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Deal cost tracking in CRM: the real profit and ROI of your ads

A “Costs” field in the card: materials, site visits and labor per deal are subtracted from revenue, and analytics shows net profit and ROI.

Updated Nov 12 8 min read 0 views

In short

Deal cost tracking in CRM is recording what you spend on a specific client apart from advertising: materials, labor, site visits, gifts. Add a “Costs” type field to the card (“Leads” → “Set Client card”) and enter amounts in leads and deals. “Website analytics” adds them up in the “Lead/deal costs” column and subtracts them from revenue in “Profit”, “ROI” and “LTV”.

Without deal cost tracking in CRM, advertising looks more profitable than it really is. An apartment renovation studio charges $9,000 per project, the ads cost $300, and the report shows a huge return. But of that $9,000, $3,000 went on materials and $6,000 on the crew. A channel that “pays off 30 times over” barely breaks even, and the budget keeps growing.

Deal cost is what you spend on a specific client apart from advertising: materials, labor, delivery, a trip to a meeting, a presentation or a gift for a major client. In your account, you track it with a “Costs” type field in the lead or deal card. “Website analytics” adds these amounts up in the “Lead/deal costs” column and subtracts them from revenue. Then “Profit”, “ROI” and “LTV” show net money, not turnover.

The “Costs” field and analytics are included in the “CRM + Telephony + Automation” plan and higher, at no extra cost. No Excel spreadsheets or manual reconciliation with accounting: the expense is entered by the manager who handles the client.

Watch the video of just over a minute, and below you'll find the step-by-step setup.

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Why businesses need it

Renovation, construction, window installation. Materials and crew wages make up most of the price. Without them, channel ROI is inflated several times over; with them, you can see which channel actually brings profit.
B2B and large sales. Money is spent on a client before they pay: a brief, a trip to a meeting, samples. Lead costs show what winning a major client costs in full.
Online store and delivery. Purchasing and delivery for each order turn revenue into margin. You can see which ads bring buyers of expensive but low-margin products.
Business owner. “Profit” and “LTV” by source answer the key question: how much money every dollar of advertising really brings in.

Client case

A turnkey apartment renovation studio. Before: analytics calculated ROI from revenue, and the source with expensive projects looked the most profitable. What we did: added the “Materials costs” and “Crew wages” fields to the deal card and “Measurement costs” to the lead card. Result: within a quarter, it became clear that expensive projects from this source brought less profit than small renovations from search. The budget was reallocated, and net profit from the same ads grew by about 18%.

How deal costs get into analytics

One or more “Costs” type fields are added to the card.
The manager enters an amount in the lead or deal card, or right in a cell of the CRM table.
“Website analytics” adds up all these lead and deal fields of a row in the “Lead/deal costs” column.
“Profit” is revenue minus “Ad costs” minus “Lead/deal costs”. “ROI” is profit divided by ad costs × 100%. “LTV” is profit per paying customer.

You can have as many “Costs” fields as you like: materials, labor, delivery, site visits. The report uses their total.

How to add a “Costs” field to the card

1
Open the builder
The “Leads” → “Set Client card” menu.
2
Add a field
In “Blocks”, click “Costs”. The new field appears at the top of the “Card fields” list.
3
Give the field a clear name
For example, “Materials costs” or “Measurement visit”. Then the manager immediately knows what to enter.
4
Choose where to show it
Click ⚙: “In the lead card”, “In the deal card” and at which “Funnel stages”. Costs before payment are handy to keep in the lead, and materials and labor in the deal.
5
Save
Click “Save” on the bar at the bottom.

Field types and settings are covered in detail in the article custom fields in CRM.

How to add a deal cost field to the lead card

How to enter deal expenses

In the card. The “Costs” field shows the hint “Enter costs”. Type the amount as a number, for example 125.
In the CRM table. Show the field as a column and edit the amount right in the cell. Handy when invoices for materials arrive in a batch and need to be split across several deals.
Totals. The totals row below the table sums the field across all leads in the current filter. This shows spending, for example, for a month or for one assigned manager.

Tip

Agree on when the manager enters costs — for example, at the “Payment” stage or when closing the deal. Make the field required at that stage in the field settings, and the deal can't be closed without expenses.

Where to see net profit from your ads

Open “Website analytics” and click the “Table columns” icon.
Tick “Lead/deal costs”, “Profit”, “ROI” and “LTV” and click “Save”.
Choose a period in “Filters” and expand “Ad sources” down to campaigns.
Sort by “Profit”: the channels that bring net money end up on top.

Hover over a column header to see its formula. How to read the other metrics is covered in the article marketing ROI tracking.

Important

Don't enter ad spend in the “Costs” field. It's counted separately — from Yandex Direct or from the campaign's “Cost per visit” — otherwise advertising is subtracted twice. How to set it is covered in the articles Yandex Direct CRM integration and UTM builder.

Which expenses count as deal costs

Materials, components and goods purchased.
Work of contractors: crew, technician, installer, courier.
Delivery and trips: measurement, meeting, demonstration.
Deal preparation: brief, mockup, samples, a gift for the client.

Don't spread fixed costs, such as office rent and managers' salaries, across deals: the report shows the profit of ad channels, not of the whole business.

The “Costs” field is also used by “AI conversion analysis”: when setting up the conversion, tick it in “Lead costs”, and the voice bot's cost per goal is calculated together with the price of the database or the lead. More in the article AI voice bot ROI.

Frequently asked questions

How do I calculate net profit from ads in a CRM?

Add “Costs” fields to the card and enter the expenses for each deal in them. “Website analytics” subtracts both advertising and these costs from revenue: the “Profit” column shows net money for every source, campaign and keyword.

Why is the “Lead/deal costs” column empty?

The card has no “Costs” type fields, or nothing was entered in them for the selected period. Check the “Set Client card” builder and one or two deals from that period.

What's the difference between “Lead/deal costs” and “Ad costs”?

“Ad costs” are what you spend on ads: from Yandex Direct or by “Cost per visit”. “Lead/deal costs” are everything you spend on a client apart from advertising, taken from the “Costs” fields in the cards.

Can I create several cost fields?

Yes, you can have as many “Costs” type fields as you like, in the lead and in the deal. The report uses their total.

Why is ROI negative even though there is revenue?

It means revenue doesn't cover advertising and deal costs combined. Check whether ad spend was also entered in the “Costs” field: then it's subtracted twice.

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