A conference is held every August Baltic Digital Days… This year the organizers of the event decided to hold the conference in two formats: offline and online.
SEOnews has traditionally prepared a review of several speeches.
Today we offer you to get acquainted with the report “Testing of non-standard sources of leadgen”, which was presented by Anvar Gaisin, SEO specialist at Marketon.
At the beginning of his speech, Anvar told why he tests non-standard sources of lead generation.
One of the reasons is that the cost of attracting customers from contextual advertising is constantly growing. For example, the cost of an application from the context in 2016 was 200 rubles, and in 2021 it was already 500 rubles or more. At the same time, traffic from Yandex is dropping, since there is less and less space in the search results for regular sites – search results are taken up by ads and aggregators.
Testing different lead generation sites
A competitive niche was chosen for the test: the repair of large household appliances. Region: Moscow.
Yandex.Business, Yandex.Services, Profi.ru, Google My Business were tested as platforms.
Yandex.Business
Yandex.Business is a subscription-based service in which Yandex’s algorithms select targeted traffic and lead it to the website or company card in the Directory. To create an ad, just upload a photo and add a title.
results
Within the campaign in June, 30 targeted actions were received, including 25 calls. Costs were RUB 5,333, but not a single target lead was received.
Such unfortunate results were obtained due to the fact that:
- a very narrow niche was chosen (not all large household appliances, but only “repair of refrigerators”, “repair of washing machines and dishwashers”);
- Initially, general traffic was pouring (for the repair of air conditioners, etc.);
- in Moscow, such advertising does not work in overheated topics.
At the same time, in the regions in broader topics, you can advertise and get good results.
For example, in the “Cleaning” topic in Krasnodar, we managed to get 140 leads, the cost of a high-quality application was 300 rubles. In other paid sources (Google Ads, Yandex.Direct), the average cost of an application is 500 rubles.
Thus, with a good rating, traffic to the Yandex.Services card is converted well.
Pros and cons of the site
Pros:
- you can always plan your budget;
- traffic is cheaper than in YAN, very easy to fill;
- no need to select keywords and audience, Yandex will do everything for you.
Minuses:
- you need to immediately pay for a subscription for at least 3 months;
- you cannot set keywords for display;
- get residual traffic from YAN;
- you get garbage traffic in competitive regions and topics.
Yandex.Services
Yandex.Services became the next platform for an experiment in collecting leads.
In Yandex.Services, it was decided to collect incoming requests from users according to their topic. A specially created robot processed them, communicated with the customer, collected contacts and sent them to the exchange. They decided not to promote the profiles, since organic promotion takes a lot of time, and the paid one is expensive (more expensive than context).
results
At the end of the month, 20 leads of 400 rubles were received.
Yandex.Services can be used by businesses that have their own call center, and specialists are ready to rake out low-conversion requests. The return on a confirmed lead from Yandex.Services is low – 10–25%. For comparison: a partner has a return on lead traffic from SEO or contextual advertising – 60%.
Pros and cons of the site
Pros:
- shareware (pay only for a subscription);
- it is not difficult to register;
- a large number of leads (Yandex is pouring good traffic to its site).
Minuses:
- low conversion;
- difficult to qualify applications;
- complex anti-fraud system.
Profi.ru
Another platform that they decided to analyze was the Profi.ru website. A robot was created for the site, which collected applications, processed them, participated in the auction, communicated with the customer, and sent contacts to the exchange for further processing.
results
One application when using a subscription cost 70 rubles. Conversion to a lead was 40-50% (if there are reviews). Conversion into an application (when the contacts have already been sent, the user agrees to your proposal) was 40-70%.
During testing, the questionnaire was banned twice. In the event of a ban, the subscription price is not refundable. To work without risks, you need to have several accounts (4-7), and subscribe not for 20 applications per day, but take 5 applications on four accounts.
You can work with this site, but carefully, and the scale must be industrial. It is important to accurately determine geo, use negative keywords on accounts and not give very low prices, and also create 4-5 accounts in a niche with different phone numbers.
Pros and cons of the site
Pros:
- good quality leads;
- a large number of leads;
- convenient to automate.
Minuses:
- expensive cost of applications (does not pay off);
- high risks of a ban.
Google My Business
Google My Business was another user acquisition channel that was tested in an experiment.
This site was chosen because it is shown in 70% of queries on the marker core in Google, it has a high click-through rate in “hot” niches, and it is easier to advance in competitive niches here. As part of the experiment, a grid of 5 accounts was created.
results
In the first and second months, 0 leads were received, in the third – 8 leads. For the sixth month, the forecasted number of applications should be 80-100.
Pros and cons of the site
Pros:
- good quality leads;
- minimum costs;
- constant stream of leads;
- cost per lead after 6 months – 70–100 rubles.
Minuses:
- long waiting time (up to 6 months);
- high risks of a ban;
- you need to constantly maintain the cards.
What’s important in the leadgen
- Maximum coverage. It’s important to attract all the traffic sources you can.
- Lead quality – maximum conversion with the greatest profit for the partner.
- Processing speed.
To achieve quality applications, it is important to:
- processing speed and automation;
- coincidence of the user’s intent and the offer;
- coincidence of price expectations;
- coincidence of delivery times.
To achieve the coincidence of price expectations, it is necessary to correctly write the price fork, indicate what is included in the price, and work with objections.
A few more tips:
- Look for clients near a partner. The partner works in some geo, try to find the maximum number of applications from this geo.
- Robots can be used to score applications; they do it better than humans.
As part of the experiment, they automated: collecting order data, scoring applications by subject and geo, communicating with customers, sending applications to a partner or to the exchange.
Exchange vs. work directly
One of the main disadvantages of an exchange or an affiliate program is that the cost per lead is lower. The exchange margin from the application is on average 10%, affiliate programs – 30%.
At the same time, exchanges and affiliate programs have their advantages. This is:
- convenient processing of leads via API;
- processing speed;
- quick feedback on leads;
- cascade processing.
If you send applications directly to partners, then the cost of a lead will be higher, but processing will take longer. In addition, the disadvantages include:
- transfer of the application by mail or CRM;
- difficulty in understanding whether a lead is a quality one or not;
- due to the download, the partner may not redeem leads.
Instead of a conclusion: comparing lead generation methods
