Stop Wasting Your Time on MQLs: 5 Steps to Get More SQLs

Summary

Perpetual Traffic: Episode Summary — "Stop Wasting Your Time on MQLs: 5 Steps to Get More SQLs"

Release Date: November 26, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of Perpetual Traffic, hosts Ralph Burns and Lauren E. Petrullo delve deep into optimizing lead generation strategies by distinguishing between Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs). The conversation is framed within an "Unfiltered Friday" segment, where authentic feedback and candid discussions about industry challenges take center stage.

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1. Unfiltered Friday: Embracing Honest Feedback

Timestamp: [06:04] to [07:04]

Ralph and Lauren open the episode by introducing an "Unfiltered Friday" segment, highlighting the importance of genuine listener feedback. They share their excitement about the podcast's growing popularity, boasting over 1,155 ratings with an average of four and a half stars. Ralph humorously acknowledges the mixed nature of reviews and encourages listeners to continue providing honest assessments to help improve the show.

Notable Quote:

Ralph Burns [07:04]: "We have not read off reviews. We've been given the gift of feedback... some cases like not so constructive, some cases constructive and some days just things."

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2. Navigating Criticism and Maintaining Quality

Timestamp: [07:27] to [12:00]

The hosts discuss specific listener reviews, addressing both praise and constructive criticism. Lauren responds to feedback about interruptions and mansplaining, ensuring transparency about their on-air dynamics. They emphasize the value of honest critiques in refining their content and maintaining authenticity.

Notable Quote:

Lauren E. Petrullo [10:35]: "I am an interrupter. And when we have guests, for sure, that's actually like really good feedback because a lot of the guests that we bring on are a thousand times smarter than me."

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3. The Core Discussion: MQLs vs. SQLs

Timestamp: [14:24] to [34:06]

The episode shifts focus to the heart of the topic: differentiating between MQLs and SQLs to enhance lead quality and conversion rates. Ralph shares a recent challenge with a client whose internal team was resistant to sharing crucial information needed to optimize ads for better-qualified leads. This lack of transparency hindered the ability to distinguish between MQLs and SQLs effectively.

Key Points:

• Definition of MQLs and SQLs:

  • MQLs: Individuals who have opted in and shown initial interest (e.g., downloading a resource, attending a webinar).
  • SQLs: Leads that meet specific criteria indicating readiness to engage in sales (e.g., budget, authority, need, and timeline).

• Importance of Transparency:

  • Open sharing of financial and performance data between clients and agencies/internal teams builds a stronger partnership.
  • Transparency ensures that both parties understand what constitutes a qualified lead, fostering more effective collaboration.

• Qualifying Leads Effectively:

  • Implementing qualifying questions in lead forms helps filter out unqualified leads.
  • Creating distinct thank you pages based on lead qualification prevents unqualified leads from skewing data and algorithm performance.

Notable Quotes:

Ralph Burns [17:22]: "ROAS sucks. And all that other sort of stuff that we've talked about many times here. Preach. Those are the things that matter if you're trying to move the needle in a business."

Lauren E. Petrullo [20:56]: "I consider those subscribers and potentially dead weight in my CRM... show me you're interested versus wasting my email sends and calls."

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4. Actionable Strategies to Convert MQLs to SQLs

Timestamp: [25:11] to [34:06]

Ralph and Lauren outline five actionable steps to convert more MQLs into SQLs:

1. Implement Qualifying Questions:

   • Incorporate questions that assess budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT) in lead capture forms.
   • Example: Asking about a lead's immediate needs or decision-making authority.

2. Use Multiple Thank You Pages:

   • Redirect leads to different thank you pages based on their responses to qualifying questions.
   • Ensure that only SQLs are tracked with conversion pixels, enhancing algorithm accuracy.

3. Enhance Data Sharing with Algorithms:

   • Feed qualified lead data back into advertising platforms like Meta and Google to refine targeting.
   • Avoid sending unqualified lead data to prevent algorithmic dilution.

4. Maintain CRM Hygiene:

   • Regularly purge unqualified leads to maintain a clean and actionable CRM database.
   • Use automated systems to manage and score leads based on engagement and qualification.

5. Foster Transparent Partnerships:

   • Encourage open communication between clients and marketing teams/agencies.
   • Share financial metrics and performance data to align goals and strategies.

Notable Quotes:

Lauren E. Petrullo [27:29]: "If you're willing to welcome everyone into the gates of heaven 100%, whereas if you're actually finding what you want, giving the data, you'll be able to accelerate a lot faster."

Ralph Burns [29:37]: "That is such a simple but not simplistic tip that could change the course of businesses that are listening to this."

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5. Real-World Application and Success Stories

Timestamp: [34:06] to [38:45]

Ralph shares a case study involving a personal injury law client. By applying the discussed strategies—optimizing for signed cases rather than mere lead forms—they significantly reduced the cost per acquisition (CPA) from $5,000 to approximately $1,400. This shift ensured that the leads generated were not only qualified but also profitable for the client.

Notable Quotes:

Ralph Burns [36:00]: "Now the algorithm goes out and finds the ideal customer, the ideal client, and casts the other ones aside because you have trained it on the back end."

