PPC for Lead Generation: 10 Pro Tips to Get More Leads

PPC for lead generation is a digital marketing strategy that attracts potential customers to your website through targeted ads. Bring more (qualified) leads into your pipeline with these tried-and-tested tips.

When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) lead generation campaigns, the more you invest, the more leads you’re likely to see.

The tricky part is that quantity doesn’t equal quality.

The good news? With the right PPC strategy, you can achieve your lead gen goals, attract the right kinds of leads, and see the campaign ROI you deserve.

HawkSEM CEO and Co-founder Sam Yadegar shares his expert tips and insight in this guide.

What is PPC for lead generation?

PPC for lead generation refers to the process of using pay-per-click advertising campaigns to attract and capture new leads for your business.

It involves creating targeted ads that appear on search engine results pages or other online platforms.

When clicked, these ads direct users to a landing page where they can provide their contact information (or take another desired action).

PPC lead gen allows your business to reach a specific audience, track campaign performance, generating leads that have a higher likelihood of converting.

Who should use PPC for lead generation?

If you’re a service based business with a budget, chances are PPC advertising is the right move for you.

“Service based companies benefit most from PPC lead generation campaigns,” says Yadegar.

“Especially if you have a complex sales cycle or provide a consultative approach to winning new business.”

10 expert tips to increase leads through PPC

While PPC is a powerful tool to generate leads, it’s important to implement expert tips to see that success. Here are our top expert tips:

1. Create customized landing pages
2. Practice target audience segmentation
3. Create copy that gets attention through a (valuable) offer
4. Focus on your “money” keywords
5. Track your campaign and ad groups
6. A/B test
7. Conduct regular optimizations
8. Choose long-tail keywords
9. Use remarketing
10. Leverage a CRM tool

1. Create customized landing pages

Not all landing pages are created equal, and your PPC ads are only as effective as their corresponding landing pages.

A lot goes into creating a killer landing page (and you can find the full details in this post), but here are some of the basics:

• Use high-quality images of people without text: landing pages that have images of people instead of objects result in a higher click-through rate (CTR). Images without text also have a 52% higher CTR than images that do have text.
• Include pricing and contact information: Landing pages that include a price can double lead generation – if a price isn’t displayed, potential customers automatically assume that the product is expensive. Similarly, people want to know that you are easy to contact — displaying your phone number, social media pages, or email addresses add valuable credibility.
• A/B test and optimize: A/B split testing is regarded as the best method for improving conversions, with 60% of businesses deeming this method “highly valuable.”
• Maintain continuity with your ads: If your ad call-to-action (CTA) says, “Get a free ebook,” then your landing page should be where the user can download the content (with or without filling out a short form). If it requires extra clicks, these people are likely to leave the website, upping your bounce rate.

Pro tip: Google can punish you for leading clients to a different page than you promised in the ad. Search engines consider this practice deceptive and may lower your Quality Score, increasing the ad’s price as a result.

2. Practice target audience segmentation

Are your PPC campaigns set up to target each product or service separately? If so, you may not be getting as many high-quality leads as you could.

Divide your offering into as many groups as possible. But instead of segmenting by products or services, you should look to segment by:

• Industry
• Sub-categories
• Features
• Benefits
• Geographic locations

If, for example, you provide managed IT services in LA, you can segment by:

• Industry: Managed IT services
• Sub-category: Managed security, managed cloud infrastructure, managed SaaS, managed communication services
• Features: Antivirus software maintenance, hardware management, disaster recovery plan, software inventory management, quick response IT assistance
• Benefit: High-quality IT services, quick response managed IT, low-cost managed IT services
• Geographical location: Managed IT services in LA, remote managed IT services in LA

When you segment the audience accordingly, you will find it easier to set up a campaign, use the right keywords, write ad copy, and create specific landing pages.

3. Create copy that gets attention through a (valuable) offer

Carefully craft impactful copy and use the power of your words to elicit an emotional response and conquer the hearts of the people who see your ads.

Prioritize ad copy that’s clear about what your offer is, the benefits, how to get it, and who you are — being clever is a bonus.

The first question to ask yourself when you create PPC ad copy is: Which stage of the buyer’s journey is your targeted audience in?

For example, product-focused copy that leads them to product-oriented pages might not do much if they’re in the awareness stage.

