Has anyone ever worked out a cost-per-lead structure with a local client?

[carltonrsmith]

My niche is law, and I have an attorney who is struggling to get up and running. I am thinking about offering a reduced percentage on my services but build in a cost-per-lead pricing.
I would track the conversions with Google Analytics, inbound marketing software, and CallRail.
Has anyone on here ever operated in a similar manner with their clients?
If so, what was the percentage?
Can you comment any on how the experience worked out for you?

Thanks

 

[JacobMaslow]

I turn those away all the time.

If you are going to do that, do it on your own site so you can completely control it.

You can also use a redirect. All links and citations to a site you own that is redirected to the lawyer.

My niche is law, and I have an attorney who is struggling to get up and running. I am thinking about offering a reduced percentage on my services but build in a cost-per-lead pricing.
I would track the conversions with Google Analytics, inbound marketing software, and CallRail.
Has anyone on here ever operated in a similar manner with their clients?
If so, what was the percentage?
Can you comment any on how the experience worked out for you?

Thanks

 

[CodyBaird]

It's tuff. You will find yourself in two positions if the going gets good; one - you built up the clients assets (website, citation and link profile) and then he doesn't want to pay that fat fee and gives you boot. Two you build up your assets instead of his and then have to pull a rug out which will also open a different can of worms.

I've found that relationships...end. it's just a matter of when. Sometimes it's not even because you or they did a bad job. Sometimes you outgrow them or vice versa. Sometimes they just need fresh ideas.

Learn your value and charge for it. Tell those unwilling to pay no but keep them in your loop. After they fail somewhere else they may give you a shot.

Really good companies don't give a percentage of their sales in my experience, only bad ones or those without the resources to win long term.

 

[Ashwin]

Back in the day, I experimented with offering pay-per-lead type services for local businesses. We ended up signing up almost 200 customers for this service and blew a lot of money without much results to show for.

We set up websites from scratch, call tracking, analytics, content and the whole nine yards for everyone who signed up. The biggest problem with these sort of engagements is that it's very very hard to predict how many leads you can generate for a customer and pricing the leads also gets challenging because every client is different.

But, I do think pay-per-lead could be a very good win win situation for a client and industry that you understand very well and where you're confident of generating leads on a regular basis.

 

[CaseyMeraz]

I experimented with this business model at one point and am launching some attorney lead generation websites to do another test here soon. I would say that it all comes down to proper tracking and being diligent with your reporting.

If you're doing it for an attorney client though are you doing it on leads or cases signed? There is a lot of potential ambiguity there. I love helping people who are struggling but for business it can be a bit challenging. What if they close their doors after a year and no leads? Are you continually investing into the website? Will you own if if he does close his doors? There's a lot of variables, but It's a difficult model if you're trying to compete as an attorney because there is a lot of work to do things the right way.

 

[leadjoint]

I would not advise this. There are far too many variables that can impact your gains (or losses). What happens if your client forgets to renew their hosting account and possible leads are unable to send across their inquiry? How do you handle a scenario where your client refuses to move away from their cheap web host or does not want to redesign their ugly website and that affects your ranking or conversions?

A lot of people host their own websites and only sell exclusive leads - that is a far better scenario since you control all the variables. But when you are only responsible for SEO and the web host, web design, etc. are not in your control, you should not be expected to take the fall for factors you are not responsible for.