Navigating the Lead Generation Budget for You

Budgeting can be tricky when it comes to leads. You want your lead generation campaigns to be good use for the money you spend (who doesn’t?). So, exactly how much should a lead cost, a question that ponders every business owner. In this article, we’ll show you how to determine a lead cost and optimise it to grow your business.

What is Lead Generation Cost?

To put it simply, it’s the money you spend to acquire one lead. For example, if you’re buying an email list for £500 and run Google ads for £500 to get 100 leads, then your lead per cost is £10. Other factors affect lead gen costs as well, that are:

Paid Ads and Promotion Costs

The costs involved in generating leads include expenses related to social media marketing, email marketing, and Google Ads. These digital advertising efforts often require a significant budget allocation. Furthermore, you need to consider the costs of employing the marketing specialists who are responsible for managing and optimising these campaigns.

Buying Lead Data Lists

Investing in qualified lead lists could provide the much-needed momentum for your company's growth. Yet, the quality of these leads depends greatly on the B2B data provider you’re getting it from. Opting for leads verified manually is advisable, as data accuracy is the proven element for the best return on investment. If you get outdated contact lists from unreliable sources, it will only be futile and squander resources.

Lead Gen Tools

Using these tools helps the sales and marketing team speed up their process as it reduces manual labour and automates so much work. Such tools can be CRMs, email automation tools, and lead tracking tools.

Optimise Lead Gen Costs?

It’s a known fact that business owners don’t want to spend any money in acquiring leads and many try to get them free. But you know what, an effective B2B lead generation requires you to spend money. Without investing anything, you won’t get much results. But when you do invest, the cost per qualified lead exceeds its value, it's a sign to revamp your lead generation strategies.

Here are some tips to optimise your lead gen costs:

Target “Ready to Buy” Leads

You may have found the right decision maker, got their contact, and even did a fantabulous job in reaching out to them and delivering your message. Yet, the deal is not signed. That’s because, sometimes it’s not only about the who, but also about the when. Your prospect’s buying intent is the more crucial and the decision-making element in a deal. Studies state that only 3% of leads are willing to buy and only 7% of them are open to it, hence even the best of the best sales pitch won’t work without the intent from the buyer’s end. To target “ready to buy” leads you can use intent data tools and sales triggers to track buyer behaviour and act at the right time.

Joining Hands with the Best Data Provider

You should always go for a compliant contact database from a reputable provider instead of manually compiling a prospect list or purchasing generic lead lists online. Lead costs differ depending on how providers acquire their leads. If you choose the wrong provider who provides inaccurate data, it will lead to higher CPL.

InFynd is one of the top B2B lead data providers in the United Kingdom. Our database consists of over 30 million company data and 100 million contact data in the UK alone. We make sure our company and contact data stays updated and accurate to provide the users with the best data to grow their business. Our compliance with GDPR and TPS makes InFynd more reliable and the leading data provider in the UK.

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Inbound Marketing

SEO content marketing is your ticket to drawing in leads who are ready to convert. Build a thoughtful organic content strategy that lets you zero in on prospects with serious buying intent. Use bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content, such as comparison pages and listicles, to streamline the sales process, especially when your content stays relevant over time, keeping lead costs in check.

Mix up your content offerings, and post videos, and podcasts for different stages of the funnel. It will guide contacts toward making a purchase. And remember, gated landing pages aren't the only game in town!

Calculating Cost Per Lead

It’s the deciding factor of a marketing campaign’s success. You can simply calculate it by using this formula - Total Marketing Spend / Total New Leads = Cost Per Lead (CPL).

For example, if you spent £500 on a campaign and acquired 10 leads, your CPL is £50. This formula can also be used to calculate how many leads you need to acquire to gain profit.

Average Cost Per Lead

It’s a basic understanding that a good CPL should be less than your profit per sale. But what is the average cost per lead? There should be an average amount, right? To get an idea of what you would spend? There isn’t one since the CPL will dramatically (not to exaggerate) vary based on your industry and other factors like competition and target market.

Average cost per lead by industry

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So, a customer journey is incomplete without lead generation, and it remains the top priority for most B2B marketers. However, before increasing your lead generation spending, it's vital to understand your cost per lead thoroughly. Otherwise, you might end up paying more per lead than their actual value.

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