Cost per lead is not always the best metric for making marketing decisions

Here’s something interesting.

So after our initial test, we identified the “magazine” based interest targeting was ideal.

Why Cost per Lead?

It was getting a good stream of leads at a decent cost per lead: the number of people requesting an assessment worked out to be $20+ per lead.

However, when we started analysing the leads after about two weeks of running the campaign, we realised that this audience was not ready to pay.

They didn’t want to pay for consultation fees and tended to shop around.

Nearly every marketing agency focuses on LEADS. Leads, leads, leads. And I think that’s why clients constantly get bombarded with crappy leads.

Quantity needs to be backed up by quality. I’ll take a dozen leads who are ready to purchase now over a hundred leads who are not ready to buy any day.

After seeing that the “magazine” audience didn’t want to pay for consultation fees, we broadened our targeting.

Although we are still in the initial phase of testing, we started attracting the right type of audiences with the right copy and creatives, and by incorporating videos into our marketing. Audiences who are ready to pay.

Sometimes we can do all the research we want and our clients can tell us what their ideal clients like. Unfortunately, what we know can sometimes skewed by our own perceptions and ideas.

Like I’ve said before, marketing needs to be based on data and it’s important to let the data guide the next steps.

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