.svg){kind=logo}
In the world of digital marketing, many businesses are still focused on one metric: lead volume. But here’s the harsh truth—more leads don’t always equal more sales. What truly matters is high-quality leads. If you're overwhelmed with a high volume of leads that aren’t converting, you might be throwing money away.
So, what’s the solution? It all starts with understanding and defining what a quality lead is for you and using your marketing tools strategically to attract high-value clients who are ready to buy. Let’s dive into three key strategies for improving lead quality and boosting your ROI.
1. More Leads ≠ More Revenue
"We need fewer leads” said no Marketing or Sales team ever.
But I recently told a client they needed exactly that. Fewer leads. Sounds odd, right? But their problem wasn’t the number of leads—they were drowning in them. The issue was that their previous agency had focused on volume, flooding them with contacts that either didn’t match their services or simply didn’t have the budget. It was wasting their time, causing them to miss opportunities, and led to a frustrated sales team constantly chasing dead ends.
This is a common issue when businesses focus on lead generation volume rather than lead quality. Here’s where things went wrong for this client:
❌ Lack of targeting: Their ads were shown to too many people, regardless of relevance.
❌ Mismatched ad copy: The messaging didn’t align with the needs or pain points of their ideal customers.
❌ Irrelevant keywords: Their Google Ads were pulling in clicks from people searching for unrelated topics.
The takeaway? When it comes to lead generation, quality beats quantity every time. A handful of well-targeted, ready-to-buy leads will always trump a flood of unqualified prospects.
How to Improve Lead Quality:
- Zone in on your most valuable customers: Identify the clients who bring you the most business and have the highest lifetime value. Focus on finding more people like them.
- Optimise your keywords: Make sure your Google Ads target the specific search terms your ideal customers use.
- Clarify your ad copy: Your ads should speak directly to the needs of your high-value clients, showcasing how your product solves their problems.
For the client in this example, after making these adjustments, they reduced their lead volume by 30% but saw a 200% increase in revenue.
2. Stop Wasting Your Money On Irrelevant Search Terms
Let’s talk Google Ads. Are you checking your search terms report? If not, you could be wasting your ad budget every single day.
Many businesses overlook this crucial report, but it reveals the exact search terms people are using to trigger your ads. And, spoiler alert: a lot of those terms may have nothing to do with your business.
One of the biggest culprits? Broad match keywords. While broad keywords can cast a wide net, they often pull in irrelevant traffic. If you’re not careful, your ads might be shown to people searching for entirely unrelated products or services.
Here’s why this matters for lead quality:
- Broad keywords can drain your budget by generating clicks from users who aren’t your target market.
- Irrelevant clicks don’t just waste money—they also lower your conversion rate, making it harder to improve your campaign performance over time.
How to Fix It:
- Regularly review your search terms report to see exactly what queries are triggering your ads.
- If you find irrelevant terms, add them to your negative keyword list to stop your ads from showing for those searches.
- Consider switching from broad match to phrase match or exact match keywords to narrow your audience.
By fine-tuning your keyword strategy, you can cut out waste and increase your percentage of high-quality leads, bringing in prospects who are genuinely interested in your offerings.
3. Narrow Your Focus: Targeting the Right Clients
It’s a marketing cliché for a reason: If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no one. The reality is that if you try to appeal to a broad audience, you end up attracting… well, no one specific. That’s why effective lead generation requires precise targeting.
Instead of casting a wide net and hoping for the best, focus your marketing efforts on attracting the right leads—the high-value clients who truly need what you offer.
Key Ways to Refine Your Targeting:
- Geographically: Focus on regions where your product or service has the most potential. If you’re targeting clients in specific countries or cities, use geo-targeting in your campaigns to ensure your ads are only shown to people in those areas.
- Demographically: Hone in on prospects based on factors like age, income, job title, or industry. By understanding who your ideal clients are, you can tailor your messaging to better resonate with them.
- Device Search: Are your customers more likely to find you on their mobile devices, desktop, or tablet? Tailor your ad campaigns based on which devices your audience uses most frequently to ensure you’re reaching them where they are.
By narrowing down your targeting, you’re not just increasing clicks—you’re attracting prospects who are more likely to convert. In short, you’re enhancing lead quality by focusing on the leads that matter most.
The Bottom Line on Lead Quality
Generating more leads isn’t always the answer to driving more sales. To truly boost your bottom line, you need to focus on increasing the percentage of high-quality leads—attracting the high-value prospects who are ready to buy, rather than chasing volume.
Whether it’s refining your ad targeting, optimising your keywords, or reviewing your search terms report, every step you take toward improving lead quality can have a dramatic impact on your business. The result? Less time and money wasted on dead-end leads and more time spent converting high-value clients.
Boost Your High-Quality Leads With Lever
If you’re ready to start improving your lead quality and maximising your marketing ROI, get in touch. We’d be happy to walk you through how we can help you attract more of the right leads, reduce wasted spend, and grow your revenue.
.svg){kind=logo}