Lauren E. Petrullo [38:45]: "It's every single ad network. You have to like, you have to give the algorithms the data that it wants, period."

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6. Future Topics and Closing Remarks

Timestamp: [39:21] to [40:56]

The hosts tease an upcoming episode focused on standard pixel events and their critical role in lead qualification and algorithm optimization. They reiterate the importance of proper event tracking to ensure the effectiveness of advertising strategies.

Notable Quote:

Lauren E. Petrullo [39:21]: "Can we do a follow-up episode where we just go over the standard events and then ask your media buyers if they're doing this?"

Ralph concludes the episode by expressing gratitude for listener engagement and encouraging ongoing feedback through reviews, promising to incorporate listener insights into future discussions.

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Key Takeaways:

• Differentiate Between MQLs and SQLs: Not all leads are created equal. Properly qualifying leads ensures higher conversion rates and more efficient use of marketing budgets.

• Transparency is Crucial: Open communication and data sharing between clients and marketing teams/agencies foster better strategies and outcomes.

• Optimize Lead Forms: Incorporate qualifying questions and utilize multiple thank you pages to filter and track leads effectively.

• Leverage Algorithms: Feeding accurate, qualified data back into advertising platforms enhances targeting and reduces wasted ad spend.

• Continuous Improvement: Regularly assess and refine lead generation strategies based on feedback and performance metrics.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Tier 11 Data Suite: An upcoming tool designed to provide deeper insights into lead attribution and data tracking. Early access is available through applications at tier11.com/2025.

• MPI Checklist: Available at perpetualtraffic.com/MPI, this tool helps in assessing and qualifying leads effectively.

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Conclusion

This episode of Perpetual Traffic offers valuable insights into refining lead generation processes by distinguishing and optimizing MQLs and SQLs. Through candid discussions, actionable strategies, and real-world examples, Ralph and Lauren provide listeners with the tools needed to enhance their marketing efforts and achieve better business outcomes.

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For more detailed discussions and future episodes, visit perpetualtraffic.com or check out their YouTube channel.

Transcript

[Ralph Burns]

Do you feel like you could have done so much better in 2024? Do you feel like you left so much money on the table? Or maybe your internal team or your agency just wasn't getting it done for you? You were maybe the one that was coming up with all the ideas and then they were doing the implementation. That is not how it's supposed to work. If you're the boss, your internal team or your agency is supposed to direct you and tell you what to do to scale and grow your brand, let me tell you, you are not alone. This is the number one complaint we hear from potential prospect clients who want to work with us potentially. They say their agency or their internal teams have run out of steam and they're the ones who are giving them all the ideas. Well, that's the reason why we put together a very special offer for you for 11 lucky businesses. And quite honestly, ever since we announced this promotion just or four days ago, we've already filled up five of them. We have six of these left. And the reason we're only giving away 11 with 6 left is because my internal team, I have to give them some time off in December and we want to get this done for you before the end of the year. So much so, in fact, my sales team has actually opened up more time to book these calls with you, the business owner, with you, the director of marketing, you, the person that's frustrated with the results that you got in 2024 and you feel like you can do better in the coming year. Well, we are offering 11. Well, now six, because we've already given away five of them. Free business audits for six lucky businesses. And this is not an audit that's done by AI. It is done by actual humans, where they go in and they actually look at your entire business, not just your ad accounts. They look at your tracking, they look at your after the click, they analyze your emails, they analyze all of your ad accounts, everything that you're doing within your business. And we figure out where the holes are. And usually there are plenty of holes and areas of improvement. Yeah, you need an unbiased, unprejudiced viewpoint on how you're going to hit your goals in 2025. And that's what this business audit is for. So if you are interested in being one of the lucky six remaining, there was 11. Now there's six remaining businesses who qualify for this business audit. Head on over to tier11.com2025, fill out the application and we'd love to see how we can help you scale and grow. And oh by the way, you will also get first mover access to the Tier 11 data suite, which we haven't even launched to the world yet and we'll be doing so in January. So you'll get early access to that. One of the greatest things about the Tier 11 data suite is you know, all those unattributeds, all those unknowns, all those directs inside your Google Analytics, or if you're using Triple Whale or if you're using Hiros, well, this lifts the veil on all of those. Up to 99% of your unattributed and your unknowns in your direct are now going to be known in the knowns that are going into individual channels. Your Google, your meta, your organic, your email. Those are more accurate. That's how great datasuite is. It lifts the veil finally, for data tracking unlike anything we've ever seen because it uses three Martech tools pieced together with an integration that we wrote here at tier 11. And you will get early bird access to that as well. When you fill out the application over at tier11.com forward/2025. Make 2025 the best year yet. Start by planning it right now. Book a call with our team today, fill out the application and let us help you scale smarter, not harder, in the coming year. Hey folks, Ralph here with something that could seriously upgrade your Top of Funnel ad game. If you've been a PT listener for any period of time, you know that we talk about Top of Funnel all the time and how challenging it is for you to get quality Top of Funnel clients or leads or customers and then convert them typically at bottom of Funnel. Well, TV advertising is one of those areas that we haven't discussed here on PT all that much. But our friends over at Ad Critter have figured this stuff out. They do connected TV ads so you can be everywhere without spend spending millions on super bowl ads. But they pair it with display retargeting so you're hitting the audiences with a complete approach. You reach them, then you remind them and then you collect the revenue. It's a strategy designed to deliver and let me tell you, it really works. We're testing this at tier 11 and so far the results have been very impressive. Now with AdCritter, creating custom audiences are so easy. You don't need to reformat files, you don't need to mess around with complex spreadsheets. You just upload any file in any format and you're ready to go. And the match rate is awesome. They make it easy to connect with the right people, the actual people that have interacted with your ads in the past and then allow them to naturally flow through your funnel so you can convert them at bottom of funnel. Now the folks at Adcrator, we twisted their arm to get us a great deal for you, the PT listener. They are offering a special deal for y'all and that is you can get a $500 campaign credit, meaning $500 in free money to test out the plaque platform or dollar for dollar matching on any TV campaign up to five grand. Imagine the impact of that match. Spend five grand, they'll add another five grand in display. That's a huge opportunity here. Now it's only offered to you, the PT listener. Head over to AdCritter.com PT and check it out.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

