Although web portals continue to be the most cost effective source for franchise lead generation, deep down I am holding out for a campaign that is not only cost effective but also provides a franchise lead that is only looking at my clients brand. When I came across an ‘affiliate’ program, I was a little confused but hopeful.

So to be clear, or as clear as an “affiliate” program can be:

• Websites of all shapes and sizes group together and form a “network”.
• Based on the quality of a franchisor banner ad and landing page, these websites and networks will “opt” to advertise your banner ad on their site for free.
• When a candidate clicks on the banner ad, reviews your landing page, and submits a request for franchise information, you pay a flat cost per lead.
• The cost per lead varies by network. The better your banner ad and landing page are, the lower your cost per lead.
• The averages cost ranges from $35 – $50 per lead.

I am now five weeks into a campaign and have learned a couple of things. First, it takes time for the websites who “opt” in to actually post the banner ads. The first few weeks are slow, with about 10 leads a week. As time goes by, the leads steadily increase to as many as 25 leads a day.

I dislike that I never know exactly what websites are running the ads and I dislike even more that I don’t know which ones are most effective.

However, I love this program because it has little risk. If a banner ad runs 1 million times and no-one request information no harm no foul.

How qualified are these leads? It’s hard to say in at five weeks in. 

-Christine Mudd, founder of FRANDEAVOR

Tags: franchise development, franchise lead generation, franchise sales

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Franchise Lead Generation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.