Cost per lead (CPL) is a metric, marketers frequently refer to when discussing what drives a company’s marketing costs. It can be challenging to understand, but it breaks down simply: the cost of getting one new customer from an advertising campaign. Knowing how to reduce your CPL is not as simple as reducing your advertising spending, which is why we’ve listed some key strategies that help you achieve lower CPLs through paid advertising. Read on for more insight on how control and automation companies can achieve lower CPLs through paid advertising and the impact it has on your company’s overall marketing strategy. This applies to all companies covering industrial solutions, engineering, IT, automation and software, or even system design companies focusing on either B2B or B2C structures.
This article goes over a more in-depth view of paid advertising implementation. If you’re a beginner and haven’t implemented any sort of testing or trials on advertising, head over to this article where we talk about the Complete Lead-Generating Checklist to Advertise an Engineering or Manufacturing Company on Meta (Facebook).
- Target the right audience for lower CPLs
Marketers judging the success of their campaigns solely based on the number of new customers they acquire can be dangerous. It’s important to consider more than just the number of new customers you bring in. Rather, it’s essential to look at how many leads you’re converting into customers. If your CPL is high, but your conversion rate is low, then that’s where you can focus your optimisation efforts. That’s because, while low CPLs are frustrating, they’re not a real problem. On the other hand, if your CPL is low, but your conversion rate is high, then that’s where you can focus your optimisation efforts. That’s because, while low CPLs are frustrating, they’re not a real problem. Both of these scenarios are valid, and both can vary based on your specific business. You’ll need to understand your specific client acquisition rates and conversion rates in order to know what to focus on.
- Create automated campaigns
Automating your email marketing campaigns can be a great way to lower CPLs. The key is to automate ONLY the actions that have a DIRECT IMPACT on your CPL. For example, if a high open rate causes low CPLs, then you might want to avoid automating your click rate (as this has no bearing on your CPL).
Instead, you might want to automate the actions that HAVE an impact on your CPL: when you click the open rate button, you want to click the “read” button. This can help improve your open rate and reduce your CPLs in one fell swoop.
If your CPL is high due to low conversion rates, you might also want to investigate automating certain actions to improve your conversion rates. For example, if your client gets lost after navigating one step in your sales funnel, you might want to automate a series of emails that guide them through each step.
Automating these actions can have a significant impact on your CPL, and it’s one of the best ways to lower your CPL.
- Measure performance and optimise your strategy accordingly
As you work to lower your CPL, it’s important to measure your success and optimise your strategies accordingly. Not only do you want to see the impact of your optimisations, but you also want to see what other metrics are affected. If you’re lowering your CPL by automating your campaigns, it’s important to track how many leads and how many sales you’re generating as a result. Similarly, if you’re lowering your CPL by optimising your email subject lines, you need to measure what effect your refactoring has on other metrics such as open rates and click-through rates. By tracking your CPL and other metrics, you can optimise your strategies and measure the impact of your changes. That way, you can make adjustments as necessary.
- Establish a culture of measurement and optimisation
The best way to lower CPLs is by establishing a culture of measurement and optimisation. This means that everyone at your company needs to understand the value of measurement. If a metric isn’t essential to your business, you need to understand why it’s important to the success of your company. If you don’t have a measurement culture in your company, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to lower your CPLs through paid advertising. To truly lower your CPL, you need to understand your current costs and how to drive those costs down. But you also need to understand what drives those costs and how to drive them down as well. By establishing a measurement culture in your company, you can truly lower your CPLs.
To put it simply, consider:
- Understand how you value each lead, and what is the measurement metric.
- What are your current costs and how can you drive the costs down? (If it’s solely through paid advertising, which ads are resulting in most booked meetings or sales?)
- Explore new advertising channels
There are many paid advertising channels available in the market, such as display ads, search ads, and social ads. While many marketers focus on just one channel exclusively, it’s beneficial to explore multiple channels. That way, you can ensure you’re getting the most out of your advertising spend. If you’re struggling to achieve low CPLs through paid advertising, you might want to consider expanding your channel choices. For example, if your CPL is high due to low CTRs (Click Through Rate) and low conversion rates, you might want to consider expanding your channel choices. This can be helpful if you’re looking to reduce your CPL by increasing other metrics such as impressions or clicks. By expanding your channel choices, you can increase your overall media spending. This can help you achieve lower CPLs without sacrificing your ROI.
