by Sergio Balegno, Research Director

High-Quantity vs. High-Quality Leads Generated by Search Sources


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Google continues to separate itself from the field in terms of both the quality and quantity of leads generated by a paid search marketing provider. But the secret to optimizing paid search results obtained through any provider is the sequential relevancy of the search term to ad listing to landing page.

A search that produces a highly relevant ad listing for the search term used will increase the clickthrough rate. A landing page offer that is highly relevant to both the search term used and the ad listing will increase the conversion rate.

Search is used in a variety of capacities throughout the buying process. Top activities conducted at search sites include researching a problem or technical need, understanding technology product features or specifications, finding product reviews and finding information on a particular service or vendor.

While paid search gives marketers more control, natural search page rankings driven higher by search engine optimization tactics generate as many high-quality leads as all paid search sources combined.

The ultimate search strategies combine search engine optimization and paid search to give marketers and their sales teams the best of both worlds.

For more information on this topic, please download the free Executive Summary from MarketingSherpa’s 2009-10 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report.