Facebook Ads Cost Per Lead Benchmarks for Public Safety

Introduction

Public Safety lead acquisition costs across all countries moved in dramatic arcs over the past year—well above global Facebook Ads benchmarks for most of the period, punctuated by a midsummer spike and an abrupt October collapse. Against a relatively steady global backdrop, the Public Safety category showed pronounced surges in late Q1 and midyear, then a sharp reset into Q4. This analysis is based on $3B worth of advertising data from our dataset, which provides strong directional benchmarks. This analysis explores ad performance trends for Public Safety across all countries compared to the global benchmark.

The story in the data

CPL in Public Safety began at $33.31 in November 2024 and ended at $1.73 in October 2025—a −95% swing from start to finish, with the path in between anything but linear. The category averaged $138 per lead across the reported months, with a median of $91.84 that underscores how a handful of outsized months pulled the mean higher. The high came in July 2025 at $414.68, while October marked the low at $1.73.

Month by month, the pattern built momentum: $33.31 in November lifted to $54.38 in December, then climbed to $91.84 in February and jumped again to $228.24 in March. The summer marked the apex at $414.68 in July before costs cooled to $142.29 in September. October then broke trend with a collapse to $1.73. Volatility was extreme: average month-to-month swings came to roughly $132, compared with about $3 for the global benchmark—clear evidence of a choppier, less predictable CPL environment in Public Safety.

Seasonal and monthly dynamics

Q4 2024 showed a modest lift into December (+63% vs. November), while early 2025 accelerated: February and March brought sustained elevation, with March more than doubling February’s CPL. The missing mid-spring months don’t obscure the rhythm that reappears in summer: July’s spike was the defining inflection of the year. Late Q3 moderated into September, and the first month of Q4 diverged sharply from typical seasonal firmness with an anomalously low October.

By contrast, the global baseline followed a gentler seasonal arc: a soft March ($33.35) followed by gradual tightening into late summer and early fall ($48.29 in September) before a mild October dip ($45.08). In short, the market as a whole firmed into September, while Public Safety’s CPL surged much earlier and more intensely, then unwound rapidly by October.

Country vs. Global

Across the months reported, Public Safety’s CPL averaged $138 versus $41.50 for the global benchmark in the same months—about +233% higher. The category ran above market in five of seven observed months. The widest premium arrived in July, when Public Safety CPL was roughly 9.8× the global level (+879%). The narrowest gap appeared in November (−20% below global), and October flipped to a deep discount (−96% vs. global).

The global trendline rose steadily from November to September (+16%), while Public Safety climbed far more aggressively over that same span (+327%), then reversed sharply at the start of Q4. Taken together, the data depicts a more volatile and episodic CPL profile for Public Safety relative to the broader market’s smoother trajectory.

Closing

Understanding Facebook Ads cost-per-lead benchmarks for the Public Safety industry across all countries—alongside global Facebook Ads benchmarks, CPC trends context, CPM analysis, and CTR performance patterns—helps quantify how industry ad performance and country-specific ad costs diverge from the market’s baseline over time.