Your managing partner asks what “cost per case” means. Your intake manager thinks attribution is an IT problem. Your marketing director is using terms the rest of the leadership team has never heard. This is what happens when a firm starts measuring marketing seriously for the first time — and it slows down every conversation.
This glossary defines the key terms used in revenue intelligence for PI firms, with PI-specific context for each. Use it as a practical reference when onboarding a new team member, prepping for a budget review, or aligning leadership on what the numbers actually mean.
Terms are grouped by functional area, not alphabetically — so related concepts appear together and build on each other.
Lead and Volume Metrics
Lead
A prospective client contact that reached the firm through a marketing channel or vendor and has been entered into the intake process. Not all contacts become leads — a lead has been captured and assigned for follow-up. Lead count is the most basic volume metric.
Lead Source
The vendor, channel, or origin point that generated a specific lead. Common PI lead sources include television advertising, pay-per-lead vendors, organic search, referrals, billboards, and radio. Accurate lead source attribution — tagging each lead to its origin — is the prerequisite for any meaningful vendor performance analysis.
Lead Volume
The total number of leads received from a source or across all sources in a given period. Lead volume is baseline context — useful for calculating conversion rates, but not a performance indicator on its own. A vendor sending high volume at poor conversion quality is not a good vendor. Never optimize for volume alone.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Total spend from a source divided by total leads from that source. CPL is widely tracked but fundamentally incomplete for PI vendor evaluation. It measures input cost, not output quality. Two vendors at identical CPL can have dramatically different cost per case if their conversion rates differ — which they almost always do.
Conversion and Intake Metrics
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Intake Conversion Rate
The percentage of leads from a source that become signed cases: signed cases divided by total leads. This is one of the most important metrics in PI marketing because it connects lead quantity to case quantity. Conversion rates vary widely — 5% to 25% across a typical PI vendor portfolio is common. A vendor with a high CPL and strong conversion can easily produce cheaper cases than a cheaper vendor with poor conversion.
Cost Per Case (CPC) / Cost Per Signed Case
Total marketing spend divided by signed cases from a given source — or equivalently, cost per lead divided by conversion rate. Cost per case is the primary performance metric in revenue intelligence for PI firms. It measures outcome (a signed case) rather than input (a lead). Knowing your cost per case by vendor is the foundation of every informed budget decision.
Rejection Rate
The percentage of leads that complete intake but are declined — not signed as cases. Rejection happens when the firm determines a case doesn't meet its criteria: insufficient liability, wrong case type, jurisdiction issues, or statute of limitations concerns. A high rejection rate drives up effective cost per case even when CPL looks competitive on paper.
Rejection Reason
The specific reason a lead was declined at intake. Tracking rejection reasons by source turns a volume metric into a diagnostic tool. Leads rejecting due to liability issues? That's a targeting conversation with the vendor. Rejecting due to geography? That's a coverage issue. Aggregated by source, rejection reasons make vendor feedback specific and defensible.
Withdrawal Rate
The percentage of signed cases where clients later withdraw from representation. Withdrawal is distinct from rejection — it happens after signing, not during intake. High withdrawal rates from a specific source often indicate a quality problem intake evaluation missed: client expectations that weren't properly set during the sales process. It's a signal that frequently gets ignored because it surfaces weeks or months after signing.
Time-to-Sign
The elapsed time between a lead's first contact and execution of the fee agreement. Time-to-sign varies by source and indicates lead quality and intent — leads who have already been researching their situation sign faster. High time-to-sign can signal either an intake process bottleneck or a lead quality issue, depending on which source is driving it.
Case Quality Metrics
Case Severity
A categorical or indexed assessment of how serious a case is — based on injury severity, liability clarity, and expected settlement value range. Case severity reveals whether a vendor's leads are producing the cases the firm actually wants. A vendor delivering high volume at low severity may look efficient on cost per case but generate poor ROI on attorney time. Severity grading typically spans from minor soft-tissue cases to catastrophic injury or wrongful death.
Case Severity Index
An aggregate severity mix score for cases signed from a specific source. A high index means predominantly serious cases; a low index means mostly minor ones. Comparing severity index across vendors lets marketing teams evaluate not just how many cases a vendor produces, but what kind — which matters most for firms whose revenue targets depend on case value, not just case count.
Average Settlement Value
The average dollar value of settlements for cases from a specific source. This is a Level 4 metric — it requires connected data across the full case lifecycle and enough settled cases per source to be statistically meaningful. When available, it's the most complete quality indicator for any lead source. A source with high cost per case but high average settlement value can easily outperform a cheaper source with lower-value cases.
Case Acquisition ROI
The return on marketing investment calculated at the case level: revenue generated by a signed case divided by the marketing cost that produced it. True case acquisition ROI requires settlement data connected back to original marketing spend — only possible with full lifecycle attribution. It's the most complete measure of marketing effectiveness available to a PI firm, but it requires significant historical data to calculate reliably.
Budget and Spend Metrics
Marketing Attribution
The process of connecting a marketing spend to a specific outcome — a lead, a signed case, or a settled case. Attribution is the core technical problem in PI marketing analytics. The challenge: maintaining the attribution thread across spend → lead → intake → signing → settlement, a lifecycle that can span 6 to 18+ months. Without consistent attribution, cost per case and ROI calculations become unreliable guesswork.
