New to industry & really need help with Lead Gen!

15 replies
Hi guys -

I just got into Lead Gen with very limited experience in marketing. Here's some quick background of what brought me here - I recently got out of a career in finance with a nice nest egg & looking for a new business. Some friends I know worked for a few companies in the ad industry and suggested I try the lead gen business. Long story short - while I was researching and exploring my options when an incredible opportunity fell in my lap. A friend of a friend runs a company that sells home security products and is anxious to run a lead gen campaign. I oversold my abilities (just a bit) and was blown away when they offered me a shot - and they wanted to expand to a $100k a month spend!

I have spoken to a few companies that place ads (Adboom, engage:bdr, Valueclick) and it seems to me their placements eat up most of my profits. I am very anxious to utlilize Google Adwords and Facebook ads to lead prospective leads to my landing page and convert them to leads. The company makes around $500-$700 per sale and is not anxious to disclose their closing-rate but I assume its at least 1/10. They are open to negotiating on price per lead, as long as their ROI is as good as their current spend.

Can you guys provide me with any advice on how to proceed and through which channel to proceed in securing traffic that can convert? I have a designer with experience building landing pages and ads - she's already built my ads and landing page. Where should I invest my money for a test run? If I can provide them leads for around $50-$70 (their cost) - they've promised me the entire account.

I got the account way before I learned the business and it would be heart wrenching to lose it! Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated! I have searched high and low for consultants that would provide this sort of advice but it's extremely difficult to find experts who specialize in lead-gen.

I would have no problem paying someone long-term who could help me with this. I've looked at some of the other threads but couldn't find enough information - so I thought I'd post this while I kept looking!

Thanks guys!
#gen #industry #lead
  • Profile picture of the author HenryLatourrette
    hi chris.. is good to know that the lead business is expanding. It's not that hard actually.

    You say you've got a designer and a landing page already. If so, you'll have to define your demographics and then look at the keyword competition.

    The landing pages are not a commodity. So, you'll have to test out the conversion rate.

    With Google Adwords you can do tests. I believe that you can also make tests on facebook. I believe Adwords, Yahoo and Facebook are the best right now.
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    • Profile picture of the author chrisb991z
      Thanks for the feedback Henry. The demographics are married men aged 40 or above who make at least $50k a year and can afford the $100 initial setup fee from my client (in addition to the approx $1500 total expense). So you would suggest going PPC on Google, FB & Yahoo and avoid the banner placements via third parties? I understand they would post on websites like HGTV.com.

      I should also explain that my background in finance taught me how to close deals (in person and on the phone). I've experimenting with some mortgage companies and I've gotten really positive feedback. Very curious to expand to different verticals in the future.
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      • Profile picture of the author HenryLatourrette
        Originally Posted by chrisb991z View Post

        Thanks for the feedback Henry. The demographics are married men aged 40 or above who make at least $50k a year and can afford the $100 initial setup fee from my client (in addition to the approx $1500 total expense). So you would suggest going PPC on Google, FB & Yahoo and avoid the banner placements via third parties? I understand they would post on websites like HGTV.com.

        I should also explain that my background in finance taught me how to close deals (in person and on the phone). I've experimenting with some mortgage companies and I've gotten really positive feedback. Very curious to expand to different verticals in the future.
        I'm not saying to avoid banner placements... I just think it's easier to target your desired lead at facebook, yahoo and google. But for banner placements you can use Alexa or Quantcast to check for the demographics..

        For example:

        Hgtv.com Site Info

        https://www.quantcast.com/hgtv.com

        But of course, it also depends on how you plan to allocate your advertising budget.
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        • Profile picture of the author chrisb991z
          I intended to allocate money across a few channels for a test run and comparing ROI for each then scaling that up for the client. It's an incredibly confusing industry to learn from the outside-looking-in. I initially imagined that I could hire someone to assist me on a consulting basis but I haven't had any luck at all finding someone that can.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnbrown12
    Start list building through google adwords which will convert into leads,so testing ,testing and testing but start always with the small budget
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  • Profile picture of the author dropout
    I do lead generation for insurance products in the UK with quite a bit of success. I generate most of my leads through Adwords and BingAds. In my experience it is hard to generate quality leads with Facebook but I know of people who has been able to, however I would start with the search engines.

    Adwords has the steeper learning curve, but you should start there because if you are able to turn a profit then you can pretty much just copy the campaign to BingAds and you will have another winner on your hands. Bingads generally has cheaper clicks but also much lower volumes.

    Test a few different landing page designs in the start and stick to the one that converts the best. Continue to split-test ads forever, editing the worst-performing one every week or 2 weeks.

    Sounds like a great opportunity, would love to have something similar between my hands. Good luck and feel free to PM me if you have questions down the road.
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    • Profile picture of the author chrisb991z
      Thanks guys! Can you guys recommend some detailed resources for learning PPC (Adwords, Bing/Yahoo, Facebook etc)?
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      • Profile picture of the author webrankingservices2000
        Banned
        Originally Posted by chrisb991z View Post

        Thanks guys! Can you guys recommend some detailed resources for learning PPC (Adwords, Bing/Yahoo, Facebook etc)?
        I would suggest you to hire an expert instead of you learning and working. If you mess, you lose the entire account, which is not really good. Let me know if you need help in identifying someone
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        • Profile picture of the author chrisb991z
          Originally Posted by webrankingservices2000 View Post

          I would suggest you to hire an expert instead of you learning and working. If you mess, you lose the entire account, which is not really good. Let me know if you need help in identifying someone
          That would certainly help! I would be happy to hire someone to help me with this, possibly for the long term. I would also like to learn PPC myself. Can anyone offer any advice on the best way to start? Anything I can read that offers good pointers on getting started?
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  • Profile picture of the author mb2000
    Chris / OP , try Taewoo - he does coaching in lead gen and one of his lead gen businesses is in the same sector as yours: Need Help with Online Customer Acquisition?
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  • Profile picture of the author imjunkie886
    Hey, I may be able to help you out. Do you have skype?
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  • Profile picture of the author svetod
    Doing the same as full time job for 4-5 years now, I would recommend you to concentrate on paid traffic. I only run campaigns on Adwords and Bing and I am able to generate £1k+ profits per day. My experience shows that I get the most targeted traffic from PPC and it does convert very well. The tricky part is to know how to build your campaigns. If you have someone to help you with your initial campaign, I am sure you will have huge success later on.
    Will be happy to help you if you have any questions.
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  • Profile picture of the author KINDLUTION
    Chris, go to oDesk and outsource. You can do this for a very reasonable price. This will help you until you're up to speed. Props to you for closing a deal like that, though.
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    • Profile picture of the author chrisb991z
      Any suggestions on what kinds of keywords to bid on for Adwords on the home security offer? Almost every long tail keyword I can think of looks extremely expensive. Also - what kind of CTR should an optimized landing page expect with targeted traffic get? I read 10% somewhere & that seems pretty high. Can anyone confirm that?
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  • Profile picture of the author sheldorino
    Hey Chrisb991z,

    I am a full time self employed affiliate and I only work in the lead generation field. It's a very fulfilling field to work in as you are almost always working at a profit once you have figured out your converting keywords and phrases etc.

    Its also a very scalable way of making a living online. All I can recommend is ensure the landing page is relevant to the keyword that sent them there, and the only way of exiting the page is by filling in the form.

    If you have any more questions just let me know....
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