For any business that wants to make more sales and conversions, chances are they’ve already started building their email list. But starting your list is but the tip of the iceberg – to truly scale and grow your business, you need to grow your list with highly qualified leads fast.

In this post, we’ll show you why investing in paid social media advertising can be the best way to skyrocket your email list growth. Then we’ll walk you through each step to help you launch your first high-converting paid lead generation campaign.

Why Use Paid Ads to Quickly Grow Your Email List?

Need a few reasons to convince your marketing team to use paid ads on social media? We can think of at least three compelling reasons.

1. Organic Posts Just Don’t Cut it Anymore

These days, social networks require you to pay to play. The average reach of an organic (meaning unboosted) social media post on Facebook is about 6-7% of your total following.

The case isn’t much brighter for dedicated websites and blogs relying on organic SEO, either. Twent-seven million WordPress blogs alone are on the internet, and that’s not counting blogs and sites that run on Squarespace, Joomla, and the like. What this means is there are countless others who might be doing what you’re doing, so you need to do what you can to make your content really stand out.

2. Targeted Ad Campaigns Drive Qualified Traffic

Another reason you should use paid advertising to grow your email list is because targeting features of these ad campaigns get you in front of your target audience right away.

The typical organic SEO campaign can take a few months up to years before showing you results, so if you want to see return and build your email list sooner than that, targeted ads are the way to go.

3. You Can Drive the Traffic Immediately to a Landing Page

Because you control just about every parameter in your ad, you can immediately link to a dedicated landing page for capturing leads. You can direct audiences straight to your free offer instead of hoping that a visitor on your website or social media accounts will stumble upon it when browsing your page.

A Step-By-Step Guide for Getting More Email Subscribers Using Paid Ads on Social Media

Ready to build your first social media ad campaign for lead generation? Just follow these easy steps.

1. Set Your Campaign Goals

With any campaign, goals, like getting more site reviews or getting more sign-ups, have to be established from the get-go, as these inform the rest of your campaign.

Because your purpose for putting up these ads is to capture more qualified leads to your email list, you’ll want to focus on your conversion rates. Set some benchmarks for how much reach you want on your campaign versus the amount of clicks and sign-ups you aim to receive.

Following these next few steps will then help you make sure your conversion rates are as optimized as possible.

2. Review or Update Your Buyer Persona

Your buyer persona is the key to make sure your campaign gets the most bang for your buck. On the one hand, your buyer persona will tell you which social platforms your audience is on, so you know where to invest your advertising budget.

Creating an effective buyer persona can also help you identify other interests or accounts your target audience is following on social media, so you’re able to set the proper targeting parameters and start getting hot leads.

Finally, your buyer persona tells you what your target audiences’ long-term and short-term goals are – crucial information to help you craft your lead magnet, as we’ll discuss in the next section.

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3. Create an Irresistible Lead Magnet

You’ll want to have a lead magnet offer that’s so compelling to your target customers that they can’t imagine leaving your landing page without signing up first. To make sure your free offer is as irresistible as possible, focus on a small and immediate win that potential leads can enjoy after receiving your gift.

Often, you want this lead magnet to provide instant value that can propel action right away. It may help if you map your lead offer against your marketing funnel. Determine where consumers are in their journey vis-a-vis your offer so that you can present them with a highly relevant lead magnet to entice sign-ups.

As a litmus test, ask yourself if your lead magnet can help your target audience take immediate action that helps them get closer to their long-term goal.

4. Identify Your Advertising Channels and Allocate According to Your Budget

To make sure you’re reaching your target customer, make sure you’re investing in channels that they frequent. Depending on their behavior and goals, they might favor certain social media channels over others.

People’s propensity to pay attention to certain ads may also vary depending on the channel. For example, a corporate professional might be on Facebook and Instagram, but they might pay more attention to ads they see on LinkedIn.

Don’t worry too much about which platform should get a bigger ad allocation. As time passes on your first campaign, you’ll eventually see which channels convert the most.

To track performance across the channels you choose, you can use a tool like UTM.io.

5. Set Up a High-Converting Landing Page

Next, you want to design and set up your landing page for maximum conversions. Here are a few best practices you’ll want to follow:

• Copywriting converts. Use easy-to-understand terms and phrases, ideally based on your target audiences’ own speech or jargon.
•  A clear and enticing CTA button can help you convert sign-ups on forms. Use action words such as “Download now” or “Get your copy” to compel action.
• Assume that many viewers will stumble upon your ad on their mobile devices. Because of this, keep important elements such as a conversion-centric headline and sign-up form above the fold.
• Your design should be clean and straightforward. Include elements like key testimonials and benefits of your lead magnet, and show a well-designed mock-up of your offer to make it feel more tangible for users.

6. Create Eye-Catching Ad Visuals

Your ad visuals will be the first point of contact for most of your sign-ups and can drive first impressions about your brand and offer.

If your ad relies on graphics such as posters or an ad carousel, make sure your images are eye-catching and beautifully designed. Use key text to highlight your offer if needed.

Different visuals might work better on different social networks. For example, Instagram is a visual network, so having beautiful photos is key to getting people’s attention.

7. Write Your Ad Copy

Your ad copy is what supports and provides more context for your lead magnet, even before visitors click through to your landing page. Keep your ad copy as succinct as possible, highlighting compelling benefits, features, and transformations for your audience if they sign up to receive your offer.

As a best practice, you can create a headline or make the first line of your ad copy as eye-catching as possible. Aim to establish a connection with audiences right away. Phrases that begin with “Have you ever” or state surprising facts often do well to catch people’s attention.

It’s also important to note any copy-related guidelines or regulations from each social network, be it on word count or targeting limits.

8. A/B Test All Available Variables

With anything digital marketing, A/B testing your ads is one of the best ways to help you create better ones in the future. Make it a habit to create multiple versions promoting your lead offer, and switch up variables incrementally.

Different variables you can test include copy, headlines, graphics, and even ad formats, i.e., graphics versus video versus carousel. When you learn which types of ads perform best for your business, you’ll be able to craft better campaigns moving forward.

Other than your ad campaign itself, you can also A/B test your landing page elements, such as CTAs, design, and headlines.

Remember that data is one of the ways to create bulletproof campaigns, and A/B testing is one of the quickest ways to gather insightful data on as wide a range of variables as possible.

9. Track and Monitor Your Results

Be sure to note which platforms are performing better than others, which ads in a set are converting more, and how much your cost per conversion looks for each.

Because your goal in this stage is to generate more leads to grow your email list, you should pay attention to which ads and platforms are getting you the highest conversions. Once you know what these are, you can adjust your budget to pour in more allocation for top-performing ads in top-performing platforms.

Start Scaling Your List Growth with Paid Advertising

Are you ready to start getting more high quality leads this year? With paid advertising on social media, you can target and connect with your ideal customers to offer them a valuable lead magnet that has them signing up to your list. Follow the steps above to help you design your first ad campaign and optimize for conversions and opt-ins; then, you can start turning those leads into customers.

Author Bio

Kevin Payne is a content marketing consultant that helps software companies build marketing funnels and implement content marketing campaigns to increase their inbound leads.