Lead Magnets on YouTube: Convert Your YouTube Viewers

Why should I convert my YouTube viewers into leads?

Short and straightforward answer – customers are worth a lot more than viewers. Even if you get a relatively small number of YouTube subscribers to become customers, you would usually earn way more than from YouTube ads, for example.

So should I just start to upload sales videos to our channel? No!

Here is the real challenge. On YouTube, as soon as viewers notice that the video is only made to sell them something, they will turn it off. That, in turn, results in low watch time; learn why it’s terrible here:

Only very fun, highly engaging ads can achieve organic growth. But there is a more straightforward strategy: Create your regular YouTube videos and leave links to external platforms. This ensures that the videos are viewed and distributed.

How to convert YouTube viewers into leads

Before we get into step-by-step instructions, answer the following question: What is your ultimate conversion goal? Do you want your viewers to:

register for newsletter
visit website
buy a product
promote new product
book a call (or call directly)

Keep this in mind when working on the next steps.

Lead magnets

The easiest call-to-action is to make viewers leave YouTube and go on your website. If you have more free materials (on top of the videos), don’t hesitate to promote them directly. Make sure you use gated content meaning that you ask for potential leads for information: email, name, company, location, etc.

This way, you can nurture leads and send them more sales information later.

Types of lead magnets

Think about what works for your audience and what brings you closer to your end goal. These can be:

step by step guides
ebook
video series
cheat sheet
tool
test, quiz, or survey
webinar
free trial (software, subscription)
discount
etc.

Take a tubics example. We add a CTA “Download our YouTube guide” on the end screen of each video to generate more downloads and leads.

Where to convert YouTube viewers

You can add lead magnets directly in the video: with verbal call-to-action, animated text, or arrows leading to CTA. It can be placed in Info cards or End screens, but also in:

Video description (first lines to be above “see more”)
Pinned comment
Comments (links)
Channel home page
Trailer/featured video
Banner image

Once you set up a lead magnet placement strategy, make sure not to make the following mistake.

Don’t convert all your traffic away from YouTube! This will end sessions (an important metric for the YouTube algorithm). In turn, your whole channel will not grow as quickly.

Instead, lead viewers from popular, big audience videos to smaller ones and add the lead magnets there. This also ensures that the audience is warm and converts easier.

I hope this article was helpful 🙂 Learn more about YouTube video marketing at tubics.com/blog!