In a world where marketing budgets are stretched thin, paid social media has cemented itself as the darling of lead generation strategies. But are we banking too much on its allure? It’s time to delve deeper and expose the cracks beneath the glossy surface that paid social marketing projects when it comes to lead generation.
Social Media’s Relentless Reach or Oversaturation?
It’s undeniable, social media platforms boast a staggering user base. For e-commerce businesses, this seems like a goldmine; however, the reality is rather sobering. As more brands flood these platforms, competition skyrockets, making it increasingly difficult, and expensive, to grab attention. This saturation doesn’t just dilute impact; it drives up customer acquisition costs to unsustainable levels.
The Mirage of Quality Leads
The supposed benefit of paid social strategies is often the sheer volume of leads one can gather, often through lead-specific ad formats. However, volume doesn’t equate to quality. Businesses frequently find themselves buried under an avalanche of low-intent leads, users who clicked out of curiosity rather than genuine interest. The seamless nature in which users can “opt-in” to lead forms often means that people mistake or misalign with what they are signing up for. This can often lead high lead churn and low engagement as users “discover” what they signed up for. These leads might augment your database, but do they truly align with your high-value customer profiles? More often than not, the answer is no. Consider the relentless pursuit of ROI: conversion rates from paid social often reveal sobering figures, with a significant portion of leads failing to progress down the sales funnel. It’s like a great win, at the time, to get 10,000 leads into a CRM in under a week. Over months, that turns into a lifetime value nightmare.
The Blackbox Targeting
As the social media platforms pull more and more of the targeting options behind a curtain, removing the autonomy for marketers to make decisions on who they’d like to target, questions abound as to who’s being targeted and why they’re being targeted. The only time at which the targeting criteria gets questioned is once the leads have been acquired, put into a CRM system, and engagement has begun. Results have proven poor.
Vertical challenges
Most brands with specialist audiences and specialist products often find these paid social lead form products lacking. Being encouraged say less to get more in both their paid social creative and lead-form capture often means that vertical specialist marketers find their paid social leads are “mis-sold” on the product/offering lead to high unsub rates.
Finding the Right Blend
Smartly executed and at the right levels, paid social leads can be an important part of a brand’s attempt to acquire and grow their CRM. But the quick and cheap approach of putting all your eggs in one basket has led to some serious buyer’s remorse on behalf of marketers. Creating a blended strategy for lead generation is really the sustainable approach that marketers should be considering. Quality lead partners using data-driven approaches such as esbconnect combined with paid social, organic social, owned and operated content, and co-brand partnerships can lead to a much higher quality lead mix.
In conclusion, while paid social might appear to offer an easy route to a large audience, the hidden costs and low-quality leads can drag down your marketing effectiveness. It’s time to pivot towards smarter, more sustainable strategies that deliver real results. Ready to shift your focus from quantity to quality in lead generation? Discover how esbconnect’s Customer+ can transform your lead strategy today.