You're listening to Perpetual Traffic.

[Ralph Burns]

Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Chat podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, the founder and CEO of Tier 11, alongside my awesome co host, Lauren E. Petrulo.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

The founder of Mongoose Media.

[Ralph Burns]

So glad you joined us here today. Today is a Friday. We're recording on a Friday and today we tgif. Tgiff. As one of my guys say it. Today we're going to talk about it's an unfiltered episode because of just things that have gone on this week that you probably are dealing with in your business. You're probably doing some year end planning, but you're also dealing with a team and managing that team as well as clients and, or products and, or a business. So we're going to talk about a lot of that stuff here today. So we don't really know exactly how it's going to come across.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I'm so scared.

[Ralph Burns]

But the point is like this is unfiltered Friday. But before we get into that, this is something that we haven't done in a long time. We have not read off reviews. We've been given the gift of feedback. Some cases like not so constructive, some cases constructive and some days just things. They're just going to pump up Lauren's ego. So.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Okay.

[Ralph Burns]

But we would love you to leave a review and a rating for us. Wherever you listen to podcasts, obviously a rating is super easy on Spotify. Most of these reviews come over from Apple podcasts. We've been doing this for quite some time. Did you realize we have 1155 ratings and it's literally, it's four and a half stars most of the way through.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

So should we make a 2025 for 2025 like, how do we get to 2025 reviews in 2025?

[Ralph Burns]

That would be cool.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yes.

[Ralph Burns]

I think that's great. See, this is what, unfiltered? Unfiltered or is it unplugged? I don't know what it is. It's just us doing our thing. So 1155 reviews. Like, that's great. Really appreciate everyone who's ever done a review, and we've got a couple here that I think are worthwhile that we have not talked on in quite some time. Was one that was led by Dorham101.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Daremi101 of you, by the way, if you are. If you're listening to this, I have not seen or read these reviews. So I. Forgive me if you are watching this on YouTube because I can't hide anything from my face. So I'm really nervous. Ralph.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah. So head on over to perpetualtraffic.com forward/YouTube to see Lauren's reaction to some of these. All right, so this one is 5 stars from Dr. 101. So far, so good with some diamonds.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Ooh. Ooh.

[Ralph Burns]

That. The episode titles alone really piqued my interest. Non Stalker Stalker Method Gardener to go hire a bouncer for a CRM. And 500 plus episodes is an insane FT for any podcast. No matter what type of industry you're in, these strategies and tips shared will be valuable. Please listen to how to Strangle Slack before it Strangles you Too Real. That is awesome. From Doriami101. I think you've read the that one before.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I did. I remember it because she's in PR and I was like, oh, this was a good. This is a good one. And I remember that episode, the Slack one, because I told you I just get notifications like.

[Ralph Burns]

Straggle Slack for straggles you. That. That was a pretty good title. All right, this is.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I wonder who came up with it. Ralph.

[Ralph Burns]

I know. I don't know. I have no idea. See, that's your creative genius right there. This is another one. Timely, relevant insights. This is another five star. This is DZ and our Wolf Apple podcast. Ralph and Lauren not only do a great job at sharing great marketing strategies, but they also provide examples of current campaigns that are working right now. It's a great insight to see what the top marketers in the world are doing to have success. So that's really nice. Appreciate that. All right, now let's get into some of the other ones here. These are the fun ones, so leave a review. We used to do a feedback mechanism for this show. So leaving us a review is actually super helpful. So I'm sure we're going to get some negative reviews because we're reading our reviews, but I don't really give a shit because we need your reviews and ratings. All right, so this is a bit self serving, but it's also this one smart gal. Too much interrupting guy quips. Okay, all right. Some very helpful nuggets of info. Sadly, it's sandwiched in between repetitive and not that funny one liners. Mansplaining and talking over the guests. No, I'm not. Whoa. Well, no, I'm not woke. What works on video doesn't always translate to podcast format without some editing. This is Sherry in Toronto. Don't we love Canadians? I love Canadians. I love the fact that she actually did give us an honest rating here. So with. I don't know what the mansplaining is because like my wife is. If I ever mansplain, she pretty much, she knows, she cuts it off.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Are you trying to mansplain? What? Mansplaining?

