Article
With inquiries from ads, the first hour decides
A Harvard analysis of 1.25 million inquiries shows how quickly prospects go cold. I show how long companies in Germany take to reply and how a simple process makes sure no paid inquiry slips through the cracks.
If you run ads, you usually look at two numbers: the cost per click and the cost per inquiry. Both matter. What happens next isn’t shown in any ad account: how fast someone replies to the inquiry. Yet that’s often exactly what decides whether a paid inquiry turns into a conversation.
An inquiry loses value within the first hour
The best-known study on this appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 2011. The researchers analyzed 1.25 million inquiries at 42 US companies. Those who made contact within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to have a real conversation with the decision maker as those who tried an hour later. Compared with an attempt after 24 hours or more, they were more than 60 times as likely.
Two things belong to an honest reading. The data comes from the US and dates from 2011. And what was measured was whether a qualified conversation happened, not whether a sale was made in the end. Still, the direction is clear: someone who sends an inquiry has time and interest at that moment. Neither lasts long.
Many companies reply too late, some never
For the same article, the researchers sent test inquiries to 2,241 US companies. Only 37 % replied within an hour, 16 % within a day, 24 % took longer. And 23 % never replied. Those that replied within 30 days took 42 hours on average.
In Germany, things don’t look fundamentally better. In 2026, the home services platform Aroundhome sent 100 inquiries each to five trades in Germany’s ten largest cities. Window fitters answered 76 % of them, heating, solar and drywall businesses just over half, roofers only 37 %. Full order books explain part of that. But for any business looking for new customers, an unanswered inquiry is wasted ad budget.
A mystery-shopping test of six large stairlift providers by the German Institute for Service Quality in 2025 paints a similar picture: almost every second email inquiry went unanswered.
Inquiries via social media wait the longest
A study from German car retail is particularly revealing. For the 2025 sales study by TARGOBANK and AUTOHAUS, 300 people working in car sales were asked how fast they respond to inquiries. Walk-in customers get an answer after 0.8 hours on average, phone calls after 1.1 hours. Inquiries through the dealer’s own website wait 4.4 hours, those via social media as long as 5.9 hours.
The counterpart comes from a survey by DEKRA and Ipsos from the same year: 37 % of people buying a used car expect an answer within two hours. So the very channel where ads run is the slowest. The respondents know this themselves, by the way: in the study, response times are the challenge they name most often when handling inquiries (33 %).
What needs to happen in the first 60 minutes
Replying fast isn’t a matter of diligence, it’s a matter of process. If an inquiry first has to be found in an inbox, retyped and forwarded, the first hour is gone on organizing alone. These five building blocks make sure that doesn’t happen.
1. All inquiries land in one place
Whether it’s a lead form on Facebook and Instagram, the contact form on your website or an email: every inquiry belongs in a CRM, immediately and automatically, with name, request, source and time. Meta itself recommends sending leads straight to a CRM and running ads during business hours so you can follow up quickly.
2. A notification on your phone
Someone has to see a new inquiry, even when nobody is at their desk. A push notification or a short email with all the details is enough.
3. A clear owner
“Is anyone already on it?” is the sentence that leaves inquiries lying around. Every inquiry needs one responsible person and a visible status.
4. A reply that’s ready to go
The first reply doesn’t have to be the quote. A short, personal message with a thank-you, the next step and a suggested appointment can be prepared in advance and adjusted in two minutes. You’ll reach many people fastest on WhatsApp, provided they’ve agreed to it: according to the ARD/ZDF online study, around 68 % of people in Germany aged 14 and over were already using WhatsApp daily in 2022.
5. Follow-ups by plan
You won’t reach every inquiry on the first try. Decide when a second and third attempt follow, and have a reminder for them. Without a plan, an inquiry is forgotten after two days.
Three numbers to measure your process
Whether the process works isn’t a gut feeling. Three simple numbers tell you:
- Time to first reply. Ideally as a median, the middle value. Otherwise a single forgotten weekend skews the average.
- Share of replies within one hour. It shows how many inquiries are still warm when you get in touch.
- Share without any reply. It should be zero. You paid for every inquiry in that bucket.
A CRM shows you all three at a glance if every inquiry is recorded with its time, status and owner. Without that data, response time remains a guess.
What this looks like in practice
For Timeless Motors, a car repair and paint shop in Wiesloch, I built exactly this kind of process. Meta ads for underbody protection, motorcycles and US cars bring in the inquiries. Each one lands automatically in its own CRM, with a status, an owner and an overview of what every ad costs per inquiry.
From July to September 2026, an inquiry cost 12.77 € on average instead of 31.24 € before, 59 % less, and 102 inquiries came in per month instead of 38. By October 2026, that added up to 923 inquiries in the CRM. To be honest, several levers work together here: new ads, a new website and the process behind them. How much of it comes down to response time can’t be separated out. What’s certain: every one of these inquiries has a status and an owner.
What this means for you
Before you put more money into ads, look at what happens to the inquiries you already get. How long does the first reply take on average? How many never get one? If you can’t say right away, that’s where your cheapest lever is.
I build both for my clients: Meta ads that bring in inquiries and a CRM with WhatsApp in which every inquiry has a status and an owner. If you want to know what that could look like for you, get in touch.
Sources
- Oldroyd, J. B., McElheran, K. & Elkington, D. (2011): The Short Life of Online Sales Leads. Harvard Business Review, March 2011. hbr.org
- TARGOBANK & AUTOHAUS (2025): Verkaufsstudie 2025 (sales study, in German). Data collection: puls Marktforschung, 300 respondents. targobank.de
- DEKRA & Ipsos (2025): Gebrauchtwagen in Deutschland 2025 (used cars in Germany), fact sheet on digital expectations (in German). dekra.de
- Aroundhome (2026): Großer Handwerker-Check (contractor test, in German). aroundhome.de
- Meta Business Help Center: Best practices for responding to leads from your instant form lead ads. facebook.com/business
- Deutsches Institut für Service-Qualität (2025): Servicestudie Treppenliftanbieter 2025 (service study on stairlift providers), press release of 17 October 2025 (in German). disq.de
- Koch, W. (2022): Reichweiten von Social-Media-Plattformen und Messengern. Results of the ARD/ZDF online study 2022. Media Perspektiven 10/2022 (in German). ard-zdf-medienstudie.de
