Sales says the leads are bad, marketing says they’re fine: how to settle it with numbers

Sales says the leads are bad. Marketing says the leads are fine — sales just isn’t working them. Almost every business that takes leads from Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads has this argument, and the louder side usually wins. Below: the numbers that make both sides right, and a plan for the first week.

Sales says the leads are bad, marketing says they are fine: who is right?

Both. One week at a learning centre (2–8 October 2026): $2,470 of ad spend, 685 leads, $3.61 per lead. The media buyer quotes that number, and it is correct. Of those 685 leads, 134 were junk — almost one in five. Sales quotes that, and it is correct too.

The media buyer’s report ends at the submitted form. A sales manager talks to every lead but often does not know which ad it came from. So the argument runs on impressions: neither “the leads are bad” nor “sales is lazy” can be checked.

Why does one week produce two opposite verdicts?

Because an average hides the split. Inside the $3.61 average sit two kinds of ads: those that bring buyers and those that bring people who simply fill in forms.

Two creatives from the same report. In one, 85 of 94 leads qualified, at $2.20 per qualified lead. In the other, 2 of 24 did, at $71.40. The gap is 32-fold. In Ads Manager both are just “a lead”.

Product screen · capip.uz

Another pair has almost the same cost per lead: $2.79 and $2.97. From the first creative none of 14 leads qualified; from the second, 18 of 24 did. The manager who got the first creative’s leads says “they are all junk” — and from where they sit, that is true.

What is a qualified lead, and who decides?

Sales proposes the definition, because sales talks to the lead. Marketing accepts it, because it will now be judged on that number. A good definition is:

• A fact from the conversation, not a judgement. “Seemed interested” is a judgement. For a learning centre a fact could be “learned the price and booked a trial lesson”.
• One specific stage. The CRM has a “qualified lead” stage; every working stage after it counts as qualified too.
• A separate stage and a reason for junk. “No answer”, “wrong number”, “not a fit”. Without a reason nobody learns what was wrong with the 134 junk leads.
• A stage leads reach fast. In days, not months — otherwise the weekly table stays empty.
• Unchanged mid-month. If the definition moves, weeks cannot be compared.

How do you end the marketing vs sales argument over lead quality?

With three things, in this order: one definition, one table, one signal.

1. One definition. A “qualified lead” is one CRM stage that both sides accept.
2. One table. Once a week the media buyer, the head of sales and the owner read the same table, creative by creative.
3. One signal. The same stage goes to Meta: QualifiedLead when a lead qualifies, Purchase on a sale.

What should the weekly table show?

One row per creative: spend, leads, qualified leads, qualified %, cost per qualified lead, junk leads and sales. By hand that is two exports, from the CRM and from Ads Manager, merged every week. The CAPI Platform report keeps them in one table, and the weekly report arrives in a Telegram group on the day and hour you choose, so both teams read the same numbers.

Product screen · capip.uz

The funnel holds two percentages, each a separate question. At the driving school 39% of leads qualified, and 11% of the qualified leads became sales. The first is about the ad, the form and the first call; the second, about the sales team alone. The question is no longer “who is to blame” but “which number do we fix”.

What changes when the same stage is sent to Meta as a signal?

Meta is a party to the argument too: it sees the same number marketing does, a submitted form. Until somebody tells it about qualified leads, it keeps looking for people who fill in forms, and the sales team’s complaint returns next week.

The Conversions API carries the definition to Meta: when a lead moves to the “qualified” stage in the CRM, a QualifiedLead event goes out; on a sale, Purchase. In CAPI Platform each stage’s meaning is set once on the Funnel page; the event then goes out as soon as the stage changes in Bitrix24, amoCRM or capiCRM. Phones and e-mails go only as SHA-256 hashes; names are never sent.

Meta reports that lead-form campaigns with the CRM connected through the Conversions API and optimised for the number of qualified leads saw a 19% lower cost per quality lead on average (a budget-controlled A/B test, 567 advertisers, 13–27 January 2025). That is Meta’s test — not a CAPI Platform result and not a promise.

What should you do in the first week?

1. 1

   Write the definition in one sentence

   The head of sales, the media buyer and the owner, one short meeting. The outcome: one sentence, “a qualified lead is…”, and the CRM stage that matches it. Do not leave until all three agree.

2. 2

   Tidy up three stages in the CRM

   Qualified lead, sale and junk lead — with a reason. In Bitrix24 and amoCRM use the stages you already have. With no CRM, capiCRM comes with “Good lead” and “Junk lead” stages ready.

3. 3

   Agree how stages are kept

   Stages are set on the day of the conversation. Write down how many calls a lead gets before it is closed as junk. Without this rule nobody trusts the table.

4. 4

   Read the table together at the end of the week

   One screen, three people, creative by creative. You discuss a row, not an opinion.

5. 5

   Take one decision from each side

   Marketing pauses the creative that brings no qualified leads. Sales fixes the one spot the table pointed at, such as the time to first call. Next week’s table shows the result. Do not judge a new creative by its first week’s sales: its leads are still on the way.

6. 6

   Connect the signal to Meta

   Once the definition works and both sides trust it, switch on the QualifiedLead and Purchase signals. That is day two of a CAPI Platform set-up: stages are tied to signals together with the client.