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah. I don't even know what mansplaining is. Am I doing mansplaining right now? But whatever.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

All right, I will say what's fair is I am an interrupter. And when we have guests, for sure, that's actually like really good feedback because a lot of the guests that we bring on are a thousand times smarter than me. So I want the focus of the show but I like the sound of my own voice. So thank you, Sheri. That is good feedback.

[Ralph Burns]

That's good feedback. No, I'm not woke is what she says. Super interesting. But I will say this is the stuff on video. So there's been a lot of tier 11 lives that we have brought over to the podcast because it's really good content and when we're on a live, remember I'm doing it live and I have to remember that some people this might be translated to audio at some point. So I need to explain what John's doing better. So that is super good feedback. I should be doing that more. Definitely something that we're going to change. So I appreciate that. Mahalo. Love the podcast. Five stars. Met Lauren, she recommended a few episodes and I'm really enjoying it. This is Sophonise, so.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Oh, Sophonise.

[Ralph Burns]

Sophonese. Okay.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

She lives in Hawaii. I do, I do. Oh, well, thanks. Sofanise.

[Ralph Burns]

Sounds pretty good. All right, Another one. Five star. Can't get enough timely and relevant insights to grow business from real business owners. Weird. S word. S. Appreciate that one. All right. This is the one that's going to just light up your day.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

In a good way or a bad way.

[Ralph Burns]

I'm nervous, almost four stars, but Lauren makes it a five. I used to listen to it with Molly back in the day. Was legit surprised by the co host change. But here for it. This is Quake Naughty via Apple podcast. So that's recent, like within the last week. So I don't know. Did you pay Quiknati?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I'm going to start. I'm going to start. If there's anyone that's within 5 minutes or no 5 meters of my immediate distance, I'm going to do the opposite of social distancing and just take your phone and be like, yes, here's Chick Fil a on me.

[Ralph Burns]

There you go. There it is.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

So I get 20, 25 reviews now.

[Ralph Burns]

All right, so should we incentivize people for reviews, which is totally illegal to do?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

The FTC will say no. No, not at all. Nope. Withdrawn. Ralph, how dare you?

[Ralph Burns]

Withdrawn. We would love to have your reviews on the show. We haven't read them in a while, so I appreciate everybody leaving a review. We will read it on air. So you'll be podcast famous for five or ten seconds, which is very cool because this does go to about a quarter of a million people every single month, which is pretty amazing to really think about it.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yeah, we're. Well, we are. We were number 31 in the country.

[Ralph Burns]

We go in and out of the top 25. I don't know if you know that. Like, it bops up and then it comes back down and then it's an average rating for the week. But like any on any given day when it's released, it's in the top 2025. So that's very cool. Like we've got a good audience here, but we certainly want more and we want to be able to help more people. We're trying to bring stuff here that is relevant, useful to you because we're in the business every single day. That's the reason for this show is sometimes it's just me and Lauren get together and just bitch about stuff that's going on in the industry or with our teams or whatever.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Behind the scenes.

[Ralph Burns]

Behind the scenes, behind the scenes. So talking about that, like, what's the most relevant thing that happened to you this week that you think the PT listener might find useful?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Relevant thing that happened to me this week that the listener would find useful? Well, I mean, today is the start of Black Friday deal. So my immediate go is who's getting a PS5 because I am and I'm trying to game so what's your gamer tag? Hit me up. But in the useful things that happened to me this week, gosh, look, it's Friday, it's like no friend November. So I just am head down a lot of this stuff but I think, well you go first. Let me this is unfiltered. We don't have any plans.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah answers I have a bone to pick just in general a bit with how people view like we've talked about this before, how people view a lead. Not all leads are the same.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yes, yes.

[Ralph Burns]

And we came up against this past week where we had a client who was resistant to giving us the information in order for us to be able to optimize our ads for the most qualified leads. So when you bring in a lead, especially if you're in lead gen and you're selling a high ticket product in this case like a four figure product that has multiple upsells and is really really good, like I say what space it's in, but it's in the info space. The point is that not all leads are treated the same and you might get a marketing qualified lead or an MQL as we refer to it, but oftentimes that doesn't really convert. It might take a while for that to trickle into a SQL which is a sales qualified lead. So somebody downloads, fills out a form, maybe goes onto a webinar, gets some information, doesn't buy that is still a marketing qualified lead, but it might be a sales qualified lead because you actually have a filtering process. So the filtering process could be through lead forms like we talk about, we've talked about here many, many times. You might pay more for a sales qualified lead than you do a marketing qualified lead. When you're working with an agency or an internal team, you have to be able to communicate which is which. And that was not communicated. And our team in this particular case in my opinion should have done a better job in communicating exactly what is a marketing qualified lead versus a sales qualified lead. And the client should if you're running internally or you have a marketing team or you have an agency, you should have you give full transparency onto what actually converts at the end of the funnel as opposed to just keeping them in the dark. And this is where I think everyone obviously there's a certain amount of hey, I want to give my team enough information so that they do a good job, but why not be fully transparent? Why not open the entire kimono and actually get a real working relationship where everyone benefits. And if that means divulging financial information, like, do it, because that's the most important thing at the end of the day. So if you have an internal team or an agency, they should know what your finances are. They should have an internal view of what actually is working. And the client and or internal team should also have access to everything from the first step in the journey all the way to the last part of the journey. And that full transparency makes for a great team, and it makes for a partnership approach as opposed to an adversarial approach. And I think a lot of people are reluctant to give up some of that information because they don't want to give control to the other side. And I hate that. And we came up against that this week, and I don't think we did that great of a job in resolving it. And we can always improve. We are not perfect by any stretch.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

What?

