7 June 2024
Job boards need traffic, right? Even if you bootstrapped several job boards, operating a job industry business revolves around marketing and traffic acquisition. You must first curate the jobs from various sources and build traffic and credibility to send traffic to the job posts. Then, companies would happily pay for premium spots to list their jobs. However, creating high-quality traffic is a key point. According to the Job Board Doctor's 2023-24 Recruiting Trends Survey, one of the best ways to get quality traffic is to buy it from job aggregators.
There are many ways to buy traffic, but pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is the most common option. With PPC ads, you pay a certain amount each time someone clicks on your ad.
The price you pay depends on several factors, including job position, industry, location, and urgency. But generally, you can expect to pay anywhere from a few pence to a few pounds per click.
The main pool of job board clients are employers and recruiting agencies interested in their candidate base. Therefore, for a job board, the main goals of buying traffic are:
Targeted traffic involves users browsing a website with a specific goal. These visitors are specifically interested in the products or services you offer. Non-targeted website traffic refers to users looking at a website without expressing interest in a particular product or service.
If we're not talking about Google paid traffic, the job aggregator, as an example of a paid channel, acts as a kind of traffic filter, sending job boards sending candidates who have already shown interest in their vacancies. In my opinion, targeted users from the paid traffic sources are likely to convert, which means that a job board is more likely to achieve its primary goal - to increase the number of job applications or registrations.
The notion of control can be one of the most vital aspects for the job board owner. Paid sources give them control over targeting, allowing them to reach the most relevant job seekers based on specific demographics, behavior, and interests, ensuring higher quality applicants. It also enables them to conduct A/B testing on various ad creatives and strategies, optimizing campaigns for better performance.
Additionally, with paid traffic, job board owners can strictly manage their ad spend, allocating their budget to areas that generate the highest ROI, thus maximizing their efficiency.
Why are paid channels better than free options? I believe this because they simply give different results. Free traffic for job boards often lacks clearness and targeting, resulting in a less qualified pool of candidates. This can lead to higher bounce rates and lower engagement, as many users may not find relevant job postings or be the right fit for the advertised positions.
Relying only on free traffic can limit the job board's reach and growth potential, making it harder to quickly fill vacancies and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
In my opinion, paid traffic is an excellent opportunity to get high-quality and manageable volume quickly. Setting a budget for buying traffic from a job aggregator brings your business much more results. It's fast, efficient, and reliable.
One of the main advantages of buying traffic from aggregators is the balance of price and quality. Job companies have learned the hard way how to attract effective traffic to their platforms because it is necessary for the company to perform and generate revenue. They can share their results with other interested partners in the industries, creating a win-win effect.
How do you know that the traffic quality is high?
In the £10,000 billion job aggregators market, mature companies are constantly monitoring the quality of their traffic to:
Traffic quality monitoring is essential for business operations in the job industry. Otherwise, why was it all created?
High-volume recruiting involves hiring many applicants over a short period, and access to a larger pool of candidates can improve this process's overall quality and quantity. However, due to the limited timeframes, there is a threat of imbalance between the quality and quantity of traffic, so the best solution, in my opinion, is to diversify paid channels.
To summarize, the reality is that paid traffic lets you generate results for your business. Firstly, it's a rational spending of money; it brings a highly targeted audience and allows you to control marketing efforts. It’s an opportunity to fill more vacancies with less time. Overall, paid channels are effective and efficient tools in the job industry.
Roman Peltek, COO at Jobsora