A lead is worth the most in the first minutes after it arrives and loses value fast after that. Yet in most small businesses the first response depends on whoever happens to be at their desk. The ad budget gets audited every week; the intake almost never does.
Where the spend actually leaks
Every form, call, chat, and DM starts a timer. If that timer runs down while the lead sits in an inbox, the creative, the targeting, and the landing page were all spent winning an introduction that nobody followed up on. That is why the response clock gets repaired before anything downstream of it.
The fix is structural. Route every channel into one pipeline, tag by service and value, and fire a first touch automatically (a text to the owner, an acknowledgement to the lead) before anyone opens a laptop. Strygon builds that intake so the first response stops depending on memory.
Why it holds up
Speed-to-lead is the rare improvement that keeps working when the team is busy, short-staffed, or asleep. It behaves like plumbing rather than like a campaign. Once the wiring is in place, the same ad spend books more work, because none of it leaks in the gap between arrival and answer.