What is Lead Generation?

Basically bringing hot prospects to your door, whether that be contacts for sales teams or traffic to a website for online conversion.

Similar to saying advertising, but lead generation implies they are ready to become customers, whereas advertising could mean sponsorship or other less purchase ready expectations from the people the activity drives.

Buying Leads versus Ads

Lead generation is often priced differently where you pay further down the conversion funnel. So in traditional advertising like ‘above the line’ you pay for a billboard or other display ad format and the results after that are all up to you. With lead gen you will typically pay when a potential customer lands on your website (or at some agreed conversion funnel point), or for more sales activities when they provide someones contact details or agreement to meet.

Some Helpful Tips

Lead gen can be super effective as it is the seller responsibility to filter down prospects/traffic. But as paid media goes it also attracts some of the biggest snake oil sellers (this and SEO). If you are doing it try and go with someone reputable, be sure you have accurate customer tracking and are paying some reasonable proportion of the expected amount after you see results, at least til an ongoing relationship is established. Also make sure you sign off ads and ensure they dont use your brand terms unless approved specifically for targeting or content.