Paying for job ads without knowing if they pay off

The problem

In recruitment for client projects, the company pays for job ads. It did not know whether they were worth the money, especially when a role never turns into a deal. The budget was set on instinct.

What we did

A section of the operations dashboard links each paid ad to the applications that came in while it was being promoted. It counts unique people, how many were new to the database, how many were interviewed and what they brought in later on other roles. All of it split by technology group and seniority.

The rules for linking each application to an ad were agreed up front, so the numbers always read the same way.

The result

• Each ad shows the cost per new person in the database and the value those people brought in later, by type of role.

The company decides with numbers whether paid ads are worth it and where to adjust the budget.