[Ralph Burns]

No, we're not. But I think by looking at the right things, like the things that actually make businesses money, not the stuff that can be manipulated. ROAS sucks. And all that other sort of stuff that we've talked about many times here. Preach. Those are the things that matter if you're trying to move the needle in a business. And we met with a client this week that does exactly that. I was in San Antonio this past week. We met with a client. They're very transparent. They tell us exactly what's going on. Like, we know what their numbers are. Like, we know what their sales are. We know what their profit margin is. We know, like, which end of their business is more profitable than they are. Like, we know what their challenges are. And my big question to them is, like, how can I be a better partner to you? How can I be a bit of a vendor, but really, truly a partner and get to the goals that they want to in 2025? So it was a great meeting because I feel like we're very much in sync. If you have an adversarial relationship or I'm not going to tell you everything because you're like the enemy that is so destructive. And I think no matter if you're dealing with an agency or you're dealing with an internal team, I think the same principles apply. And if you're doing that right now because you think you're being smart, you think you're being savvy, well, being transparent actually gets you to get to your goal that much faster. And success is a hell of a lot easier when you actually do that. So that's my bitch of the week. Thoughts?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Comments?

[Ralph Burns]

Confessions?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

A hundred percent agree with you. When you're like, when you're being obtrusive to your data, it's not just harming the agency partners, but you're also harming the algorithm. So I was like, oh my gosh, I can replay exact conversations that other people might value from like, it's. I understand the subterfuge and why you want to do it, I get it. But it's not helpful. We were talking earlier about the radical candor. You have to have the radical candor with your agency, but also with the algorithm. So a conversation that we had this week was we were looking at a client's funnel and we noticed that the standard events, the basic pieces of data, are not properly being fed back into the algorithm. And honestly, like, sorry, if you're listening and you are falling guilty to this and you think you're a really good media buyer and you don't have the standard ads in place, I don't get it. Facebook has billions. And it's not just Facebook, it's every ads platform, every ads network. They have billions of profiles, interactions, moments in which you can send qualified data back in. So you said MQL and SQL earlier just to like qualify, to make sure we're on the same page of how you and I view it. Maybe it's slightly different.

[Ralph Burns]

Let's talk about that actually.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yeah. So for an mql, for me, a marketing qualified lead is someone who's given permission to be marketed to, they've opted into something, they have shown interest by raising their hand and it's permission based. A sales qualified lead for me is someone who meets two of the four bands. So band being budget, authority, need and time. If they meet two of the four, they're a sales qualified lead. If they meet one of the four, they're not. B for budget, A for authority, need for N for need, T for time. So if they have the budget and can afford whatever you're selling or providing, great. If they have the authority to make the decision, they are a sales qualified lead. Maybe they don't have the authority and they're an admin or supportive staff, but they need this product now to facilitate a Black Friday launch and the timing is hyper relative because it's Black Friday right now. Those three, they lack the authority, but they are a sales qualified lead. It's just not the actual person that you need to talk to, but it's your entry point. So that's what for me from going from MQL which is opted in and have given permission to receive what you have to say versus having two of the four bands is how I consider a sales qualified lead.

[Ralph Burns]

What's the best way to screen for that? Like you do a ton of lead gen, we do a ton of lead gen. Like every one is different but like just in a general sense. Like if people are like well MQL SQL maybe this is the first time that you've heard of this, but if you have then good, you're in the right spot. If you say yeah I know what that is, I guarantee you you probably there's some areas that you can improve. So how do you differentiate and how do you screen for it?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

So for marketing qualified lead I have like a marketing qualified lead as they've gotten to the system but I don't I actually consider those subscribers. So this is just my personal philosophy. You're just a subscriber even though technically you're a marketing qualified lead until you've shown me proof of life. That proof of life might be showing up on a webinar, replying to an email, spending at least 90 seconds on a page, getting further along in my funnel and having consumed content because if you're not going to consume, you're not going to convert. So that's my qualification of what is a marketing qualified lead where most people say it's an MQL by all technical standards. Correct. But I'm still looking at you as a subscriber and potentially dead weight in my CRM, you butthole individual. Because show me, show me you're interested versus wasting my email sends and calls. I have to pay for that and my clients have to pay for that. Get out of the CRM if you're not going to give me proof of life which can be replying to the email. So everyone's first email and every follow up should have like a P.S. tell me what's your favorite restaurant in Orlando or an easy one word simple equivalent responder. We call that triage level one in our email triage. And I know I'm jumping all over the place, but that's how I marketing qualified lead for me I look at you a subscriber. Unless you show me that you're useful, you're useless otherwise you waste of human.

