How To Get More Qualified Leads From Your Acquisition Campaigns

Sales experts and thought leaders will often boast about secret tricks to get more leads. The problem is, high-pressure sales techniques usually add low-quality leads to your funnel. That means you get hundreds of extra sign-ups, but your revenue actually goes down… This article is about how to get more qualified leads – highly-engaged customers who will build your monthly revenue and help your business grow.

Our CRO agency specialises in revenue optimization. That means we help companies improve their customer experience and nurture strategy at the same time as optimizing their conversion rate. These tips have allowed us to consistently lower our clients’ CPA and build their monthly revenue.

Optimize Your Google Ads for The Right Kind Of Conversions

Google offers four types of ads:

• Search Ads: Look like organic search results and appear at the top of the page when a user searches google.
• Display Ads: Can appear on any website that is part of the Display network 
• Shopping Ads: Look like banner ads and appear as image and text on the search results page
• Video Ads: Are shown on Youtube and websites that are part of the Display network

Pay For Conversions, Not Clicks, From Your Display Ads

In 2019, Google introduced a new way to pay for Display Ads. It is now possible to pay by conversions rather than by clicks. Optimising your advertising on a CPA basis means your ad budget goes further. It also means that your referred traffic consists of high-quality leads with stronger purchase intent. But you can go further…

By making your landing pages highly specific and extra detailed, you can make sure that you only pay for the highest-quality leads. 

1. Go to your Campaigns section and create a new campaign (with the blue + sign)

2. Click the plus button, then select New campaign.

3. Choose a goal type, then select Display campaign. Both Standard display and Smart display allow you to pay on a CPA basis.

4. In the “Bidding” box, select Conversions,  Automatically maximise conversions and then set a Target CPA. Under “Pay for”, choose Conversions.

Optimize Your Search Ads to Pre-Qualify Your Traffic

An easy way to get more high-quality leads from a Google Search Ad is to use Ad Extensions that pre-qualify your traffic.

• By specifying contact details, opening hours and even directions, you can attract more customers without paying for their clicks.
• You can also use extensions to create a shortcut between the advert and a particular page. If you sell more shirts than shoes, include an extension to your shirts catalogue.
• Extensions can be customised in the form of “structured snippets”. So if your value proposition is based on a particular feature, you can highlight it straight away.

It’s also worth paying attention to the URLs and page titles you use. Google will use bold text for each word that matches a user’s search term. That means there is an advantage in using the most relevant and specific keywords. The Display URL doesn’t even have to match your landing page’s address, so you can be more creative with your search appearance. 

Qualify Your Leads With A Drip Sequence

Despite the popularity of email marketing, and the wide range of automation software, most people do not know how to turn emails into qualified leads. One of the most effective tools for this job is a drip sequence. The nurturing process should begin when a new contact enters your list; at this point your drip sequence is triggered, sending a series of personalised messages to the subscriber.

Your sequence should start with high-quality content and lead magnets to build engagement. This content also serves another important purpose; it allows you to segment your list according to which content they interact with. A verified email contact who has demonstrated an interest in a specific service or product is much more valuable than an unqualified address. 

Later in the sequence, you can introduce direct sales copy with marketing levers like Urgency, FOMO and Social Proof. However, there is no point applying the hard sell to leads who may have no interest in your offer. 

Design Your Website For Specific Customers

The first page your visitor sees is often your only chance to win them over. Whilst there is no magic formula for a high-converting landing page, thinking in terms of qualified leads makes your job much simpler. You need a clear and compelling value proposition, a focused user journey and a good user experience. Luckily, you can achieve all three by building your website for a very specific visitor: your ideal customer.

Focused Landing Pages = Better Leads

Human attention is a limited resource. That means that every additional value proposition, offer and CTA you include in your landing pages distracts your visitor from the core message. To keep your landing pages focused, ensuring that you don’t lose valuable leads or attract the wrong ones, stick to the 1:1:1 principle (one value proposition, one offer and one call-to-action).

Use The Power of The Purple Cow

Things that stand out are more memorable and attract more attention. The “Von Restorff Effect” is an important tool for marketers because it helps direct attention where it’s needed. For example, a call-to-action button should be visually distinct to make it stand out. However, the same effect also helps you single out the right kind of customers…

Seth Godin describes the principle in his Purple Cow. Businesses and services that demonstrate uniqueness (“semantic isolation”) have a massive advantage. Not only are they more noticeable, but customers who choose them are more likely to stick with them. That doesn’t mean you website shouldn’t look and function like people expect, but it does mean your content should highlight what makes you different.  

Test Everything Based On Full Conversions

Design is not about making the world beautiful, it is about making things work. The best websites do not always have stunning visuals; successful eCommerce sites are usually simple, robust and effective. How do we know they work? It’s simple: we test them relentlessly.

Amazon’s remarkable success has been built on two principles: customer satisfaction and A/B testing. It’s no surprise that Amazon’s website design is unrivalled when it comes to securing long-term users; by testing each design change, you can target qualified leads with absolute precision.

Use Dynamic Content To Generate More Qualified Leads

Shopping is a social activity. Most customers base their choices on what other people are doing. Unfortunately, creating a lively and social environment is more difficult online. A quick way to bring your website to life is to use interactive features and dynamic data.

Personalise Your Content With Dynamic Variables

Platforms like Dynamic Yield and PureClarity use data from your customers’ behaviour to display personalised content. They get the data in a number of ways:

• browsing cookies
• on-site behaviour
• geo-location
• AI

Using that kind of information allows you to engage your ideal customers more effectively. Convertize also allows you to add dynamic features to your webpages, and even test how they affect your conversion rate. Personalising your webpages with the geolocation plugin and dynamic text creates a more interactive experience.

Engage Your Visitors Directly With Live Chat

Rather than waiting for a customer to get frustrated with your website, live chat allows you to develop a problem-solving conversation immediately. There are a number of well-established customer engagement solutions, including the industry leader Intercom. But, if you’re looking for something cheaper or more user-friendly, we have compiled a list of our favourite intercom alternatives.

Use Web Notifications To Increase Visitor Engagement

Website notifications allow you to get more qualified leads without performing major web surgery. Subtle messages showing, for example, how many other people are on a webpage, make your offers much more compelling.

Solutions like Nudgify allow you to communicate with customers without seeming pushy. That improves user experience and helps to build a loyal customer base.

Social proof notifications are useful for collections pages. They highlight the popularity of your key products, which is proven to increase the desire to buy. 

Urgency notifications, linked to your stock levels, are more suited to product or shopping cart pages. They establish a time-limit and give customers a reason to make their mind up quickly.

You can also create customised messages that give more specific information or offer your customers special offers. In both cases, better engagement is a shortcut to getting more leads. 

How To Get More Qualified Leads From Your Website

Getting more leads involves adding an extra stage to your acquisition strategy. Rather than going from lead generation to high-pressure selling, the process develops in stages: 

1. Acquisition (driving traffic to your site, making first sales and collecting emails)
2. Engagement (keeping your visitors engaged and segmenting your list)
3. Selling and Re-selling (maintaining a community of highly-satisfied customers).

by Charlotte Franssen

Charlotte is Customer Success and Product Specialist at Convertize. Our customers love Charlotte so much that she only receives 5-star reviews on Capterra and TrustPilot.