Building a Lead Generation Business Based on Recurring Commissions

[Gilli]

I’ve been working for my uncle in a wood-processing company for several years. We manufacture glued laminated timber (glulam). It’s a small company, but it supplies customers all across Europe.

A few weeks ago, I was going through the current orders with my uncle and he told me that we were probably heading into another period where there would be less work.

According to him, this is completely normal in our industry, and after working there for several years, I’ve noticed these ups and downs myself many times.

But this time I could see in his face that it was bothering him.

So I started talking to him a little about how we actually get new orders and, more importantly, new customers.

During that conversation, he told me about one of his sales representatives who works on commission.

What really caught my attention was how her commission model works.

If she brings in a new customer and that customer places an order, she gets a commission. But if that same customer orders from us again later, she also gets a commission on those future orders.

That immediately got my attention.

I’ve been on this forum for a few years now and I read through posts here almost every day, so it didn’t take long before I thought:

Why shouldn’t I try to do basically the same thing online?

I don’t necessarily have to drive from company to company trying to sell them something.

I could try to catch people online who are already searching for exactly the products we manufacture.

If I generate a lead, that lead becomes a customer of my uncle’s company and places an order, I get my commission.

And if that customer orders again in the future, I get another commission.

That was basically the point where the idea started.

I didn’t wait very long.

On September 24th, I started.

I sat down with ChatGPT and started building the first landing page.

At the beginning, of course, I was mainly thinking about the website.

But while working on it, I started realizing more and more that the website itself is only one part of the whole thing.

What I actually want to build is this:

Someone searches for a product → finds my landing page → sends a specific inquiry → I pass the lead on → an order is made → I get a commission.

And if that person becomes a long-term customer, I also earn from future orders.

So I started breaking the whole thing down further.

Instead of simply building one big website, we started creating separate pages for different products and different search intents.

By now, 6 landing pages are live.

Four in German:

• Glulam in general
• Straight glulam beams
• Spruce glulam beams
• Larch glulam beams

And two in Italian:

• Glulam in general
• Larch glulam beams

Then I added tracking.

When someone sends an inquiry, I want to know where that lead came from and which landing page they entered through.

So we set up Google Analytics, Google Ads conversion tracking and the forms.

Only when someone actually submits a project inquiry is it counted as a lead.

After that, I started Google Ads in Germany and Italy.

The campaigns are still very new, but the first numbers have been encouraging.

In Germany, the campaign has generated 40 clicks from 435 impressions, with an average CPC of about €1.20.

In Italy, where I only started the campaign very recently, the numbers have been even more interesting. On October 5th alone, the campaign generated 9 clicks from 134 impressions, with an average CPC of about €0.90.

And one of those first Italian visitors turned into the qualified project inquiry I mentioned below.

These are obviously tiny numbers and far too early to draw any serious conclusions from. But for me, that is exactly the point of this experiment. I’m spending small amounts of real money and getting real market feedback instead of trying to guess what might work.

And that’s where it started getting really interesting for me.

Because I don’t see Google Ads only as a way to get customers anymore.

I can also use it to find out what people are actually searching for.

Not what I think they are searching for.

But what they actually type into Google and what they are willing to click on.

Which search terms only bring random visitors?

Which ones bring people with an actual construction project?

And later, of course, the most important question:

Which search terms bring customers who actually buy?

At the same time, we are testing SEO.

For example, today I put a separate Italian landing page online just for larch glulam beams. I am intentionally not running any ads to that page.

I want to see if we can get visitors and eventually inquiries from Google without paying for the traffic.

And then something came in today that I honestly wasn’t expecting this early.

Today is October 5th. So 11 days after I started.

The first real inquiry from Italy.

And it wasn’t just someone asking for a price.

It was an architect.

She provided her name, company, phone number, location, quantity, dimensions and information about the actual project.

She needs:

15 glulam beams, 150 × 200 × 3,500 mm, for a roof/terrace project.

The lead came through our Italian Google Ads campaign.

And for me, this was the first small proof I wanted to see.

Someone I don’t know and have never spoken to before searched Google for our product, clicked my ad, landed on my landing page and then sent me the details of an actual project.

Of course, I also know that one lead proves basically nothing.

Maybe this lead won’t turn into an order.

Maybe I need 20 leads like this to get one order.

Maybe the numbers won’t work at all in the end.

That’s exactly what I want to find out now.

For me, the next chain is:

Lead → Quote → Order → Commission.

And after that, it gets even more interesting:

Does that customer order again?

Because that’s where I see the really interesting part of this model.

If I spend money today to acquire a customer, but that customer keeps ordering over the next few years and I keep receiving commission on those orders, then that lead has a completely different value to me than just the first order.

Long term, I want to have numbers like:

€X ad spend → X leads → X customers → €X revenue for the company → €X commission for me.

And then I want to know what those customers are worth after 1, 2 or maybe 5 years.

That’s also why I don’t really look at this as:

“I’m building a website for my uncle.”

The website itself only interests me as far as it helps me generate customers.

What I really want to learn is:

Can I find demand, turn that demand into leads, and turn those leads into customers profitably?

If I can make this work for this company, then at some point the next question obviously becomes:

Can I repeat this system?

But I’m nowhere near that point yet.

Right now, I first want to prove that these leads actually turn into orders and commissions.

This is where I am right now.

I’ll keep documenting the process as I go — what works, what doesn’t, how much I spend, how many leads come in, and most importantly, whether those leads actually turn into customers and recurring commissions.

This post was written with the help of AI.

 

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[MTF]

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