[Ralph Burns]

You see, I would still qualify. I would still say a marketing qualified lead is somebody who is has opted in to something, given something in exchange for something of equal or greater value. Like that's marketing qualified because marketing brought them there and they're there. It's up to you internally to determine what your steps are in order to treat them as a SQL or a sales qualified lead. I think a super, like, easy example of this is the MPI checklist which we beat to death. Provincialtraffic.com MPI that's a great example of like there's four fields there. I'm not gonna tell you which ones are the ones that are important for us.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It's super obvious.

[Ralph Burns]

It's super obvious.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

You have a qualifying question to see you can support them. So you use your qualifying question to determine if they're an SQL.

[Ralph Burns]

A bit. Yeah, yeah. I mean I would do this.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I wouldn't say it's.

[Ralph Burns]

I retract that statement, Senator. I think Those are all MQLs, but like, depending on what they act after, then they become SQLs.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I don't believe you can have an SQL without a conversation because I think people lie. People lie on forms. They want to see what the outcomes are. You can go to the NPI checklist on perpetualtraffic.com MPI and you'll be able to play conveniently enough, you'll have different end screens. Oh, that goes to another example of a call that people may benefit from this week.

[Ralph Burns]

And by the way, just don't go to the form and just fill it out like four different times, please. For cranial. I don't think it allows you to do that actually in HubSpot. I don't think it allows you to do it in HubSpot though, unless you go to like an incognito window. But anyway, the point is giving them examples. Yeah, people have to try too hard. No one's listening anyway.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

We have nice reviews. People said it was almost a four star review.

[Ralph Burns]

Then you made it a five.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

That's cute.

[Ralph Burns]

You have to go to our YouTube channel just to see Lauren glowing and me mansplaining. Lauren glowing. You have to tell me in the future. All right, you're mansplaining. Just call it out for our friend in Toronto.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yes, but I like that they had said like not woke. So it wasn't. I don't see it as a derogatory attack. It wasn't a type of. I'm trying to come after you. I say it's like, it's genuine, kind and honest feedback and someone who's willing to provide that is hopefully going to honor us with a chance to convert them even higher. It's a blessing. Even though it's a three star, I'm grateful for it. Because it shows intention to give us a chance to be better.

[Ralph Burns]

And I think she's right. So there you go. All right.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Another example, just to wrap up that thing. Sorry. So the mql. I don't believe that someone can become a sales qualified lead without an actual touch point of conversation or an actual conversion. Being that, did you give me money? It might be a micro conversion and you need these like soft touches of lower ticket items or something like where you put your credit card down. Because If I see 16 digits, you're a sales qualified lead for me. But I need a conversation, be it with a salesperson, a chat bot, email, conversation back and forth, whatever that is, to know that you're sales qualified. Because people very rarely have solutions that will say, you have the budget, you have the authority, why now? And you can try and do a lot of that in your questions and in your forms. Like when you're asking for the lead capture, you can use qualifying questions to give bigger indicators of if they are a marketing qualified lead or a sales qualified lead. And then based off of their answers, you trigger unique thank you pages. So this came up on a call this week because I was telling someone, 90% of the people just do the lazy wave. I'm collecting your name, phone, email. That's all I want. Okay, cool. You just want a subscriber. Stop it. Like, that's so stupid. Why are you only asking three questions? But you're collecting all that information and then when they give you that info, you send them to a single thank you page. But without a qualifying question, you're actually dishonoring yourself. And so forgive me for the way I described this to the people on that call. Oh, please don't cancel me.

[Ralph Burns]

There we go. We're getting canceled from Apple podcasts.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

No, no, no. It's just unfiltered. Oh my gosh. Okay. It was just. I was saying, look, you know, I go to church at least once a week. I am.

[Ralph Burns]

I thought it was every day of.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

A mouth I have every day at different times in my life. I've gone five times a week. I've never gone every day. That's a lot. But if that's what you do, good for you.

[Ralph Burns]

This is us interrupting each other, by the way. There you go.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

We're besties, so that's.

[Ralph Burns]

I know we can do that.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Like, I actually like you, Ralph. Like, you're such a good human.

[Ralph Burns]

I enjoy your combos, you know. The feeling is mutual. Lauren E. Petrillo. So anyway, you were about to say you've lost your train of thought.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

No. Tell me Lauren has ADD without telling me. Lauren has add like, anyways. Yeah, this is unfiltered. This is unscripted. This is.

[Ralph Burns]

You're a bit like Dora, actually, from Finding Nemo. A little bit like Dora. A bit.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

So it's Dora the Exploradora, which is a Nickelodeon show. Or Dory, who is Ellen voiced by Ellen DeGeneres.

[Ralph Burns]

Oh, it's Dory. Oh, sorry, I got my doors confused.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

You know, it's unfiltered Friday.

[Ralph Burns]

All right, so keep going.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Okay, so when you add a qualifying question, this is important. If you are listening, you take nothing from this episode, do this and you'll be better than 90% of the world at lead generation, I promise. So you have a qualifying question and based off of the answer, you provide them a different unique thank you page. I've talked about this a lot. Where you're using custom forms and instant forms and meta, you have a disqualifying landing page. The reason you need a different thank you page is because you want to be like, hey, meta, I want people like this. But you also want to say, hey, meta. Or any algorithm, I don't want people like this. So going back to your earlier part where they're hiding the important data from you, they're also hiding the important data from the algorithm, which means all you're doing is compounding for mediocrity. Like, you're not actually getting more of what you want, you're getting more of what you get. And so the way I was explaining that in the Christian sense, all sins are created equal. So if you give a little white lie or you rape an individual, they're equal in the eyes of God, but not in the eyes of the law. But the different ad platforms, if you don't have a qualifying question, you're going to collect more of what you don't want. And so I told them, I was like, do you want more rapists in your CRM? Why?