Spend Pacing
How quickly a firm is spending against its marketing budget compared to the expected rate. Spend pacing is monitored in real time to catch overruns and underruns before they compound. Underpacing signals vendor volume problems. Overpacing signals a budget control issue or an unexpected surge in lead delivery.
Portfolio Cost Per Case
Total marketing spend divided by total signed cases across all active sources. This blended metric is what firm leadership cares most about — it reflects the overall efficiency of the marketing operation. Improving portfolio cost per case by shifting budget toward better-performing vendors is the primary goal of vendor portfolio optimization.
Budget Variance
The gap between planned marketing spend and actual spend in a given period. Tracking variance by vendor and portfolio-wide surfaces discrepancies early — whether a vendor is delivering more or fewer leads than their budget implied, or whether total spend is running above or below plan.
Performance Monitoring Metrics
Leading Indicator
A metric that predicts future performance before it appears in the data. In PI marketing, leading indicators include inquiry-to-contact rate (are intake staff reaching leads before they go cold?), early conversion signals (how fast are leads moving through early intake stages?), and vendor volume trends (is a vendor's flow accelerating or decelerating?). Leading indicators are the foundation of Level 4 revenue intelligence — they let you act before problems appear in lagging metrics.
Lagging Indicator
A metric that confirms what has already happened — cost per case, conversion rate, rejection rate for the month just closed. Accurate, but backward-looking. Most PI firms track only lagging indicators because they're easier to measure. The problem: by the time a lagging indicator signals trouble, the problem has often been running for weeks or months.
Performance Trend
The directional change in a metric over a defined period — improving, stable, or declining. Trend analysis is more useful than point-in-time snapshots for vendor evaluation. A vendor whose cost per case is currently acceptable but has risen for three consecutive months is a different risk than a vendor with stable performance. Trend analysis needs at least two to three periods of comparable data to be meaningful.
Deviation Alert
A notification triggered when a monitored metric moves materially outside its expected range. Deviation alerts are what turn Level 3 data infrastructure into proactive management. Instead of waiting for the monthly review to surface a vendor problem, an alert fires when the signal first appears — giving the marketing team days rather than weeks to respond. A 5% one-day dip is noise. A 20% seven-day trend is signal.
Level 1
Reactive
No connected data
Level 2
Monitored
Structured but manual
Level 3
Connected
Automated, real-time
Level 4
Predictive
Forward-looking decisions
Revenue and Financial Terms
Settlement Revenue
The total dollar value of cases that have reached final settlement, from which the firm earns its contingency fee. Settlement revenue is the ultimate outcome measure for PI marketing — but the PI payment delay (6 to 18 months) makes it nearly impossible to connect to marketing activities using standard analytics tools.
PI Payment Delay
The structural lag between when marketing spend occurs and when revenue from the resulting cases arrives. A marketing dollar spent today produces a lead, which may become a signed case next month, which settles 12 to 18 months later. This delay is the primary reason standard attribution tools fail for PI firms — and why revenue intelligence requires a data model built specifically for the PI lifecycle.
Revenue Intelligence
The practice of connecting marketing spend, lead acquisition, intake operations, case signing, and settlement revenue in a single system — so every marketing dollar can be traced to every signed case to every settlement received. Revenue Intelligence is not a dashboard or a report. It's the connective infrastructure between marketing, intake, and finance that makes continuous optimization possible.
Operational Terms
Vendor Portfolio
The full set of active marketing vendors a firm is running at any given time. Managing the portfolio — deciding which vendors to invest in, which to reduce, which to exit, and which to test — is one of the primary ongoing responsibilities of a PI marketing director. Revenue Intelligence provides the data foundation that makes those decisions defensible.
Vendor Grading
The practice of evaluating each vendor's performance against defined criteria on a regular cadence and assigning a performance tier or score. Vendor grades typically incorporate cost per case, conversion rate, case quality, volume reliability, and trend direction. Grading replaces subjective impressions with quantified, comparable evaluations — which makes vendor conversations significantly easier.
Source Concentration Risk
The risk that too large a share of case volume depends on a single vendor or a small number of vendors. If one vendor produces 40% of signed cases and their volume drops, the firm's case flow takes a serious hit. Managing source concentration means deliberately diversifying the portfolio so no single source creates unacceptable dependence.
Revenue Intelligence Maturity Model
A four-level framework describing the progression from reactive marketing management to fully predictive revenue operations:
- Level 1 (Reactive)— No connected data. Decisions based on vendor reports and gut feel.
- Level 2 (Monitored)— Structured tracking, but assembled manually in spreadsheets.
- Level 3 (Connected)— Automated data connections with real-time visibility.
- Level 4 (Predictive)— Historical patterns inform forward-looking decisions.
Most PI firms operate at Level 1 or Level 2. Level 3 is the practical target for any firm running $100K+ per month across multiple vendors.
Related guide: See our complete guide to revenue intelligence for PI firms — the four layers, the maturity model, and what RI replaces in your current stack.