Best way to do CPA lead gen for further education niche?

[James664]

Hi BuSo,

One of my sites is monetized by sending leads to a company in the education niche , however I had to manually set the agreement up with this company and is rather informal (Track leads via email notification ) and don't use an affiliate network as I cannot find one for my niche. I had to negotiate my commission myself as they do not promote the offer on any affiliate networks. I have the option to receive a % commission after a successful sale but am a bit dubious to agree to this if there is no proper analytics for me to track my leads when they exit my site onto the course providers site.

There are multiple companies I could potentially affiliate with but if I apply my current process this will become a bit of a nightmare to manage 5-10 different course providers where I have to chase them for how many people have signed up and also trust that they are giving the right figures (who knows they could leave out a few leads in the monthly report to save themselves paying me commission...)

I am wondering if theres a simpler way I can expand my lead generation from my site with just 1 affiliation to providing leads via email, to providing leads for multiple (5-15) course providers in the education niche?

Apologies in advance if this doesn't make total sense, will be happy to answer more questions.

TL;DR how to set up custom lead gen agreements between me and multiple course providers in the education niche and how to track my outbound leads to see when/if they convert (so i don't get scr*wed by dishonest people!)

Cheers!

 

[Concept]

Hi James,

I currently have a locksmith lead gen site. Like you I was doing a percentage of the conversion. However, it was a pain in the ass following up all the calls, especially when things started to scale and I was getting 10-15 leads a day.

I ended up changing to a straight pay per lead basis, whether it converted for them or not. To find out how much to charge per lead I would ask questions like:

• How many calls would you say turn into paying customers?
• How much do you make on average for each paying customer? Or What is the lifetime value of the customer?
• How much would you be willing to pay for a fresh lead?

This would give me enough information to determine how much I could comfortably charge per lead.

Eg. Let's say they convert 1/4 leads and from each lead they make a profit of $1000. Let's say you charge a 10% commission at the moment. In this case 1/4 of $1000 is $250 and 10% of $250 is $25. So you could charge $25 per lead. This is just an example, but is gives you a good place to start. If they are willing to pay more for a lead then go with that

Always make sure to research the market to get you the best understanding of what you can charge.

The main reason I do pay per lead is it makes it really simple, trackable, scalable and easy to automate. Also, you aren't reliant on their sales skills. You get paid for the service you offer...getting them leads.

Another way to possibly do it is to see if you can somehow plugin to their CRM system. A while back I was thinking of doing a lead gen site around commercial solar. I have a mate who is one of the lead sales people for a major solar company who I was in discussions with. The deal would have been that I send through leads and my name would be automatically added as the "referrer" in their CRM. I would be notified if the customer had moved forward in the sales process. Once the sale had gone through I would receive a % of the profits.

Now the structure in the above example was already existent, so it made it easy for me to plug in, monitor and automate. Is a structure like that available for you? Can you easily create something that would allow you to do that?

Either way, hope that helps

 

[James664]

Thank you so much for your input - that is extremely helpful.

To expand on PPL - how do you track the number of leads coming in? What do you use to track/automate/scale this method?

I haven't heard of the method you mentioned by using their CRM system as the structure to track leads - I will definitely look into this and speak to my affiliate partner and see if this is something we could do.

Thanks in advance!

 

[eliquid]

If its higher education like colleges and universities, you can always reach out to Quinn Street for affiliate stuff.

 

[James664]

If its higher education like colleges and universities, you can always reach out to Quinn Street for affiliate stuff.

Apologies for not mentioning it earlier - my niche is UK focused. Does Quinn Street operate in the UK, or do you know of any UK equivalents?

Thanks

 

[Concept]

Thank you so much for your input - that is extremely helpful.

To expand on PPL - how do you track the number of leads coming in? What do you use to track/automate/scale this method?

I haven't heard of the method you mentioned by using their CRM system as the structure to track leads - I will definitely look into this and speak to my affiliate partner and see if this is something we could do.

Thanks in advance!

Specifically for my locksmith niche, most enquiry comes through phone calls. I use a phone tracking and analytics system that allows me to redirect and track everything.

Unfortunately, the phone tracking company I use is Australian, so they won't be too much help for you.

 

[animalstyle]

@James664 l'vet got some experience doing exactly what you're doing and have been both screwed and not screwed in deals.

I agree with concept that pay per lead is the safest method for you. I do leads both that way and on a commission %. Commission deals make sense for larger agreements or non-scaling operations.

The percentage deal I do plugs in to a service providers CRM, and tagged with me as the referrer on each lead. I track the incoming leads and compare it against the reports they send. You can still get fucked with this system, but it's less likely. You can watch for trends and should believe them when the numbers don't match up. Get a signed biz agreement in place for something like this. It can be leverage or at least show that you're serious.

In both types of agreement I use Gravity Forms which is my favorite Wordpress form plugin. It saves a copy of everything locally, emails me a copy, and sends the lead via email or to the appropriate CRM via API. Highly recommend it.

You protect yourself the most by capturing, cataloging, and monitoring all the information you send out to to partners. It's best to start with no trust and build it rather than give it out and have it broken.

The best situation you can be in is having more than one place to send your leads. You have much more leverage and can make better decisions when you're not stuck with only one place to send them. Also signing new deals by sending free leads for a period of time is a great sales tactic for tough-to-close agreements.