[Ralph Burns]

Why?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It was just the example that came up in my head and it stuck with them. They're like, I don't want this at all.

[Ralph Burns]

Is yet another repetitive and not so funny one liner. You know, we're just, we're self perpetuating.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yeah, right. Okay. We could do better.

[Ralph Burns]

We can do better. We can be funnier. So no, what you're saying is, so for the non qualified, like, you know, if you have the four question, one of them is somebody that you don't want, don't even bother. No, not yet. But don't bother putting the Facebook pixel on the thank you page of that individual.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yes, yes.

[Ralph Burns]

That is such a simple but not simplistic tip that could change the course of businesses that are listening to this.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It changes your delta for what you're optimizing for. Because you're looking at lead, no lead if you have just a single landing page and a single thank you page. And that page that you're sending everyone to is collecting everyone from little white lies to mass murderers like no thank you. We want no Hitlers. We only want Mother Teresa's please and thank you.

[Ralph Burns]

True. Thank you very much.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

So in that when you have that thank you page, just leaving the pixel off is super duper easy. You may even potentially. And I'm not advocating for multiple pixels, but in the use case with the NPI checklist, right. I was like, hey, put the tier 11 one, because that's who your ideal customer is. Like you want to know who your ideal customer is, you want to send that qualified data back into the respective algorithms. Because otherwise it's yes, the lead is good, you're going to get more. And then that delta for which it grows, I have to move that delta continues. So all you're doing is compounding for worse and you're pushing yourself further and further from the starting line, which at some point people have success by just starting over with a brand new pixel, which is very expensive.

[Ralph Burns]

Yes.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

And very challenging. And unless you're doing like $100,000 at least a month, you're going to miss out on more opportunities. So just if you do nothing else, create multiple thank you pages.

[Ralph Burns]

It's great advice. It's not that hard to do either. You literally, you have your webmaster create one thank you page and then you just duplicate it three times, put a different video on it.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yeah, sorry, we're not ready for us yet. Here are some great resources for you though. And then you can still have them in your CRM. You can still send them emails to get them further more qualified. Maybe they can't afford you. Maybe they're not in a position where they have the authority to acquire. Maybe you're only looking for B2B partners. Maybe you're only looking for people in a specific geographical location. Why are you collecting and then paying for stuff you don't want?

[Ralph Burns]

Now the counterargument to that for an agency or an internal team says, well, wait a second, that means I'm not getting, I'm not as a internal team, media buyer or an agency. I'm not getting credit for that lead that I generated. So therefore my cost per lead is going to be more, is going to be higher.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Great. You're also not getting credit for bad leads that you're generating.

[Ralph Burns]

Right. So that's where this is. The disconnect between this customer and us occurred in a lot of ways because we didn't know and that you can't have that and you have to be able to accept it. Now you can go into your CRM and say, hey, we did get all these leads out of them. Let's say, you know, at a certain point your ads are not working if a disproportionate number of leads are coming into your CRM and then. But you're only getting the three out of the four that are actually your avatar that is qualifying inside the app, if that makes sense. So if you're comparing week over week, let's say you get 100 leads inside your CRM, let's say you're using HubSpot, but on Facebook you only see 40. Now there could be a reporting question because in app is in app, of course it's only like a seven day window, all these other sorts of things. All things being equal, basically if you look back on a seven day window window, it's going to be fairly accurate. Especially if you have, you know, the standard event lead, all that. But that probably tells me if you're gathering a hundred leads but you're only seeing 40 inside of Facebook, even if it's 50, half of your traffic is traffic that you don't want. Which means it then becomes your traffic team's problem and your creative team's problem. But this is a feedback mechanism that will help you get better, more qualified leads that probably are more expensive than just stuff. You go out there and you grab everybody's name and email and regardless of whether or not they'll ever buy your shit.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

But it's more expensive now, right, because you have to optimize for what you actually want. So then you're going to be. Because it's going to be keeping super cheap. If you're willing to welcome everyone into the gates of heaven 100%. 100% versus if you're actually finding what you want, giving the data, you'll be able to accelerate a lot faster. And of course I can't make a guarantee, but you should be able to through the laws, minus the laws of diminishing returns, find a higher qualified lead at a more cost effective price.

[Ralph Burns]

Right.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

When you have that consistency. Because this consistency is going to compound it and you've got AIs inside of these algorithms that are doing the hard work for you.

