Facebook ads may be effective, but they’re certainly not the only place you can turn to for paid leads. To find out what works, we asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council the following:
Name a digital platform besides Facebook that you’ve had the most success with in generating paid leads. Why has this platform worked so well for you?
Here’s what they said:
1. Google Ads
Google’s campaign customization options, like match types, manual bidding, and in-market audiences, have enabled us to target audiences with a good level of control and accuracy. Additionally, Google Ads provides excellent flexibility for achieving results for clients with varying budget sizes. – Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile LLC
2. YouTube
It already is the second biggest search engine, and it’s becoming even more popular. YouTube allows you to create the kind of an online presence you want. You can share business news or publish educational videos. It’s a great platform for generating new leads. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
3. Instagram
Instagram is the third most popular social media platform after Facebook and YouTube, making it an excellent place to reach many consumers. Additionally, Instagram allows you to design your ads to blend seamlessly into the feed, which encourages more users to pause and engage with your content instead of just scrolling by. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
4. Reddit
Reddit is the 13th most popular website in the United States and an awesome platform for generating paid leads. You can choose which subreddit you want your ad displayed in, so that the users who are most likely to be interested in your product are the ones who will see it. There are subreddits for pretty much any industry including WordPress, WordPress themes, web design, web development and more. – Blair Williams, MemberPress
5. Twitter
Twitter Ads is a great way to generate leads. This platform works well because you have a variety of options at your disposal — promoted trends, promoted tweets and promoted accounts. Best of all, since the ads are held to the same 280 character count as for users, you can get this initiative started without a lot of verbiage or content. – Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
6. Affiliate Marketing Platforms
We’ve found a lot of success in affiliate partnerships with leaders and authority figures in the industry. Using these partnerships lets us work our cost per lead without taking on any of the risk or cost upfronts. – Suneera Madhani, Fattmerchant
7. Yelp
For local businesses, Yelp can be a gold mine. We’ve had success generating leads for restaurants, retail stores and home renovation specialists that operate within a specific location using Yelp Ads. The only tricky thing is you must maintain a good reputation, or the whole strategy will backfire. You don’t want to be promoting a business that doesn’t have a 4 or 5-star rating. – Amine Rahal, Little Dragon Media
8. LinkedIn
Posting LinkedIn ads is the best way to generate paid leads. It allows for targeted marketing with the use of hashtags so that the sponsored content reaches to the relevant audience. The leads generated are most likely to convert, as they are mostly professionals who are already interested in your offering. You can also post video ads which, according to recent trends, are the most engaging. – Rahul Varshneya, Benchpoint
9. SlideShare
SlideShare via LinkedIn has generated paying leads consistently for my SEO agency. We spend a lot of time curating the content of slides, creating everything from infographics to videos, and viewers appreciate this. The digital decision makers are astute about what takes time and is well-developed: Even if they are not paying full attention to the content, they can see it took time to produce. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic