Best Lead Magnets Study for Lead Generation: GetResponse's Study Report 2020

Best Lead Magnets Study for Lead Generation

If you’ve been doing lead generation for a while, you probably already know this: one of the best ways to collect contact info from your audience is to give them something valuable in return.

This “something” is often called a lead magnet. Some people also refer to it as a content upgrade, a freebie, a giveaway, or an opt-in offer. In short, it’s a piece of content or a resource you offer for free in exchange for someone’s name and email address.

Lead magnets can come in all kinds of formats—like eBooks, checklists, templates, webinars, or even discount codes. But here’s the real question: Are all lead magnets equally effective when it comes to generating leads?

That’s something we kept wondering about. We looked for data to help us figure it out, but we couldn’t find much that gave us real answers.

So, we decided to run our own study. We wanted to find out which types of lead magnets actually work best.

In the rest of this article, we’ll walk you through what we discovered from our research. We’ll also dive into another key question: How do you make sure your lead magnet actually matches what your target audience wants or needs?

To answer that, we gathered tips and insights from 14 experienced marketers who’ve spent years using lead magnets to successfully grow their email lists.

We’re grateful to everyone who shared their knowledge in this study, and now we’re excited to share the results with you.

Table Of Contents on Best Lead Magnets Study for Lead Generation

• What This 2020 Study on Lead Magnets Is All About
• What We Learned from the Study
• Which Types of Lead Magnets Get the Most Sign-Ups
• Does It Matter How Long Your Lead Magnet Is?
• Do Small and Big Businesses Use Different Lead Magnets?
• Do You Need a Different Lead Magnet for B2B, B2C, or Both?
• Best Lead Magnets for Online Marketing
• Best Lead Magnets for Ecommerce Stores
• Best Lead Magnets for Arts & Entertainment Businesses
• Best Lead Magnets for Health & Beauty Brands
• Best Lead Magnets for Finance & Money Services
• What Works in Other Types of Industries
• How We Collected the Data
• How to Pick the Right Lead Magnet for Your Audience
• Which Lead Magnet Should You Try Next?

Quick Tip: GetResponse now offers a helpful tool called the Lead Magnet Funnel. It lets you create, promote, and collect more leads all in one place!

About the 2020 Best Lead Magnets Study

We collected the information below from 790 marketers who answered our survey between March and May 2020.

Out of all the people who took part:

• 60% were freelancers or independent contractors, meaning they worked for themselves.
• 17.6% worked at small companies with just 2 to 9 employees.

When it came to their audience:

• 44.1% said they marketed to both businesses (B2B) and regular consumers (B2C).
• 26.6% focused only on business-to-business (B2B) marketing.
• 18.1% said their main focus was business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing.

The top industries these marketers worked in included:

• Internet marketing (22.6%) – things like digital ads, SEO, and social media marketing.
• E-commerce (10.3%) – selling products online.
• Arts and entertainment (7.8%) – such as music, movies, or creative work.

Main findings

Nearly half of marketers (47%) in our study said that short videos and text-based lead magnets work best when trying to get people to sign up or take action.

When we looked closer at these two types—video and written content—shorter versions performed better than longer ones. Only 27% of marketers said that long videos helped them get more sign-ups, and only 41.4% said long written content worked well for them.

Solo business owners (solopreneurs), who made up 60% of the people we surveyed, preferred using video lead magnets. Small companies with 10 to 49 employees (8.2% of our respondents) also saw similar success with video.

However, for all other business sizes, text-based lead magnets worked best. That includes:

• Companies with 2 to 9 employees (17.6% of participants),
• Medium-sized businesses with 50 to 249 employees (6.7%),
• And larger companies with 250 or more employees (7.5%).

In the internet marketing field—which was the most common industry among our participants—video and written lead magnets performed almost the same.

• About 27.5% of marketers got better results using written content,
• And 26.2% said video content brought them more conversions.

💡 Editor’s note: If you’re looking for ideas, check out this post with 25 lead magnet examples from different industries. It’s a great way to get inspired!

What type of lead magnets has the highest conversion rates

We started our research by asking people a simple question: Which types of lead magnets have worked best for you in terms of getting people to take action or sign up?

We wanted to find out which formats gave them the highest conversion rates — meaning which ones actually got people to respond or join their email list.

Out of all the responses, two formats stood out as the most effective. Nearly half of the people (47%) said that video content (24.2%) and written content (22.8%) gave them the best results.

After that, the next most effective types were:

• Visual content like infographics or images (11.8%)
• Tools or access-based offers like free trials or templates (11.8%)
• Offers with monetary value like discounts or coupons (10.5%)

The least effective, based on the number of people who chose them, were:

• Interactive content such as quizzes or calculators (7.9%)
• Audio content like podcasts (6.1%)
• Other types that didn’t fit into the main categories (5.2%)

Our takeaway:

These results match up with what we’ve seen in our own lead generation campaign. For example, webinars and downloadable guides — which are video and written formats — have worked really well for us. And it’s no surprise, since those were the same types that almost half of the people in our study said worked best for them too.

Does the length of the lead magnet matter?

Next, we wanted to find out whether short or long content works better for marketers when it comes to getting leads.

We focused on videos and written content because that's where this kind of comparison makes the most sense.

What we found for video content 🎥

Most marketers (73%) said short videos — like clips, quick how-to tutorials, or short samples — gave them the best results.

Only 27% said longer videos — like webinars, full lectures, or recorded presentations — performed better for them.

What we found for written content 📝

The results were similar, though not as extreme.

About 58.6% said short written content — like newsletters, checklists, or eBook samples — helped them get more leads.

Meanwhile, 41.4% had better results with long-form content like full guides or detailed reports.

Our takeaway 👀

This result surprised us a little. A lot of the content we usually see being promoted is long — things like full guides, white papers, webinars, and virtual events.

But here’s the catch: long-form content takes more time and effort to create, and it also takes longer for people to read or watch. And let’s be honest — most marketers are short on time and resources.

That’s something we’ll explore more later. But for now, here are two big questions we think are worth testing in your strategy:

• Should you focus on creating one big lead magnet and promote it heavily across all your marketing channels?
• Or is it smarter to create a bunch of short lead magnets that you can easily connect to your blog posts or campaigns?

Here’s a full breakdown of the short vs. long content that marketers said worked best for them (keep in mind: they could pick more than one answer).

Which Long-Form Video Content Has the Highest Conversion Rate

Which Short-Form Video Content Has the Highest Conversion Rate

Which Long-Form Written Content Has the Highest Conversion Rate

Which Short-Form Written Content Has the Highest Conversion Rate

Do businesses of different sizes choose different lead magnets?

Since we saw some interesting results in the last section, we got curious—do businesses with more employees use different types of lead generation incentives?

We figured that bigger companies might have more money and tools to create lead magnets that smaller businesses or solo entrepreneurs can’t.

Here’s what we discovered.

Let’s begin with solopreneurs, since they’re a good point of reference for this study. They made up 60% of the people who answered our survey, so their choices play a big role in the overall results.

Best Lead Magnets by Business-Size – Solopreneurs

It looks like this might be true, because video content is the most popular type of lead magnet among solopreneurs (people running their business alone). About 28.4% of them said video works best for getting leads.

Video is also the top choice for one other group: companies with 10 to 49 employees. But for larger businesses — those with 50 to 249 employees and those with over 250 — video only comes in fourth place.

Written content is the second most popular lead magnet among solopreneurs, with 20.7% choosing it as their most effective option. But for most other businesses — from 2 to 9 employees, 50 to 249, and 250+ employees — written content actually ranks first. The only group where it doesn't rank first is the 10 to 49 employee group.

When we look at the overall results, each group clearly favors one type of lead magnet over others. The gap between the most popular and second-most popular types is usually between 7.3 and 13.3 percentage points.

The only exception is the largest companies — those with more than 250 employees. For them, the top three lead magnet types are much closer together, with only a 4-point difference between first and third.

Another interesting point: For these large companies (and also for companies with 50 to 249 employees), their second most effective lead magnets aren’t videos or written content — they’re money-based offers, like discounts, coupon codes, or free shipping.

Below are the graphs that show how preferences change based on company size.

Best Lead Magnets by Business-Size – 2-9 employees

Best Lead Magnets by Business-Size – 10-49 employees

Best Lead Magnets by Business-Size – 50-249 employees

Best Lead Magnets by Business-Size – 250+ employees

Observation:

If you run a small or medium-sized business with limited resources, this is actually great news. It looks like you don’t need to give away money or discounts – which eat into your profits – to attract leads successfully.

Many solopreneurs (people running a business by themselves) prefer using videos or written content as lead magnets. These are free resources you give away to get people’s contact info. The best part? They don’t cost much to make, and you can often create them yourself. Plus, they don’t cut into your profits, and you don’t need to sell in big volumes to make money from them.

On the other hand, larger companies with over 50 employees tend to use written content and money-based offers more often. And when they do use written lead magnets, they usually go for long-form content like ebooks or detailed guides.

One reason big companies choose this route is because they can. They have the people, time, and budget to create content that smaller businesses might struggle to produce.

Another reason is that bigger companies often have to go through approval processes. So even something as simple as a short video might take longer to get approved, especially when multiple departments are involved or when they're dealing with high-end clients.

Lastly, big companies usually focus on getting fewer leads – but better ones. So they design their lead magnets to attract only serious prospects that their sales team can follow up with right away.

Does the choice of lead magnets vary if you are targeting a specific audience (B2B, B2C or both)?

We also wanted to find out if marketers who target different types of audiences prefer different kinds of opt-in offers.

We guessed that marketers focused on B2C (business-to-consumer) might see better results with certain offers—like giving discounts or other money-related incentives.

When we asked, 44.1% of people said they target both B2B and B2C audiences. Another 26.6% mainly focus on B2B (business-to-business), and 18.1% said they mostly go after B2C customers.

Best Lead Magnets by Audience-Type – B2B & B2C

Best Lead Magnets by Audience-Type – B2B

Best Lead Magnets by Audience-Type – B2C

Surprisingly, there’s not much difference between groups when it comes to the two most popular types of lead magnets.

All groups agreed that video and written content tend to get the best conversion rates. But those who only focus on B2C didn’t think that offering a tool or access to something worked well as a lead magnet.

What we can take away from this:

Whether you’re targeting B2B, B2C, or both, you can still get great results using proven types of lead magnets.

The smartest way to run a lead generation campaign is to start with the data, then test different things to see what your audience responds to best.

Next, let’s take a quick look at how different industries use lead magnets and which ones work best in each.

Just a heads-up: some of the industries listed below had fewer responses, so keep that in mind. Still, the data can give you helpful ideas and a good place to start your own research.

What lead magnets work best in Internet Marketing

Best Lead Magnets by Industry – Internet Marketing

Internet marketing was the top industry in our study. Out of 658 people who answered our question, 149 said they work in this field—that’s about 22.6%.

Most of them (75.7%) said they run their business alone as solopreneurs. Almost half (48.3%) said they sell to both businesses (B2B) and regular customers (B2C).

The charts above show results that are pretty close to what we saw across the board.

Solopreneurs are getting the best results using lead magnets like written content and videos. They also like to keep it simple—things like checklists or short video clips work best for them.

Which Lead Magnets Work Best in Ecommerce

E-commerce was the second most common type of business in our study. Out of the group, 68 people said they ran e-commerce businesses. That’s about 10.3% of everyone we looked at.

Of those e-commerce business owners, most (61.8%) were solo entrepreneurs. Another 22.1% worked in small teams with just 2 to 9 people. When it comes to who they sell to, 41.3% said they sell to both other businesses (B2B) and regular customers (B2C). About 28.6% focused only on B2B, while 17.5% only sold to B2C.

Best Lead Magnets by Industry – Ecommerce

Just like our main results, the top lead magnets that people said worked best were videos (33.8%), printed materials (17.6%), and tools or access to something useful (13.2%).

It’s interesting that videos were way ahead of printed materials by 16.2%, but this big gap might be because we didn’t have a large number of people in the survey.

Which Lead Magnets Work Best in Arts and Entertainment

50 of our study participants represented the arts and entertainment vertical.

Best Lead Magnets by Industry – Arts & Entertainment

Just like in other industries, videos were the most popular type of lead magnet. But second and third place were a bit different this time. Those spots went to interactive content and tools or offers that give people access to something special.

That’s interesting because these types of offers usually take more work to create—but they’re also more fun and engaging. And that’s exactly what arts and entertainment brands usually aim for.

About 37.5% of these brands spoke to both business (B2B) and regular (B2C) customers. Around 29.2% focused only on B2B, and 14.6% went just for B2C.

Most of them got the best results with short lead magnets, whether it was a video or something written.

Which lead magnets work best in health and beauty

Out of all the people we talked to, 44 were from the Health & Beauty industry. About 35% of them sold to both businesses (B2B) and regular customers (B2C). Another 25% focused only on B2B, while 20% sold only to B2C.

When it came to lead magnets, this group showed a slightly different pattern compared to others. Written lead magnets were the most popular, and they were chosen way more often than videos — by 18.2 percentage points. That shows a clear preference for written content.

Even though we only looked at a small group of people, it would be helpful to do a bigger study and look deeper into each industry to see if these trends still hold up.

Best Lead Magnets by Industry – Health & Beauty

Which Lead Magnets Work Best in Financial Services

Out of the 39 people working in financial services, the most popular lead magnets were video (20.5%) and visuals (20.5%).

Surprisingly, only 12.8% chose written lead magnets, which is different from what we saw in other industries.

Financial Services

Which lead magnets work best in other industries

Here are the charts for the other industries we found. Since we couldn't gather enough data for each one, we're sharing just the graphs without any additional explanation.

Schools and education

Schools and Education

Marketing agencies and Advertising

Marketing agencies and Advertising

SaaS, Software, and Web App

SaaS, Software, and Web App

Automotive

Automotive

Technology and High Tech

Health Care

Real Estate

Real Estate

Travel

travel

Events

events

Publishing

publishing

Restaurants and Food

Restaurants and Food

Non-profits

non-profits

Legal Services

Legal Services

Sports and Fitness

Sports And Fitness

Methodology and data

We did the study between March and May 2020.

We gathered responses through an online survey, which we shared through different marketing channels like email, social media, and partnerships.

Most of the responses came from people who visited the GetResponse resources and blog, where we also included an invitation to join the study.

To make sure everyone understood the main types of magnets, we included these examples in the survey:

How to align your lead magnet with the needs of your target audience

We've already said that this data is just a starting point for your own research, so you can pick the best lead magnet for your audience.

To help you even more, we reached out to some top marketers who work with lead magnets every day. They shared their tips that you can start using in your business right away.

One important tip: Listen closely to what your audience is "saying" and understand what they really mean by it.

The simplest way is to make sure your lead magnet matches the intent behind the keywords your content is targeting. Think about what a reader needs based on the problem they’re trying to solve. If you can offer a helpful downloadable solution to that problem, both you and your reader will benefit.

Ben Sailer, Director of Inbound Marketing, CoSchedule

Start by figuring out what your audience really needs. Do they actually want something like "Sixteen Facebook Marketing Secrets" or "The Best Digital Marketing Books For [Your Industry] To Read"? Probably not, unless they have a lot of free time. But they’re more likely to want something like "8 marketing email templates you can copy and use today." Just ask your audience what they’re looking for.

Darren Foong, Marketing, Candy Bar

I suggest creating detailed personas and mapping out content based on your audience's interests, which you can figure out from their Google search behavior (using Ads Keyword Planner). Also, compare the leads you've captured to your target audience to make sure you're on the right track.

Dave Chaffey, author: Digital Marketing Excellence, co-founder: Smart Insights

The simple answer is to talk to your best customers. When we launched our new product, Respona, people kept asking us what outreach strategies worked best for Visme. They wanted to know if we had written down the strategies that helped us grow the business to over 4 million users, mostly through organic search. So, we did exactly that! We created an ebook called "Marketing Strategies We Used to Bootstrap Visme to 4 Million Users." What happened next? The ebook got 10,000 downloads and brought in over a thousand sign-ups for Respona within 60 days. We also received tons of emails praising the material.

Farzad Rashidi, Marketing Director, Visme

I’ve found that one of the best ways to create a lead magnet that matches what my audience wants is to first write down all the words and phrases they use when talking about their fears, hopes, and dreams. After that, I look over these phrases to spot common patterns. The fears, hopes, and dreams that appear most often should be the focus of your lead magnet. Plus, having these phrases handy makes it way easier to write opt-in copy.
Benjamin Houy, Founder, Grow With Less

When one of our articles ranks in Google’s top 3 for a target keyword, we know we’ve created the right content that meets the needs of our readers. Since it already works well, we turn it into a checklist because it’s exactly what people are currently reading.
Shaurya Jain, Founder, Attentionalways

The idea is simple, but it’s tough to do. Be a craftsman, not a factory worker! I saw the best results when I tailored both the message and the timing—this means focusing not just on when you deliver the message, but also how often you contact people. And always follow the 80/20 rule! Using basic probability or making decisions based on experience will take you a long way. The hard part is finding the time to do it consistently.
Angel Lorente Paramo, former global head of e-commerce marketing at Qatar Airways

Focus on what will help your audience progress

To start, ask yourself: What is your audience mainly focused on? What do they want to achieve? You can get this information from your support team. Find out what people are looking for in your product or service. Knowing this will help you choose the right lead magnet for them. For example, if they need help writing emails, offer downloadable templates.
Rafal Kloc, Product Marketing Manager, HelpDesk

To get a high email conversion rate (over 20%) from blog posts, use lead magnets that are actually useful—something people can download and use every day.
Chris Von Wilpert, Founder, ContentMavericks

Keep things simple. Choose a specific part of your audience and help them solve a problem. Make it something they can act on right away and see results.

Jonas Sickler, SEO Manager, Terakeet

A great way to connect your lead generation to your audience is by creating reviews that are valuable to them.

For example: If you run an IT consulting business and want to get qualified leads, create a short quiz where people can check their IT skills. After they finish, ask for their email to send them the results. This way, you get contact information from someone genuinely interested, and you provide value by giving them professional advice.

Iris De Geest, Content Marketing Specialist, SurveyAnyplace

When it comes to lead magnets, remember that what you think is valuable might not be what your target audience thinks is valuable. So, how can you create a lead magnet that really appeals to your users?

Here's my approach:

• Break your content into categories based on where users are in the sales process. People have different needs at each stage. For example, users who are just interested might like how-to articles, while those closer to a decision will want to know exactly how your business works.
• Once you know the different stages, come up with lead magnet ideas for each one. For example, if you have a page that shows how you helped a client increase traffic, a great lead magnet might be an invite to a webinar where you share more details and offer your services.

Vincent Bucciachio, Founder, SociallyInfused

One of the best ways to create a lead magnet is by offering a free tool. After testing many options, we found this works best because it attracts people who are genuinely interested in your content. It also keeps people on your site longer, which helps with SEO.

Free tools are easy to set up with the right software. But remember, they take more effort to create because you'll need to design a simple user interface to make it visually appealing.

Artem Minaev, Web Hosting Expert, FirstSiteGuide

If you run a service business, never underestimate how powerful it is to be accessible to potential customers. One of the best lead magnets is giving away a small portion of your time or expertise. This could be a quick consultation, a detailed quote, or even creating helpful content like videos or posts. The key is knowing your audience, because the strategy behind the lead magnet is what makes it work.

Matt Janaway, Founder, Marketing Labs

Which lead magnets will you use in your next lead generation campaign?

We’ve already started using the findings from this study and trying out different types of lead magnets.

So far, we've published a few shorter articles, like the email deliverability checklist and the webinar setup checklist, and the results look really good. Not only did we generate new leads, but we also provided valuable info to our current audience. Plus, creating them didn’t take as long as more detailed reports (like the Email Marketing Benchmarks).

Now, I encourage you to do the same – experiment with your lead generation campaigns, try out new types of lead magnets, and share the results with us! 😊

If you're looking for a tool to help you get more leads through membership incentives, check out how GetResponse’s sales funnel software can help.

Affiliate Disclaimer: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products and services that I truly believe in and think will add value to you. Thank you for supporting my work! 😊