[Ralph Burns]

Totally, totally. And this goes for Meta Inc. For Google, by the way. So TikTok and Pinterest.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It's every single ad network. You have to like, you have to give the algorithms the data that it wants, period. And then like in that other thing, like another call that I had this week which was like, why is this a common theme that I'm, I'm having in multiple calls over the past few weeks? If you have a landing page, if you have an important page. And actually I'm like, oh, Ralph, do I go look@perpetual traffic.com MPI and see if you guys are doing this? And by the time this airs it won't be the case. But you need to have the view content pixel on the important pages. People just do page view. I'm like, why your page view? And again, I'm specifically using the meta terms, but this is applicable for every single ad network. You have to understand what their standard events and what are the opportunities to plug in if you just have page view on your landing page. Why, why? That is so dumb. This is unfiltered. That's being stupid. You need to use view content. View content gives a hierarchical level of like, prevalence of them as a lead that sends that data immediately back to meta that they visited an important page to you. If you have page view, Page view belongs on like your privacy policy page, your like collections page. It's the pages that don't have as much weight as a product display page as the actual landing pages. The important pages. The important pages need view content so that you can send signals to Meta that if they're viewing important pages, they're a higher qualified lead. So you have to look at the standard events and apply them appropriately. Complete registration, Start trial. Oh my gosh. Anyone who's listening with a free trial offer and you're not using start trial standard event. How dare you.

[Ralph Burns]

That's super good. That's actually a great point. And I would guarantee you 99% of people who are listening right now aren't doing that.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Nope. Yeah, well, they will actually. And then leave a really great review to help us get to 2025.

[Ralph Burns]

I would hope so. If you're really good at like, you should be good at this, like you should, you should take the extra time in order to do this because this stuff actually really does matter. And the point is that all the little details like this, remember there's plenty of episodes and we've done a lot of episodes in the last few weeks, especially with John Moran who says don't trust the data inside Google. So there's a fine line. There's a balance here that we all need to strike. It's like you need to trust the algorithms to a degree. You don't need to look at the data in there and take that as gospel because all of that data is only being captured in a seven day window inside Google. It's slightly longer than that. The point is that the algorithms themselves are the things that are powering it. And you have to think, how can I power that algorithm to find my ideal customer? And we do a lot of work in the personal injury law space. For example, those are super expensive spaces. So we do not. We start optimizing for lead form intake, phone calls. However, those are the initial sort of ways to get momentum. And then we ultimately optimize for the thing that they really want at the end of the day, which is a signed case. And that might take two days, it might take a day, it might take two weeks. And so we offline, we upload that information and then optimize for that event so that Google will go about and find the 72 million data points it has on every person in the entire world. Like to find the ideal customer for them in the car accident, injury, truck injury, motorcycle injury space and be able to feed the algorithm the right types of data on your CRM in order to allow the algorithm to work as best as it possibly can to attract your ideal customer. Now, having said that, that means your cost per lead, or in this case, signed case, it's going to be 100x more expensive, but it's the right one that's going to make you money, your cpa. And that's what you optimize. And your CPA starts off high. This client is $5,000, $7,000. We've gotten it down to right around 1400, like 1300 money. And each one of those clients is going to make the customer at minimum 30% of whatever the settlement is because they're absolutely qualified in order to make money for the firm, but also to settle the defendant. In this particular case, I don't know exactly what they call them, defendant or not the defendant, but the plaintiff, the client, let's just say client. Not really good legal terms. Although apparently looking at our legal legal budget, the point is that now the algorithm goes out and finds the ideal customer, the ideal client, and casts the other ones aside because you have trained it on the back end and you do the same thing through meta.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Let's do. Can we do a follow up episode where I'm just going to like, like go through and just be like. Can we just go over the standard events and then ask your media buyers if they're doing this? Because I promise you, you not having a thank you page that takes your disqualified leads away is silly. You not using view content on your landing page is like dumb. It's been around for like 10 years. It's embarrassing at this point. But don't worry, I'm not looking at your pages right now, so I'm not judging you. If that's you listener that's doing it, just please have your media buyer or your web team fix it. But can we do like a full episode and like go deeper into this? Because the optimization thing is critical.

[Ralph Burns]

Let's do it. No, we absolutely will.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yes, we'll do this next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Unfiltered.

[Ralph Burns]

All right, all right. So we are going to come back and do a full and comprehensive review of all the standard events, pixel events. And we'll do that next show next time we get together so we can take this conversation to the next level. This has been Unfiltered Friday, even though it probably will be airing on a Tuesday. There's a joke that we just laugh at. It wasn't really that funny. Lauren, stop laughing, okay? And stop over talking over me. I'm just kidding. That's what people do in normal conversation. I do have my wife.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Not with guests.

[Ralph Burns]

With guests.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Absolutely fair. And we will be more respectful.

[Ralph Burns]

More respectful. Yeah. And we will explain more in our YouTube videos. But anyway, go see Lauren's reaction [e-mail] YouTube and, and as always, make sure you leave a rating and a review wherever you listen to podcasts. We will read them on the air like we did today so you will become Internet famous. Super appreciate that. And all the links and show notes and everything that we mentioned here as far as resources are concerned are [e-mail] you're on YouTube.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

You cannot judge my bangs. I cut them myself yesterday. Like I trimmed them and I don't like looking at myself and I can see it strong. So if I see anyone leave a review about the bangs, please don't.

[Ralph Burns]

I think you look great. I think you look great. So there you go. There it is.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

A.

[Ralph Burns]

All right. So on behalf of my awesome co host, Lauren E. Petrulo, ciao until next show. See you.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

You've been listening to perpetual traffic.