Here are some quick tips for writing effective ad copy:

• Always address the potential client directly (use “you” and “your”)
• Leverage emotional triggers
• Use exact numbers (feature statistics, show product prices, advertise a sale)
• Make use of the entire space offered by Google Ads — don’t leave blank space
• Show what makes your offer unique

And, of course, A/B test your ad copy to see which one resonates most.

4. Focus on your “money” keywords

Keywords are the pillars of your PPC campaign. So, after segmenting your audience, the next step is to dive into the keyword search.

Tools like SpyFu and UberSuggest exist to help you gather a list of relevant keywords while keeping the competition’s efforts in mind.

You can arrange your keywords using Semrush’s PPC Keyword Tool.

Below are the keyword types to explore for your PPC campaign:

• Brand keywords: Include brand names
• High-intent keywords: Specific keywords for buyers at the bottom of the funnel
• Low-intent keywords: To help expand your reach and increase brand awareness
• Long-tail keywords: Low-cost and low-competition keywords
• Competitive keywords: High-volume keywords used by many companies in your target industry

And don’t forget about negative keywords. You can filter them out by using the Search Term Report and determining which keywords are generating irrelevant clicks.

(Check out our complete guide on negative keywords here.)

By putting them on the negative keyword list, you can improve the quality of your leads while cutting campaign costs (win-win!).

5. Track your campaign and ad groups

Your PPC campaigns need regular fine-tuning to ensure they’re as optimized as possible.

Track your efforts to keep a pulse on what needs changing.

You can get an idea of what works and what doesn’t by following the key PPC marketing KPIs:

• Impressions: How many times have your ads appear in search results
• Clicks: How many times have users clicked your ad
• Click-through rate (CTR): the percentage of users who clicked the ad (clicks divided by impressions)
• Average position: a position in which your ads appeared on the search engine results page
• Conversions: how many leads who clicked the ad followed the CTA within a certain window of time
• Quality Score: an indicator of your ad, keyword, and landing page relevance to the user
• Cost per conversion: how much you spend to obtain a new client
• Bounce rate: people who clicked but left without following the CTA

6. A/B test

A/B testing allows you to experiment and mix and match variations of copy, design, and targeting until you find the perfect formula for optimal lead generation.

You can learn more in our full guide, but here’s brief overview of how to A/B test:

1. Define your goal

Your goal should be specific and measurable. Additionally, you should be able to compare it to your metrics at the end of your split test.

2. Pick one variable or element to test

This can include include:

• Images
• Homepage messaging
• Keywords and match types
• Videos
• Infographics
• Ad copy
• Headings
• Meta descriptions
• Website copy
• Fonts
• Colors
• CTAs
• Buttons
• Lead form items

Landing pages are a great place to start with A/B testing.

3. Establish a sample size

Your sample size should garner “statistically significant results.” This ideal size can look different for each business, but you can analyze your weekly web visitors and traffic specs to determine yours.

4. Identify your timeframe

Two weeks is a good starting point, but not every business will fit this schedule.

5. Assess A/B test results

Examine how the different variations measured up against your initial metrics and goals.

7. Conduct regular optimizations

A major aspect of PPC lead generation is optimization.

You will need to keep a sharp eye on your campaigns and cut the underperforming keywords and ads.

Keep a close watch on your campaign’s performance and adapt quickly because what performs well in one moment may start to lose momentum as trends and circumstances change.

Our PPC optimization guide walks you through the full process, including a deep dive into these top tips:

• Explore manual bidding
• Take advantage of remarketing
• Explore Microsoft Ads
• Harness Amazon Ads for ecommerce businesses
• Leverage responsive search ads (RSAs)
• Optimize your website
• Conduct keyword research
• Check in on your conversion tracking
• Add Performance Max campaigns to the mix
• Always A/B test PPC campaigns
• Know when to keep optimizing vs. when to scrap it

8. Choose long-tail keywords

We quickly touched on the different types of keywords you can choose for different campaign goals. But one of the most important considerations in PPC lead generation is which long-tail words to target.

Keywords, both short and long, can reveal a lot about user intent. And as the game we’re playing here is all about lead quality, we need to find the right intent. Long-tail keywords can get very specific, and this helps us be more certain of the user’s intent.

