This is a guest post from Yasmin Bibi, account director at HYTN, as part of our Recruiting Weekly Series. Yasmin shares her thoughts on paid advertising for recruitment agencies.
Paid advertising is a notoriously under-utilised tool in recruitment. But it shouldn’t be. It gives you the opportunity to pay for digital advertising directly in front of your ideal audience of candidates and clients – and if you’re not dominating that space, it’s likely that your competitors are. So we’re sharing 7 steps to start creating and tracking paid advertising campaigns that work.
Stage 1: Budget
Do you currently know your average cost-per-placement? This information is crucial to working out a budget that can offer a real return on investment. It should include how much it cost to win your client, the costs involved to find your candidate, and even the cost to run your desk.
If you haven’t got this information, we highly recommend that you look through your placements over the past 12 months and work out the source of the candidate and the client. Once you have this, you’ll be able to accurately pinpoint what works, what doesn’t – and most importantly, your cost-per-lead.
This cost-per-lead data can help you work out a budget that not only brings a return but also a healthy profit.
Stage 2: Targets
Working backwards, you’ll need to use your existing lead activity as a benchmark for predicting how many leads you need in and converted to hit your monthly and annual revenue targets.
For example, if you have a track record of placing one in ten candidates you speak to, we need a minimum of 10 candidates from our paid advertising to start seeing a return – and if your average placement fee is £8,000 – we could spend £800 on candidate advertising and still make a healthy return.
Stage 3: Journey
One of the most common mistakes we see recruitment agencies make with their internal marketing is the lack of a client / candidate journey and sales funnel.
We’ve seen recruitment agencies receive candidate CVs, or client leads through with no funnel or way to nurture them thereafter. They just end up stuck in the CRM – a waste of money, a waste of time, and a process that will eventually tarnish your reputation.
We advise that you create a 4-6 stage sales funnel that each inbound lead will go through. This could be a call within 24 hours of receiving the lead / CV, and then monthly email marketing campaigns with the end goal of eventually placing them into a role.
Stage 4: Media Plan
Once you have created your targets and journey, it’s time to create your media plan – what platforms will you be using for your paid advertising? For the general recruitment industry, LinkedIn, Google Ads and Facebook are the go-tos – but they differ from niche to niche.
You should also have flexibility in your plan – if Facebook isn’t bringing in leads, but LinkedIn is – be open to allocating the Facebook budget to LinkedIn.
Stage 5: Content
There are many different types of content you can use to engage your audience. The main 5 types of content we use with our clients can be found on the HYTN blog 5 Tips on Starting Your Social Media Marketing Strategy.
Stage 6: Creating Your Ads
Google is a great place to attract candidates and clients with the ‘intent to buy’. These people will actively be searching Google for keywords relevant to your business. For example, ‘construction jobs in Berkshire’ or ‘need to hire compliant construction workers Berkshire’
Where to start
You should already have a Google My Business account, logging into this will give you the option to set-up your Google Ads campaigns.
Google will suggest phrases to target by scanning your website, but we highly recommend doing your own research using Google’s Keyword Planner. This will help you understand the most searched for terms, and help you better organize your campaigns.
Top tip: we recommend directing your ads to specific landing pages. For example, taking clients to a client-focused web page, and candidates to your job-specific pages.
Facebook & LinkedIn
Different audiences respond to different variations of ads, so it’s important to offer a variety of creatives. These could be videos, carousels, static images or downloads.
LinkedIn, in particular, offers ways to target your audience by their job titles, years of experience, company size and so much more. This allows you to really fine-tune your audience and get results from your marketing.
Stage 7: Native Advertising
Have you ever been reading MSN News and seen your ASOS basket pop up? This is native advertising which inserts your ads into high-traffic publications. Platforms like Taboola and Outbrain are the most popular platforms to use for this and are also very easy to use. This advertising can reach millions of people every day and also bring a degree of trust to your brand name.
There you have it, 7 steps to start generating more leads from your paid advertising. If you see these through, track what’s working and what isn’t – you’ll be left with a profit-making paid advertising strategy that becomes a great part of your growth. If you’d like to discuss any of the areas outlined, contact the team at HYTN – The Marketing Agency for Recruitment Agencies.
Author, Yasmin Bibi – Account Director of HYTN – The Marketing Agency for Recruitment Agencies.
Yasmin is an Account Director at HYTN, working with recruitment agencies to consistently attract and engage new candidates and clients through the power of marketing.
