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You spend money to make money. This is an old saying, but a true one. When you invest in marketing and advertising, you’re essentially spending money to get your business more visibility and exposure. Any digital marketing lead generation campaign is a long-term strategy (unless you’re willing to spend the big bucks to get some instant results).
As it stands,
- 82% of B2B marketers viewed social media as the top growing marketing channel in a 2021 survey
- 81% of B2B marketers primarily use LinkedIn
- 40% of B2B marketers say that LinkedIn is their most important social platform.
In our experience, your lead generation campaign’s ROI is not something that can be measured accurately in a day, a week, or even the first month of your sales cycle. Instead, it’s something that builds up momentum as time progresses, and you make adjustments based on the data you’re collecting along the way. So, how do you measure your return on investment in LinkedIn campaigns? How do you optimize it?
We understand that it can be hard to see an instant ROI boost in your lead gen campaign when you’re still waiting for those leads to convert into customers and revenue. The good news? That doesn’t have to be the case because today, we’ll show you how smart marketers like you should supercharge their ROI by ironing out the weaknesses in their LinkedIn lead generation campaign.
Read on to learn how to calculate ROI for your lead gen campaign and optimize it for future endeavors!
Recap: What is ROI
Return on investment (ROI) is a measure of how profitable a company is. In accounting terms, it is a financial ratio used to assess the viability of a project by comparing the amount of revenue generated by the project to the amount of money spent to create the project.
Calculating ROI provides insight into whether funds are being used wisely and effectively. ROI is a measurable way of assessing whether your business investments are providing you with a positive return on your money. The greater the return, the more profitable your venture is.
How to Calculate ROI on a LinkedIn Lead Generation Campaign
In digital marketing lead generation, the return on investment is calculated by taking the profit generated from the campaign and dividing it by the total amount spent on the campaign. The result is multiplied by 100 to convert it into a percentage. Profit is calculated by subtracting the total cost of the campaign from the total revenue generated by the campaign.
When calculating ROI for lead generation campaigns, it’s important to take into account the total cost and profit of each campaign. For example, if you spend $500 on a campaign and generate $5,000 in revenue from that campaign, your ROI can be calculated as follows:
5000-500 x 100 = 900%
500
However, ROI is not just a game of numbers because a lot goes into the total revenues and expenses incurred by your company.
The more you know about how your marketing dollars are spent and how they affect the bottom line, the better decisions you can make about your LinkedIn lead generation campaign. It’s crucial to track your ROI at the end of your sales cycle and ensure that you are getting the most bang for your buck!
LinkedIn Lead Gen ROI vs. Other Types of Lead Gen Campaigns
How do you compare the ROI from one lead generation campaign to another? Let’s say your marketing team has generated leads from three sources:
- A Facebook ad campaign
- A Google AdWords campaign
- A LinkedIn advertising campaign
From a financial standpoint, the ROI definition in all these campaigns remains the same no matter what channel you use. From a B2B lead generation standpoint, things are a little different partly because of the additional metrics that point down to your company’s ROI. A better illustration can be derived from a 2019 LinkedIn report.
The report concludes that LinkedIn marketers measure KPIs instead of the actual ROI if they attempt to calculate the return on investment long before the end of the sales cycle. This report further adds that:
- 77% of marketers measure returns during the first month of the campaign, which is too soon. A normal sales cycle lasts about 6 months.
- Only 4% of marketers measure ROI after 6 months or longer.
- Marketers who measure ROI too soon are actually measuring KPIs and not the actual ROI.
Some of the key performance indicators mistaken for the actual LinkedIn ROI are:
- Reach
- Cost per lead
- Likes/shares/followers
- Number of leads
- Conversion rates
These numbers are a mere pointer of the expected returns by the end of the sales cycle. For greater accuracy, you can analyze the results of your previous digital marketing lead generation campaigns and optimize your efforts. If you’re getting a large number of leads from one particular campaign, you need to divert more resources toward it.
If you’re getting leads from several campaigns but don’t have enough resources to follow up on all of them, you need to select the most profitable campaign to focus your attention on.
Target Areas to Decrease the Cost of LinkedIn Lead Gen and Optimize your ROI
The cost of lead generation can be significant for your business. It costs about 2x to 5x to generate a lead on LinkedIn compared to Facebook. Obviously, there are several ways to cut down the cost of a campaign, such as reducing the number of ad tests (it costs between $2000-$5000 to test for campaigns that work).
