Tired of Lead Generation Services? Turn to Pay Per Click

If you are like a lot of companies dependent on client leads to keep afloat, you may be noticing a trend from some of the lead generation companies out there. Not only are the leads expensive, but they aren't as strong as they used to be. We are hearing this again and again from our clients who are shifting their budgets to crank up the stronger quality pay per click search leads.

A lot of lead generation companies are using pay per click search to gather their leads. They will then mark up the cost it took to acquire them, or they will send them to multiple vendors and the quality to you is often poor. If this is your problem, maybe it's time you skip the middle man and go straight to the source.

Jumping into Pay Per Click isn't just a matter of setting up a website and contact information. You can certainly get results doing that -- we see it all the time. But to truly compete and drive your cost per lead down, you need some sophistication.

When you launch a paid search campaign, you need to realize that everything in your pipeline, from what keywords to appear on, what ads to run, where to send them, how to get them to take action, etc. -- all of that can be managed and optimized. Let's examine two of these areas.

The first place to begin is with your pay per click ad copy. It's fairly easy to place an ad and launch it. However, the pay per click engines are putting more emphasis than ever on "Quality" algorithms. If you are unable to make the daily effort to test your ad copy, you are going to fall behind those that do. A good PPC management company will run daily split tests for their clients. This is who you are up against more and more these days -- experts who double and triple the click through rates of their clients' ads.

Why is this important? Because it doubles or triples your traffic -- and in turn doubles or triples your leads.

But this is just one place to focus your efforts. Take a look at the destination urls -- the landing pages where you send visitors. Are you using a contact form? How simple is your contact form? Is your phone number too small? There are always a variety of items you can optimize and test to increase conversions.

Optimizing your site's landing pages reduces the dollars you spend on each lead. You might be surprised, but even tiny changes can cut your costs per lead in half. We've seen it. So put in the effort or invest more funds in these mission critical spots.

Making the jump to PPC search may not be in your company's core competency. If not, then outsource to a PPC management company. Their experts can mine massive keyword lists, pull keywords from your competitors, conduct the necessary and vital daily split tests, and give you insight into better landing pages.

So, consider getting rid of the saturated lead gen services and heading for the source. The results can be dramatic.

About the Author

Josh Prizer is a Senior Account Executive and AdWords Expert for Zero Company Performance Marketing, a ppc management company. Check out his website to learn more on improving your PPC ad accounts and performance.