If your company has just begun to explore the online advertising channels, consider mixing LinkedIn brand awareness ads, Facebook Lead Generation, and Google Conversion ads to the mix. It has been proven to be a perfect combination within the Engineering, Control, and Automation industry.
Practical Implementation
Getting your engineering and automation business or website noticed can be difficult. It’s not just a challenge for today’s digital marketing savvy companies, but also for those who wish to grow and expand their small engineering, IT, or other small businesses in the automation and control industry to a larger scale B2B service providing company. With so much competition, it has become imperative to get the right promotions at the right prices. This article takes a deep dive into how you can achieve a lower cost per lead on paid advertising.
- Create Higher Quality Content
One of the best ways to lower your cost per lead is by creating higher-quality content. Creating content that not only attracts your target audience but also provides them with relevant answers to the problems they are currently facing is crucial. If you focus all of your efforts on attracting the audience, they will likely leave as soon as they see your product or service. To retain your audience, you need to create content that addresses their problems and provides them with solutions to their problems. Creating content that concentrates all of your efforts on creating high-quality content is the best way to lower your cost per lead. High-quality content generates a lot of leads and more sales for your business compared to low-quality content.
- Image Ads
A good way to lower your cost per lead is by using image ads. These ads are usually placed on the top of search engine results pages. This adds an image and a headline to the paid ad slot. With image ads, businesses can add an image to make their ads look more interesting to the user compared to a plain text ad. Image ads are highly effective when it comes to attracting leads.
These ads are also cheaper than text-based ads. However, image ads are very ineffective when it comes to converting these leads into customers. After all, you want to attract leads, not just get traffic to your website. By having image ads running on top of your paid ads, you are only increasing the amount of traffic to your website. Image ads also do not help increase your click-through rate since most people will click on the ads without reading them. This will consequently result in lower cost per lead and lower profits.
- Paid Search
SEO is the most important principle for lower cost per lead. Through the right paid search strategies, you can increase the number of visitors to your website and make them visit your landing pages. This is one of the best ways to lower your cost per lead. A great paid search practice for lower cost per lead is including the right keywords in your ad text. Ad words that are related to your product or service are the ones that you want to include in your ads.
The best way to ensure that your ads are included in the top slots is to buy your ad slots directly from the search engines. However, it is important to note that the paid ads will only show on the top slots if the keywords in the ad text are relevant to the user’s search query.
- Video Ads
Videos are great forms of media for advertising your products and services. However, they are not just great for attracting leads and generating sales, but are also an effective way to lower your cost per lead. The best thing about video ads is that they work even when the user is on their tablet or smartphone while searching on their preferred platform. Video ads are effective in lowering your cost per lead as they can boost your brand recognition in the minds of your target audience. These video ads are usually rich in sound and picture so that the user can understand what it is about.
- Offline Advertising
Another low-cost per lead option for businesses is the use of offline ads. With this method, you can place posters and fliers around your neighborhood and at nearby traffic intersections. You can also post ads at the local grocery store, library, and fitness centre. With these offline ads, you can lower your cost per lead compared to online ads because you do not need Internet access to view your ads. The major downside is that you will find that these ads only attract a small number of people, making it difficult for you to lower the cost per lead. However, you can still use it to determine if your product is appealing to a larger audience.
Conclusion
When you are starting or expanding your business, it can be difficult to attract new clients and generate new sales. As a result, some businesses decide to lower their cost per lead by cutting corners. This can be dangerous and can even hurt your brand image if it is discovered by the public. With the right methods and strategies, you can lower your cost per lead and increase your sales and profits. These include making sure that your website is optimised for the latest search engine algorithms, creating high-quality content, including the right keywords in your ad text, and using video ads.
AR & Associates have helped IT, Engineering, Automation, Manufacturing, and Energy companies all across Australia to generate leads, increase brand awareness, maintain reputable PR, as well as increase sales.
We focus on helping you spend less time in marketing, and more time serving your customers. Leave the matter to the respective experts. As engineers ourselves, we understand the core values and importance of marketing through trust and reliability.
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