At the workshop, most of the questions came down to one thing: what does good look like? What's a good click-through rate? How many people should book? How many should show up? How many should be a good fit?
I want to set some reasonable expectations here. These are the typical numbers across our campaigns, from the ad to the client.
What's a Good Click-Through Rate?
Somewhere between 1.5% and 3%.
Over the years, our ads have gotten better, and that range has shifted. We started off with around 1.5% as acceptable. Nowadays it's about 3%.
How Much of the Ten-Minute Video Do People Watch?
About a third to half of it, on average.
People sometimes ask what the retention rate is on these videos. On average, people watch 35% to 50% of the video. The right people watch until the end. The wrong people skip out, and that's fine.
How Many Clicks Should Turn Into a Booked Appointment?
About 2% to 3% of the people who click the ad, sometimes up to 6%.
In other words, somewhere between 2% and 6% of the people who see the landing page will book. It's not 30%, because not everybody is qualified, not everybody is ready to book an appointment, and so on. More on why the booking comes after the video in why your ad can't ask for the booking.
What Should a Booked Appointment Cost?
Our average in 2026 so far is about $225 per booked appointment.
That's across the year. When we advertise nationwide, it's about $200 per appointment. Locally, it can be about $400. Local ads cost more, but you have a higher close rate. Nationwide ads cost less, but you have a lower close rate.
Some people think they're going to spend $20 and get a booked appointment with someone who has half a million dollars, or a million, or two million. Unlikely. If you're spending 20 bucks and expecting miracles, don't.
The same goes for the monthly budget. If you're spending $1,000, $2,000 or $3,000 a month on Facebook ads and selling to wealthy folks, it's probably going to be a waste of time and money. We recommend our clients spend a bare minimum of $5,000 a month on the ads themselves. $10,000 is a better starting point.
Some of our clients have started at $40,000 to $60,000 a month, because they had bigger teams. But if you can't spend at least $5,000 on the ads, don't. Do something else.
Notice that's a booked appointment, not a shown one. Show rates come later in the funnel.
Who Books the Appointments?
Your minimum is not your average. We find the average person who books has about three times the minimum.
If I have a $500,000 minimum in the ad, the average person who books an appointment is going to have about $1.5 million. If I have a $1 million minimum, the average is going to be about $2.5 million. So the minimum is roughly a third of the average.
And expect a few bad bookings. If 3%, 4% or 5% of your appointments are bots, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If 80% are bots, that's an issue.
If a client is getting attacked, we add a CAPTCHA to the booking step. Calendly and ScheduleOnce both let you turn one on if needed. In most cases, we don't get many bots nowadays.
How Far Out Should Appointments Be Booked?
Three to seven days out is the sweet spot.
This is a hot take. We've seen that same-day and two-day appointments have a lower show rate than the ones booked three to seven days out. At eight days or more, show rates decline again. Three to seven days is the sweet spot. I don't know why. That's just how we've seen it work.
What Show Rate Should You Expect?
About 50% to 65% of the people who book should show up.
We see about 50% to 65% of the people who book an appointment from a Facebook ad, after going through this process, actually show up. That leaves 35% to 50% who don't.
That's why the first call usually isn't with the advisor. We don't want to waste the advisor's time on the people who don't show up. And you can push the show rate up. Put your face in a video that teaches. Replace the default confirmation page with one that has a video from you. Send automated texts and emails 48 hours, 24 hours and one hour before the appointment. And if you have a real person who calls before the appointment, we've seen really high show rates.
How Many of the People Who Show Up Should Be a Real Fit?
About seven out of ten.
Our benchmark is that about seven out of ten people you meet should be a real fit. They want help, they have at least the minimum assets, and they're open to hiring an advisor. They go on to a discovery meeting, in person or on Zoom. In practice, of the people who show up to the intro call, we normally see 75% to 80% book a discovery meeting.
About 30% or less will have no intent. They'll be DIYers, or they'll be shopping around. Thirty percent is actually pretty high. We usually see about 20% to 25%. That's normal. You're running ads on Facebook. These are not referrals.
If fewer than seven out of ten are a fit, it's usually because you didn't use video, it wasn't you or your brand, there was nothing educational in it, your ad never said your minimum, or the ad set the wrong expectations. I go through each of those in six reasons your Meta ads didn't work.
What About Close Rate and Cost per Client?
If they show up in person, which most people do, expect a 35% or higher close rate.
The more experienced advisors have higher close rates. At one firm we work with, the advisors who appear in the ads close 50% to 60% of the in-person appointments we get for them. The firm averages about 35% across all its advisors.
People ask for our average cost per client. I don't have one, because it depends on the advisor. We control what we can control: the cost per booked appointment, people showing up, and the marketing campaigns that work for you. We can't control your close rate.
We've found that the bigger firms we work with have more successful campaigns with us, because they've already figured out a lot of the sales and business development process. Smaller firms have a lot to figure out that doesn't just have to do with marketing, and they have a higher cost per client.
How much is a client worth spending on? For a $1.5 million client at 1%, I'd spend up to about $40,000, all in. The math behind that number is in what a new client is actually worth and what you can spend to get one.
How Fast Do Results Show Up?
Very quickly: usually within a couple of days to a week of launching.
In most cases, it's a couple of days, up to a week, before we start getting appointments, depending on the budget. Sometimes less.
When a campaign's cost per booked appointment is too high compared with the others, we turn it off. How we set that limit is in how many ads to launch and when to turn them off.