Short keywords may lack the intent we’re looking for, but we can still make use of them. When you add modifiers to short keywords, you can transform them into precise and powerful long-tail keywords.

For example, say that someone is searching for the term “insurance policies.” It’s a bit vague, isn’t it? But when someone searches for “life insurance policies for seniors,” now we’re talking!

They have been more specific about their needs. And guess what? Because of that, they’re more likely to convert into paying customers.

To start using longer tail keywords, take a look at your current keyword list. Do keyword research and find any opportunities you can to make them more specific.

If there are any modifiers like the one we mentioned that can supercharge your keywords with higher intent, then start targeting those words instead.

Remember, the longer the keyword, the better chance you have of attracting users who know exactly what they want. And that is a game-changer for lead quality.

9. Use remarketing

Also called retargeting, remarketing to potential new customers who have completed a qualified action, like signing up for a white paper or clicking on a specific link, will help you make the most of your website visitors.

If they already showed interest in something important to your business, why let them just go away? Instead, try to convert them with an offer. Make the most of your ad spend by reaching those leads again.

10. Leverage a CRM tool

CRM tools like HubSpot are important to your marketing campaigns. Once you get the lead, you need to keep track of it, score it, and use it to refine your PPC lead generation strategies.

A CRM tool helps you determine what leads close, how many of your leads close, and how the lead quality was. It will also help you keep track of lifetime value.

What your data tells you will help you understand the true cost per lead and inform your ongoing PPC management strategy.

Why is PPC a good marketing strategy for lead generation?

There are a slew of benefits of PPC, making it a valuable strategy for service based businesses:

• Targeted audience: PPC campaigns allow you to target specific keywords, demographics, locations, and interests, ensuring your ads reach the right audience who are actively searching for products or services related to your business.
• Immediate visibility: Unlike organic search engine optimization (SEO), PPC ads provide immediate visibility on search engine results pages, allowing you to quickly generate qualified leads and increase brand exposure when your ads are well optimized.
• Measurable results: PPC platforms offer robust conversion tracking and analytics tools, enabling you to measure KPIs such as impressions, clicks, conversions, and cost per conversion. This data makes lead generation easier as you can optimize your campaigns based on accurate data.
• ROI potential: PPC can be an expensive investment. But a solid lead generation strategy helps you ensure you get the maximum ROI possible and that you aren’t wasting your ad budget by sending potential leads to lousy landing pages or targeting low-intent keywords.

PPC leads: quality vs. quantity

“Over the past month, we’ve generated 500 leads.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? But what does it really mean for your business?

The number that you should focus on is not the quantity (500) but the quality (how many of them convert).

If only 100 of your leads convert, then you’ve got a 0.67% conversion rate, which is quite low. That means your ROI (return on investment) may be barely breaking even.

But there are some clear signs that someone will be a low-quality lead. And you should avoid targeting them in your campaigns. Skip targeting audiences that:

• Window shop without an intent to buy
• Click to get a free gift in exchange for contact information (and share fake details)
• Click out of boredom or aimless curiosity
• Think they’ll get something else due to unclear or misleading ad copy

But how can you know that an audience behaves in the ways we’ve listed above? A good place to start is with lead scoring.

Lead scoring: What it is and how to do it

Lead scoring is a process that assigns values to leads and ranks them against each other. This helps you weed out leads that aren’t worth your time and gain some insight into how your campaigns are working.

This guide walks you through how to set up a lead scoring system through your CRM (at HawkSEM we use ConversionIQ for lead scoring).

And while it isn’t part of Google Ads, it certainly can improve your ads’ performance. There are several lead scoring models just like there are several attribution models.

The basic idea is to assign a point system to your leads. Perhaps you give a negative number to spam or people who fall outside of the geographic location you cover.

Then, one point for engaging with an email and two points for calling. Essentially, the more points a lead has, the more qualified (and more likely to convert) they are.

The takeaway

Of course, you want your ad campaigns to generate qualified, high-quality leads.

With a strategic, thoughtful approach to ad design, keyword search, analytics, and segmentation, you can achieve your conversion goals through PPC lead generation campaigns — and see an impressive ROI as a result.

If you want a qualified marketing agency to help you along the way, we’ve got you covered.

This post has been updated and was originally published in May 2020.