

Restore the signal, then let it settle: Reconnecting the form signal is the first job, because everything else depends on it. Once it is back the campaigns need a short stretch to re-learn who completes the form, so we expect a week of noisier numbers before they settle. We would rather absorb that now than spend another month steering blind.
Prove or drop the cheap traffic: The videos launched on August 24 brought 912 clicks in a week at $1.26, and over the final two days 620 of those visits produced 1 request. Cheap clicks that do not enquire are not a saving. With the signal restored we will know within days whether that traffic converts, and we will either scale it or cut it rather than leave it running on volume alone.
Bring quality into the numbers: You told us in August that volume was not the problem and that the fit of the enquiries was. Once your inbox count is matched to ours we will start reporting requests split by whether they were the sort of case you want, so the cost figures in this report start tracking good enquiries rather than form fills.

August held its ground blind. September gets its sight back.

40 consultation requests at $121 while the platform had no signal to steer by, and new creative that earns attention more cheaply than anything before it. Send us your August inbox count and we will match it against ours before the next report.