How can one say pay per lead is better than pay per click? Neither a lead nor a click is money in your pocket. It is just one step on a marketing journey. Even if a lead cost the same as a click, it doesn’t mean that the click was less valuable. It doesn’t mean anything until you gather enough data to determine the value per click and compare that to the value per lead.
It is certainly possible that low-quality leads may be less valuable than high-quality clicks, so in some cases, a click will have more value on average than a source of low-value leads. To prejudge either one, without data is the hallmark of a novice marketer.
An experienced marketer knows that you need to use real data to measure the value of a lead or a click. To choose one over the other without any real data is just baseless guessing and not real marketing. Experienced marketers know better than to let preconceived notions cloud their judgment. Why guess when you have data?
Let me ask the question this way, which would you prefer a click that has an average value per click of $4, or a lead that has an average value per lead of $0.55, assuming they both cost the same? Do you see how knowing the value makes all the difference?
We see lots of mistakes here on this forum by folks that make the assumption that all clicks have the exact same value, they usually make the mistake of seeking the cheapest most worthless clicks they can find, usually from some sister selling fake bot traffic or similar. Cost is not the same thing as value, your goal is to find traffic that is more valuable than the cost, and each source has it’s own unique average value.
In fact, in PPC advertising, every keyword has it’s own unique value per click, and even within the same data set you will find unique values based on geographic locations, device type, time of day, and other factors. You can adjust your bids for each of those lead sources and factors, in near real-time, to make sure that you are always paying less than the value per click, which is something you generally cannot do in pay per lead programs. Perhaps this is why Pay-per-click is most commonly used by experienced marketers with thriving businesses, and pay-per-lead is most commonly used by new and unsophisticated marketers that are just learning the ropes?
