Commercial contractors and property-services companies are ideal for outbound email: contracts are large, recurring and signed by a small number of identifiable people. But every channel has to prove its return. Here is how to measure it properly.
The five metrics
- ROAS (return on spend) = revenue attributed ÷ marketing spend.
- ROI = (revenue − spend) ÷ spend × 100%. Note: true profit ROI uses gross profit, not revenue.
- CAC (customer acquisition cost) = spend ÷ new customers won.
- Payback period = CAC ÷ monthly gross profit per customer.
- Pipeline = total value of open quotes generated by the channel.
A real example: EWLG Property Services
EWLG, a commercial snow-removal and landscaping company in Ontario, worked with us for two years. Total investment was US$73,000: US$25,000 for the database, US$24,000 for the email sending service and US$24,000 for campaign management. Over the same two years the program generated about US$1.3 million in revenue.
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| ROAS | 17.8× (US$1.3M ÷ US$73K) |
| Revenue ROI | ≈1,681% |
| Average monthly spend | ≈US$3,040 |
| Average monthly revenue | ≈US$54,200 |
Revenue ROI is not profit. If EWLG's gross margin were, for example, 30%, the US$1.3M would produce about US$390,000 in gross profit, still more than five times the spend. Read the full case study.
Building your own projection
- Contacts reached per quarter (e.g., 10,000).
- Positive reply rate (plan 0.5–1%; see our benchmarks).
- Reply-to-quote rate (often 30–50% for service businesses).
- Quote-to-close rate (your historical number).
- Average annual contract value.
Example: 10,000 contacts × 0.6% = 60 interested replies; 40% become quotes = 24; 25% close = 6 new contracts. At $20,000 a year each, that is $120,000 in annual revenue against a quarter of outbound spend.
Track it properly
Tag every outbound lead in your CRM with source and campaign, record quote values and close dates, and review CAC and payback every quarter. Without attribution, even a great channel looks like guesswork.
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