Spend by channel
What you put into Google Ads, Meta, and referral outreach over the period.
Total marketing budget, split by source
Lead sources · Cost per client, by channel
ABA practice marketing, measured in clients.
Most marketing reports stop at clicks and leads. StreamABA follows every inquiry through intake to a started client, so you know what each new client cost from Google Ads, Meta, and referrals.
The gap
Cost per lead tells you half the story.
Google Ads and Meta report clicks, impressions, and form fills. They can't see whether that family finished intake, had insurance verified, or started services. Without that, the channel with the cheapest leads looks like the winner, even when it brings in the fewest clients.
What ad platforms report
- Clicks and impressions
- Form fills and calls
- Cost per lead
What your practice needs
- Cost per new client
- Lead → client conversion
- Days from inquiry to client
- Revenue against spend
How it works
Every lead keeps its source, all the way to client.
Lead tracking for ABA practices works because intake and conversion already live in StreamABA. Nothing to reconcile in a spreadsheet at month end.
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Step 1 · Day 0
Inquiry arrives
The lead lands in your pipeline with its channel attached: UTM tags, Google or Meta click ID, landing page, or a referral source.
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Step 2 · Day 6
Intake signed
The family completes the online packet and insurance is verified. The source carries forward.
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Step 3 · Day 19
Converted to client
One action creates the client record, and the started client counts toward that channel.
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Step 4 · Any day
Reported by channel
Spend, leads, intakes, started clients, and days to client roll up by source and campaign, for any date range.
ABA marketing metrics
Six numbers every ABA practice owner should know.
StreamABA reports each one by channel and campaign, for any date range.
Cost per lead
What each inquiry cost. Useful, but it says nothing about who became a client.
Spend ÷ leads
Lead → client conversion
The share of inquiries that became clients. This is where channels separate fastest.
Started clients ÷ leads
Cost per new client
What one new client actually cost from that channel. The number to set budget by.
Spend ÷ started clients
Days to client
How long families wait between first contact and starting as a client, by channel.
Median of client start − inquiry date
Revenue against spend
Billed revenue from the clients a channel brought in, against what you spent on it.
Billed revenue ÷ spend
By channel
See which channel actually fills your caseload.
Google Ads for ABA therapy, Facebook and Instagram ads, and referrals each behave differently. Here's one example practice over 90 days.
Google Ads
High-intent searches like “ABA therapy near me.” Leads cost more, but more of them convert.
Cost per lead$74
Cost per new client$689
Conv. 10.7%
To client 34 d
Return 12.2×
Meta (Facebook & Instagram)
Broad reach and cheap leads. Check conversion before scaling spend.
Cost per lead$23
Cost per new client$1,200
Conv. 1.9%
To client 47 d
Return 7.0×
Referrals
Pediatricians, schools, and families. Often the lowest cost per client, and the fastest to start.
Cost per lead$29
Cost per new client$82
Conv. 35.5%
To client 22 d
Return 102.7×
Illustrative data from one example practice, last 90 days.
Worked example
How to calculate cost per new client.
The math is simple. The hard part is knowing which clients came from which channel. That's the part StreamABA does for you.
- 1Pick a period and a channel, such as Google Ads for the last 90 days.
- 2Total what you spent on that channel in that period.
- 3Count the leads from that channel that became clients.
- 4Divide spend by new clients. Compare across channels.
Google Ads · last 90 days
Spend
$18,600
New clients
27
Cost per new client
$689
Compare: Meta came to $1,200 per client from cheaper leads. Referrals came to $82.
Questions
ABA marketing questions, answered.
ABA practice marketing is how an Applied Behavior Analysis provider reaches families looking for therapy: paid search like Google Ads, social ads on Facebook and Instagram, and referrals from pediatricians, schools, and other families. The goal is new clients who start services, not just inquiries.
It depends on your market, payer mix, and how long clients stay in services. The useful comparison is between your own channels: if one channel brings clients in at half the cost of another, that is where the next dollar should go.
Divide what you spent on a channel by the number of new clients that channel produced over the same period. For example, $18,600 in Google Ads spend that produced 27 new clients is $689 per new client.
Yes. StreamABA reports each channel on its own, including Google Ads, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and referrals, with spend, leads, conversion rate, cost per client, and days to client for each.
The source is recorded when the lead enters StreamABA, including UTM tags, Google and Meta click IDs, the landing page, and the referrer on hosted-form and capture-API leads. It stays with the family's record through intake and conversion.
No. Lead source reports show channel totals, not client names or clinical details.
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