- Improve your targeting – If your outreach isn’t getting opens, replies, or clicks, you’re most likely not generating leads. One of the best ways to optimize your lead generation campaigns is by improving your targeting. Target the people who are most suited to your business.
- Keep your ads fresh – Ads have a shelf-life lasting between a couple of days or weeks before they become obsolete to the target audience. You’re probably wasting money if your ads are a couple weeks old and you’re not getting the recognition.
- Adjust your ad bids – LinkedIn ads are sold in an auction. Optimizing your bidding strategy (manual or automated ad delivery) can save money in the end. You want to choose a bidding strategy that delivers the biggest results with minimal risk.
- Test different LinkedIn campaign types – Another strategy you can use to optimize your lead generation campaigns is to test different campaign types to see what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, ad testing gobbles up a substantial amount of money, unless you don’t mind paying the price upfront. On the bright side, setting up an ad campaign on LinkedIn starts with a minimum of $10. Compare the ad performance with other cold or semi-warm outreach campaigns via InMails, connection requests, and content efforts.
There are more areas you can optimize to bring down the cost of your LinkedIn lead generation, and at the same time, increase your ROI, and make your business more profitable in the long run.
5 Ways to Optimize the Return on Investment for LinkedIn Lead Generation Campaigns
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, so it’s no surprise that it’s one of the best places to source B2B leads. If you’re not using LinkedIn for lead gen, you should be. It’s one of the best places to find high-quality business partners. With over 850 million users, you’re sure to find the right people to add to your funnel in this network.
One major challenge we see companies struggle with is staying relevant to their audience. So, how do you make sure that your company remains relevant in a fast-paced digital world?
- You ditch the vanity metrics such as views and subscribers and invest in a campaign that’s specifically tailored to reach your target audience and drive leads that convert into sales or potential customers. The best way to do this is by using a strategic, data-driven approach in your marketing efforts. In order to do this, you will need to start by determining your company’s business goals and understanding your target audience.
- Once you have identified your target audience, however, things get a bit trickier. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile, understanding its nuances and identifying the right people to connect with all require some prep work before diving in. Ask these questions to gauge your main purpose for connecting with these people:
- Are you trying to generate more in-person sales or website clicks?
- Are you looking to grow your brand awareness or host a Q&A on your company blog?
- Are you trying to sell a product to your customers?
In essence, what are you trying to achieve?
- Furnish your company profile. This is your one chance to showcase your company, service, or product to potential customers, so make sure it’s polished and impressive. Add relevant keywords to your profile, keep it updated, and make sure your profile image is eye-catching.
- Make sure your company has a strategic presence on LinkedIn. That might include setting up a company page, joining relevant groups, or connecting with influencers and thought leaders.
- Finally, you can boost lead generation by optimizing your content. The best way to do this is to create targeted and personalized content. You want your readers to feel like they have a one-on-one conversation with you, not like they’re reading a generic advertisement from a stranger.
Ask questions in your blog posts. Ask your readers what they’d like to know more about, or what their biggest challenges are in your industry. Once you have the questions, start researching and build content addressing their pain points.
How Outreachly’s No Risk Service Can Optimize ROI for Your LinkedIn Lead Gen Campaign
Outreachly’s No Risk Service is the ultimate LinkedIn lead generation service for sales-hungry teams looking to generate high-quality leads and meetings. Our risk-free LinkedIn lead generation campaigns are designed to help you generate quality leads and meetings quickly and easily.
Once you sign up, you’ll get a fully managed campaign and you won’t have to spend hours building a single lead generation campaign yourself from scratch. Instead, you can focus on closing sales and generating revenue for your business.
Our No Risk Sales campaigns are backed by a 100% money-back guarantee, so if you don’t receive the results you want, you can simply ask for your money back. You only pay for the meetings and leads you receive, so you can easily track your ROI. If you’re looking for a sales tool that will help you close more deals and generate more revenue, then our No Risk Sales campaigns are perfect for you!
So, what are you waiting for? Order your leads and meetings, and we’ll get down to work in no time! Join the next demo for more information about how our product will serve you.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to calculate the ROI for your LinkedIn lead generation campaigns, you can optimize your lead generation and marketing campaigns with ease.
The key to optimizing your lead generation campaigns is to conduct a detailed analysis of your current campaigns, track your active campaigns, reduce costs, increase conversions, and measure campaign performance. Once you implement these essential tips, you’ll be well on your way to optimizing your lead generation campaigns and maximizing your return on investment.
