Where these figures come from
Three series, which do not overlap and which I do not mix:
| Series | What it is | Size |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-2025 | Ads run by the Rafa team from 5 June 2023 to 20 November 2025, on Facebook and Instagram, to a landing page. Leads counted by Meta. | 26 ads, €25,791, 4.6 million views, 1,448 leads |
| 2026, landing pages | Clients' Meta ads, taken from my database on 9 November 2026. Applications received, recorded at Rafa. | 17 ads, €5,048, 952K views, 512 applications |
| 2026, Facebook form | Three ads to the form built into Facebook. | 3 ads, €103.06 |
Selection rule for the second series: ads on Facebook and Instagram, application via the landing page, delivered for 13 days or more, with no simultaneous delivery on LinkedIn. Demo accounts, beta accounts and internal tests are excluded. More recent ads (six days of delivery) are not in the calculation: their figures are still moving.
Clients are named when they have allowed me to do so: Servagroupe, Édifice Industrie, Angers Loire Métropole, Burger King Épernay. The others are described without a name.
The three ways to count an application
| Who counts | Why it differs | |
|---|---|---|
| Application received | Rafa | The form is submitted and recorded with me |
| Conversion | Meta | The page's tracker only sees visitors who have allowed it: 378 conversions for 512 applications received across my 17 2026 ads |
| Promising application | Rafa | Score of 70 or more, scoring scale specific to each client: not comparable from one client to another |
The result: the same set of 2026 ads gives €9.86 per application received and €13.36 per Meta conversion. My history from 2023 to 2025 counts Meta leads: €17.81 per lead. These three numbers do not contradict each other. They count three different things.
The 2026 funnel, with €100 of ad spend
| Step | For €100 | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Views (impressions) | about 18,861 | €5.30 per 1,000 views |
| Clicks, all clicks | about 344 | €0.29 per click |
| Applications received | about 10.1 | 2.9% of clicks |
| Cost of an application | €9.86 | €100 ÷ 10.1, calculated exactly without rounding |
“All clicks”: a click on the link, but also on the image, on “see more” or on the profile. Facebook counts them together on my 2026 ads; I cannot yet isolate link clicks.
The 2023 to 2025 funnel, with 1,000 views
Here, the definitions are different: link clicks, visits counted by the tracker, leads counted by Meta.
| Step | For 1,000 views | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Views | 1,000 | €5.63 per 1,000 views |
| Link clicks | about 8 | 0.8% (one person in 125) |
| Page visits | about 5.6 | 70% of link clicks |
| Leads | about 0.31 | 5.6% of visitors |
| Cost of a lead | €17.81 | €5.63 ÷ 0.31, calculated exactly without rounding |
Both funnels can be checked by multiplying. They do not overlap: one counts applications received and all clicks, the other Meta leads and link clicks.
My landing page ads in 2026
| Ad | Days | Spend | Applications | Cost per application |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abattoir technician, paid training (Servagroupe) | 49 | €889.52 | 90 | €9.88 |
| Electromechanical technician, Angers (Angers Loire Métropole) | 21 | €296.24 | 47 | €6.30 |
| Manufacturing and maintenance technician, Baud (Édifice Industrie) | 47 | €458.06 | 60 | €7.63 |
| Site manager, Nantes (Édifice Industrie) | 47 | €465.40 | 42 | €11.08 |
| Industrial SME, one ad (client not named) | 32 | €314.33 | 10 | €31.43 |
| National network of car service centres, 12 ads launched on 23 October (client not named) | 13 to 18 | €2,624.64 | 263 | €9.98 (from €5.91 to €44.18 depending on the ad) |
| Total, 17 ads | €5,048.19 | 512 | €9.86 |
Half of my ads fall between €7.73 and €15.43; the median is €9.88; 12 ads out of 17 fall between €6 and €12. The most expensive are also those that receive the fewest applications: at 3 applications, a single extra candidate cuts the cost of €44.18 by a quarter.
The network currently has 308 applications for €3,530.24 of ad spend across its 32 ads, i.e. €11.46 each, including 20 ads that have been open for only six days. Only one application has been scored there, so I cannot say how many are “promising”.
Why the gap from one ad to the next
- The job and the labour pool. Same client, same period, two jobs: Édifice Industrie paid €7.63 and €11.08 per application.
- Volume. Ads with few applications have unstable prices.
- Budget per day. My 8 ads at under €10 a day cost €15.24 at the median, against €8.32 for my 9 ads at €10 or more. In 2023-2025, no visible effect (€16.12 versus €17.85). The two sets of figures disagree: I do not decide. I discuss it here.
- Shortage in the trade. In my history, a technician's application costs 1.55 times an operator's (€25.53 versus €16.42, across 13 ads): a clue, not a law.
The Facebook form: three ads
| Ad | Country | Days | Spend | Applications | Cost per application |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-round crew member, fast food, Épernay (Burger King) | France | 12 | €20.48 | 30 | €0.68 |
| Bike or scooter technician, Paris | France | 4 | €12.61 | 24 | €0.53 |
| Sushi chef, Berlin | Germany | 14 | €69.97 | 12 | €5.83 |
Three ads do not make an average. I give them one by one. The day-by-day details for Épernay are here.
LinkedIn and Facebook on the same office jobs
| Facebook and Instagram | ||
|---|---|---|
| Per 1,000 views | €23.48 | €7.68 |
| One click, all clicks | €1.70 | €0.27 |
| One counted conversion | €25.55 | €21.34 |
Two ads (an accounting assistant, a recruitment consultant), periods that do not fully overlap and conversions of a different nature: it is a starting comparison, not a ranking. I have no figures of this kind for TikTok, YouTube or Google.
What employers do with the applications
| Client | Received | Contacted, shortlisted or accepted |
|---|---|---|
| Servagroupe | 90 | 54 (60%) |
| Angers Loire Métropole | 47 | 17 (36%) |
| Édifice Industrie | 128 | 10 (8%) |
From 8% to 60%: above all, this tells you what each employer was looking for. “Accepted” does not mean “hired”.
A word from Jean
These are Jean's memories, not Rafa measurements: I draw no total from them. Everything else on this page comes from my database and my history.
What I do not know yet
- The number of hires. There is no “hired” status in my system.
- The share of visitors who apply in 2026. The tracker waits for cookie consent, not for the start of the form: the figure is not reliable.
- The link click-through rate in 2026. I only count all clicks.
- An average for the Facebook form. Only three ads.
- A cost per promising application. Scoring scales vary from one client to another.
- The cost on TikTok, YouTube and Google. I have no figures.
- Whether the budget changes the price. My two sets of figures disagree.
- What share of applications comes from the ad. For Angers, between €6.30 and €59.25 depending on the answer.
In short
- 2026, landing page: €9.86 per application received across 17 ads, from €5.91 to €44.18.
- 2026, Facebook form: from €0.53 to €5.83 across three ads.
- 2023-2025: €17.81 per lead counted by Meta across 26 ads. That is not the same thing as an application received.
- Every figure says what it counts and how many ads it rests on.
