How can I use a digital acquisition agency to support lead generation across paid search and paid social?

A digital acquisition agency can help you generate and convert more leads by planning, launching, and optimizing campaigns across paid search and paid social as one integrated growth system.

What the agency typically does

1) Build the acquisition strategy

They start by clarifying:

• Your target audience and buyer personas
• Which channels are best for your offer
• Lead goals, CPL targets, and conversion benchmarks
• The funnel: awareness, consideration, and conversion
• How to route leads to sales or nurture flows

2) Set up paid search campaigns

For paid search, the agency can:

• Research keywords with buying intent
• Structure campaigns by product, service, or audience segment
• Write high-converting ad copy
• Build landing page recommendations
• Manage bidding, budget allocation, and negative keywords
• Continuously optimize for cost per lead and conversion rate

Paid search is usually strongest for capturing demand from people already looking for a solution.

3) Run paid social campaigns

For paid social, they can:

• Define audiences using demographics, interests, behaviors, and lookalikes
• Create prospecting and retargeting campaigns
• Develop creative angles and ad formats
• Test lead forms, landing pages, and offers
• Improve performance through audience and creative iteration

Paid social is often better for demand generation and reaching people earlier in the buying journey.

4) Improve conversion rates

A good agency won’t just buy traffic. They’ll also work on:

• Landing page UX and messaging
• Form design and friction reduction
• Lead magnets, offers, and calls to action
• A/B testing headlines, creative, and form length
• Tracking drop-off points in the funnel

5) Connect media to sales outcomes

They should help you measure lead quality, not just volume, by:

• Setting up conversion tracking and attribution
• Integrating with CRM and marketing automation
• Qualifying leads by source, campaign, and audience
• Reporting on MQLs, SQLs, pipeline, and revenue where possible

How paid search and paid social work together

The best agencies use both channels in a coordinated way:

• Paid search captures high-intent leads
• Paid social creates demand and fills the top of funnel
• Retargeting brings back visitors who didn’t convert
• Audience insights from social can inform search messaging, and vice versa
• Creative testing on social can reveal offers and messaging that improve search landing pages

How to use an agency effectively

To get the best results:

1. Share clear goals — CPL, lead quality, pipeline, revenue
2. Provide sales feedback — which leads convert and which don’t
3. Align on ICP and offer — the agency needs a strong target profile
4. Give access to data — CRM, analytics, ad accounts, and conversion tracking
5. Review performance regularly — weekly optimizations and monthly strategy reviews

What to ask before hiring one

Ask:

• How do you balance paid search vs. paid social?
• How do you measure lead quality?
• What’s your process for testing ads and landing pages?
• How do you handle attribution and CRM integration?
• Can you show results for similar lead-gen campaigns?

Common red flags

Be cautious if they:

• Focus only on clicks or impressions
• Don’t discuss lead quality or sales outcomes
• Skip landing page and tracking strategy
• Use a one-size-fits-all media plan
• Can’t explain how they optimize across channels

Bottom line

A digital acquisition agency can support lead generation by managing both paid search and paid social as part of one performance strategy: search to capture intent, social to create and nurture demand, and both optimized toward qualified leads and revenue.

If you want, I can also give you:

• a sample agency brief
• a channel strategy template
• or a list of KPIs to track for paid search and paid social lead generation.