You have a website and one or even two contact forms for your visitors to submit. The question is where can you get those visitors to submit the forms. Assuming that our ultimate goal is to generate leads on the website or elsewhere in the digital world, what would be the most efficient way to do so? What lead generation channel should you use for your business?
In this article I’ll try to answer this question: “What is the best channel to generate leads online”
There are plenty of platforms that offer very similar solutions and claim to be your go-to solutions when it comes to generating leads.
Let’s list most common platforms where you can generate leads at scale:
Google Ads
It’s a very powerful platform with the biggest possible reach amongst listed. Due to the nature of Google, it’s most effective for capturing customers that are ready to make a decision. You will be capturing people who have already decided that they need a service that you offer.
Since you mostly focused on people who are closer to the bottom of the marketing funnel and just consider which service provider they should go with these factors will influence their decision:
- Reviews
- Total Price
- Offer
User journey for lead generation on Google will look like this:
As you can see from the picture above there are three elements in Google Ads:
- Ad click – You have to make your ad appealing so people would want to click on it. Typically, you mention discounts, offers and/or competitive advantages
- Website – You need to prepare a Landing page (web page) where you can lead people after they click on your ads. These landing pages should include clear competitive advantages, customer reviews and prices (or how the price will be calculated)
- Website form – design and number of questions in the form will greatly impact an overall conversion rate. Make the form concise and easy to fill on all devices
- Remarketing – In case if people don’t make a decision right away after visiting your website for the first time we can follow up with them using remarketing campaigns. You need a couple of images because those are display ads
Google Ads Summary
Purpose:
- Short term results
- Lower funnel driver
- Immediate one-time low-cost services (Ex: Plumbing, Moving, Electrician)
Targeting methods:
- Keywords
- Geography
Requirements:
- Ad copy (Text ads)
- Good looking website/landing page, ideally specifically tailored for the campaign
- Website form (user friendly)
- A couple of images for the remarketing campaign
Facebook is the second biggest lead generation platform in North America. Since it is a social media platform and people might go in there without any specific reason or intent to purchase something the behaviour is different from Google search ads.
You have more opportunities to introduce people to a new concept or service. Comprehensive targeting capabilities allow you to choose what type of people you want to show your ads.
Facebook performs better in the middle of the funnel or with services/products that take longer to consider. For example, Real Estate, construction, mortgage services take time to consider, people aren’t pressured by circumstances to make a decision right away. In these cases, Facebook would be a great platform to go with.
Facebook has the advantage of generating leads on Facebook without a need to drive people to your website. In our experience, people prefer not to leave the platform and fill forms on Facebook. You get a higher conversion rate but colder leads. In the case of Facebook, you will need to spend more time nurturing them.
Note: You have to experiment with your targeting a lot in order to receive high-quality leads. You have to know your audience very well.
If you get your audience right Facebook can become even more effective than Google. We’ve noticed that in general it takes longer to convert people on Facebook but the cost per lead is 2-3 times cheaper than on Google.
Facebook Ads Summary:
Purpose:
- Midterm results
- Middle funnel driver
- Brand building and/or lead generation
- Good for introducing new concepts, testing audience response and generating leads for more expensive services where you need to nurture leads before they make a decision.
Targeting methods:
- Demo, Interests
- Behaviour
- Connections
- Geography
Requirements:
- Ad copy (Text ads)
- High-quality images
- Good looking website/landing page, ideally specifically tailored for the campaign (not that crucial for Facebook since you can generate leads within the Facebook environment)
- Website form (user friendly)
With two such powerful platforms as Facebook and Google, you would ask me what LinkedIn has to offer? The answer is simple – B2B marketing.
LinkedIn nailed it down for advertisers who want to target other companies. The concept of the platform where it’s beneficial for people to share their accomplishments and professional background makes it easy to target very precisely any decision-makers you want.
Do you want to target CEOs of tech companies in the LA area? No problem with LinkedIn. The platform has enough targeting capabilities to find those people.
LinkedIn leads are expensive so make sure that ROAS is in your favour. In exchange for the high cost, LinkedIn offers you precise targeting. Think of your marketing strategy and come up with a creative way for engaging with your leads. Think of some value that you can provide in your ads.
LinkedIn Ads Summary:
Purpose:
- Brand awareness campaigns
- Long funnel services (when it takes several months to convert people, Ex: consulting, marketing, web development)
- Lead generation for high-cost services
Targeting methods:
- Geo-Targeting
- Industry Targeting
- Company Targeting
- Role/Title Targeting
- Group Targeting
- Demographic Targeting
Requirements:
- Come up with a case study or any other sort of value proposition, people don’t spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and in the general LinkedIn demo doesn’t have lots of free time, so you have to hook them with your offer
- Tailor your message for each specific audience you target, even if a product is the same
- Come up with some email sequence or a funnel because typically it takes a very long time to convert people from LinkedIn
Conclusion:
Regardless of the platform you use, the most crucial element for lead generation campaigns is your offer. You need to have a good hook to make your campaigns efficient.
Don’t use offers that everyone else is doing, you’ll be wasting your time and money. The customers who respond to weak offers will be very cold and not really interested to convert.
![[Research] How homeowners and housebuyers choose real estate agents](https://www.desa.ninja/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Real-Estate-Research.png)
