BST Servicegroep
All-round Engineer
Channels: Meta Ads (3 campaigns) + 2 funnels + AI sourcing
Candidates
61
Cost per lead
€ 45.30
CTR
3.49%
Three Meta campaigns ran against each other and fed two different application funnels, so we could see which combination converted best per audience. Alongside that, an AI sourcing sequence sent 100 connection requests, 62 follow-up messages and collected 22 replies. Together this produced 61 candidates, 37 of them through the funnels. At EUR 0.30 CPC and a 3.49% CTR, reach stayed affordable in a tight regional market.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Candidates | 61 |
| Applications | 37 |
| Cost per lead | € 45.30 |
| Cost per click | € 0.30 |
| CTR | 3.49% |
| Clicks | 5,949 |
| Impressions | 98,621 |
| Funnel visitors | 2,523 |
| Mobile traffic | 84.1% |
| Invitations | 100 |
| LinkedIn acceptance rate | 35% |
| Messages sent | 62 |
| Replies | 22 |
| Reply rate | 62.9% |
Against the market
| Metric | This case | Market benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | € 45.30outside the benchmark, favourable side | EUR 200 – EUR 400 |
| CTR | 3.49%outside the benchmark, favourable side | 0.9% – 1.6% |
| LinkedIn acceptance rate | 35%outside the benchmark, favourable side | 5% – 15% |
| Reply rate | 62.9%outside the benchmark, favourable side | 1% – 5% (benchmark 3.1%) |
Sources: Cost per lead for technical profiles, Netherlands 2025 (Intelligence Group / Werf&). Meta ads CTR benchmark (WordStream). Acceptance rate on cold LinkedIn connection requests. Cold email reply rate: 1% – 5%, email benchmark 3.1% (Cleanlist 2026); LinkedIn connection reply 3.0% (Expandi).
Potential ROI
The full potential of the pipeline first, then your own conversion applied to it.
Potential value of the pipeline
€ 1,830,000
If every candidate were placed — 61 qualified applications in this case × € 30,000
- Expected value at your rate
- € 183,000
- Estimated placements
- 6.1
- Estimated pipeline value
- € 183,000
Assumptions
- Qualified applications in this case: 61
- Your placement rate: 10%
- Secondment (detachering) — gross margin per professional per year: € 30,000 (€ 30,000 × 1 year)
- This case ran without ad spend, so we only show the estimated pipeline value.
Source: A seconded professional costs a client EUR 81.02 per hour on average (VvDN MarktMonitor Q2 2026). The secondment agency's margin commonly runs at 20-30% of that rate, or EUR 16 to EUR 24 per hour. At roughly 1,700 billable hours per year that is EUR 27,000 to EUR 41,000 gross margin per year, per professional. Secondment assignments often run longer than a year.
This is a model, not a realised result. Adjust the assumptions to your own margins and placement rate.
Want to know what this means for your agency?
Book a free strategy call and we will walk through the numbers together.
