# Case Study: Beating Every Published Benchmark and Still Unable to Say It Made Money | Crank Source: https://wearecrank.com/case-studies/fintech-benchmark-vs-profit-2022 Cost per enquiry came in at half the sector benchmark, form completion nearly double — and the funnel stopped being filled in at the enquiry count, so profitability was never answerable. --- Financial Technology — 2022 Audit # Beating Every Published Benchmark and Still Unable to Say It Made Money Cost per enquiry came in at half the sector benchmark, form completion nearly double — and the funnel stopped being filled in at the enquiry count, so profitability was never answerable. Challenge Cost per enquiry came in at £46.88 against a published sector range of £80 to £100, with click-through and form completion both ahead of benchmark too — and it remained impossible to say whether the campaign was profitable, because the funnel stopped being filled in at the enquiry count. Approach Look past the benchmark comparison to what the account's own numbers showed once compared against each other: which adverts were actually cheap, where the budget was actually going, and who the audience actually still included. Outcome Seventy-one per cent of spend was going to two adverts costing over twice what the cheapest ones cost, and the target audience — after salespeople had already been excluded — still included marketing and research job functions who would never buy, quietly inflating volume and depressing quality. 01 ## Beating every benchmark and still unable to say if it worked The reporting funnel ran from enquiry through to qualified enquiry, demonstration, deal and pipeline value. Every field beyond the raw enquiry count was returned marked 'to be confirmed'. Sixty-four enquiries were produced; two demonstrations were known about; whether any became customers was never established. Without it, cost per enquiry is the only number available — and it is the one number that cannot tell you whether the campaign made money, however well it compares to a published benchmark. 02 ## The same budget, spent on the wrong adverts Seven adverts ran to the same audience over the same period. The best produced enquiries at £19.68; the worst at £122.61 — a six-fold difference larger than any targeting or bidding change would have delivered on its own. Two adverts took 71 per cent of spend at £43.99 and £54.32 per enquiry, while two others producing enquiries at £19.68 and £22.52 received 9 and 8 per cent of budget between them. The same total spend would have produced substantially more enquiries with no new money and no new creative. 03 ## An audience that still included people who would never buy Salespeople had already been excluded from the target audience, but marketing and research job functions remained — roles that download material and never purchase, inflating enquiry volume and depressing quality. The audience reached was 9,230 of 14,000 available, 66 per cent, with no extra cost involved in raising the proportion sales could actually use. ## What the benchmark comparison didn't show £46.88 vs £80-100 Cost per enquiry, achieved vs. sector benchmark £19.68 vs £122.61 Cost per enquiry, best vs. worst advert, same audience 71% Of budget spent on the two costliest adverts 1 of 5 Funnel stages with data filled in past the raw enquiry count Drawn from Crank's account audit conducted in 2022 for this financial technology business. Client not named. ## Want to know what this looks like in your own account? These findings came from asking straightforward questions before any budget moved. We're happy to do the same for yours. [ Talk to Wearecrank](https://wa.me/447457416922?text=Help%20my%20business)[Get in touch](/contact) [← Back to all case studies](/case-studies)