Everything you've done to get a particular sale is part of your cost of acquiring or winning that customer. That includes all the money you've spent that didn't end up in a sale, too. That could include print and online advertising, Facebook posts, direct mail, customer appointments, creating and hosting your website, your 800 number, brochures, and freebies you give away at trade shows. The list could be long.Jeff Neal, project manager for commercial roofing contractor Capital Coating, says, "We can spend a lot of time trying to turn a prospect into a customer, many prospects will ask that we visit their commercial, industrial location, ask for a quote, and then never return our call. These site visits and estimates take a lot of time and energy, so when we figure our monthly sales, we also figure our cost per lead and close rate."To be sure his company is relying on accurate data, Capital Coating requires its sales team to enter daily reports on their prospecting, appointments, proposal values, and closed contract numbers "so that we can better understand how much time and money we're spending to acquire a new contract/customer," Neal says. All of that data is factored in as part of the cost of customer acquisition.To determine exactly how much your customer acquisition efforts are costing you, there is a simple formula you can use.