How to Buy Digital Marketing Leads?
Getting a potential client/customer interested in buying your product/service while investing a minimum amount of money to acquire them – that’s the dream of every business out there. At first glance, buying leads is a great and easy way to increase sales, but there are a few pitfalls. In this article, we will go over the process of purchasing leads, the pros and cons of doing so, and how you should go about choosing a lead provider.
Where to Buy Marketing Leads?
It should come as no surprise that businesses that have more prospects and lead to work with are generally more financially stable and have an advantage over the competition. Sometimes a site alone isn’t enough to generate enough quality leads, which is where the option to buy digital marketing leads comes from, and how some providers for this type of service make their money from.
Lead generation is by no means a new phenomenon on the market. If you have expensive products or a challenging sales cycle, chances are you have previously or are currently employing a lead-generating service provider. The way these leads are bought and paid for, however, can differ significantly.
There are 4 primary models of acquisition in marketing (for buying and selling leads), and they are:
- CPA (Cost per Acquisition) – A marketing metric that measures the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign/channel level. Essentially, you pay only if a conversion, whatever it may be, happens;
- CPC (Cost Per Click) – You pay whenever, and only if your ad gets clicked on;
- CPM (Cost Per Mille) – Cost per one thousand;
- CPL (Cost per Lead) – Similar to CPA, CPL is used in lead generation campaigns, so the ultimate goal is just to get data (like e-mail addresses) from potential customers. A total sum of funds spent on leads / Total amount of new leads = Cost Per Lead.
Interesting Fact – Companies that nurture their leads through inbound marketing make 50% more sales. You can achieve this by creating content that’s highly targeted and spread out over multiple content channels.
Should You Buy Lead Generation or Do It Yourself – A Comparison
So you want to buy leads for digital marketing, and you’re wondering if it’s worth it? The main and indisputable advantage of buying leads is the short amount of time and effort it takes to start and scale any outreach campaign. You don’t necessarily need a website or landing page setup, just a sales manager that’s ready to sell, and a quality lead generator.
This is what makes buying leads so attractive to businesses. The are a lot of companies offering these services, and it should be mentioned that a lot of them have quite a few negative aspects, primarily offering lead data that is either out of date or invalid – making it useless.
So, if you’re thinking to buy digital marketing leads, you should be aware of the disadvantages of buying them directly:
- Unpredictable results – When you get leads from a database, you can’t be sure of their motivations and work-related pains, whether their info is valid and up-to-date, and whether they even have any interest in your value proposition. These things are hard to predict when buying leads in bulk. In contrast, if you hire SalesAR to generate leads and set appointments, you get to work with warm leads that have an inherent interest in your product/service, and are way more likely to convert ;
- You still have to convert them – Only by building an internal sales system that processes leads can you expect to see any results, otherwise, you’ll just waste money on useless contacts that you can’t properly work with;
- Low return on investment (ROI) – Leads alone won’t give you instant sales, and depending on the quality and validity, you may not even get a single one. You can buy more than necessary, and you might even get some to become customers/clients, but will they cover the expenses in the first place?;
- Targeting and reimbursement issues – If the paid contacts don’t close the deal, no one will pay you back the cost of acquiring them. Knowing your ICP certainly helps with this, but if you’re planning to buy marketing leads that are highly targeted, there is only so much criteria and filters you can set;
- Volume selling – The market for leads isn’t exactly clean and compliant with certain standards. Lead suppliers are interested in selling in bulk, or getting you to buy a subscription, so you’re already signing up for a service that is counting on you to spend and process large volumes of leads, even if you’re a small-time business.
Generating leads yourself is a long and complicated process, especially with little to no previous experience. Even if you have the ability to manage the flow and characteristics of the customers you attract on your own, scaling is another obstacle that you need to contend with. Analyze whether you have enough knowledge and capability to organize the process.
If that’s something you’re not confident about, there’s an entire IT service segment of B2B lead generation and appointment setting, and most of the time it is more cost-efficient than doing it on your own. These companies already have the entire infrastructure and system set up to maximize efficiency and get the most bang for the buck (Hint – SalesAR).
How, Where, and Who to Buy Lead Generation From?
The 2 most popular options are to either hire a B2B lead generation service provider, and have them do the work themselves, or you can buy marketing leads via database sites and process them on your own. Either way, you want to make sure you’re following certain guidelines:
- You have a contract and it spells out the terms of cooperation, or if it’s a service, you are aware of the terms and conditions;
- There has to be an established criterion for the quality of the leads;
- Figure out the payment procedure and the conditions – if there is a contract, it should be clear and transparent. This allows you to avoid situations where you have paid the money, but the counterparty just disappears, knowing full well that they don’t own you anything as per contract terms;
- If you need to buy marketing leads, understand the technology involved and how and where those leads come from.
- Ask for references from current clients that the lead generator or database already works with, preferably a full-fledged company with a website, address, and contact credentials.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, if your budget allows it, and you don’t have an internal team with experience in marketing outreach, the best option is to hire a B2B lead generation service provider like SalesAR to generate the leads, and if you’re interested in closing deals with warm leads – add appointment setting into the mix.
Buying and selling leads is a highly competitive business, and unfortunately, there are a lot of inconsistencies and nuances when it comes to buying in bulk from databases, primarily invalid and out-of-date info, which is another reason why lead generation by a professional team is the preferred option.
If that’s not an option, and you are insistent on your necessity to specifically buy digital marketing leads, make sure to do your own research and go over the user reviews/testimonials and comparisons before giving someone your money. Depending on the lead database you choose, the search criteria will vary, as will the pricing, the quality, and the validity.
