Quick Answer: The best marketing channels for business brokers depend on your market size and budget. Facebook ads deliver the most consistent lead flow month-to-month with high-quality prospects, while cold email, cold calling, LinkedIn, and Google ads each have specific use cases. Cold email works at ~1,000 sends/day with proper setup; cold calling generates 3-5 appointments/month; LinkedIn offers low-scalability organic reach; and Google ads target specific keywords with mediocre lead quality. For maximum results, test multiple channels in your local market rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.
Which Marketing Channels Should Business Brokers Invest In?
I hear this all the time: “Which marketing channel should I invest in to get more leads and listings?” It’s a common struggle and one that can either make or break your growth as a broker.
If you have been thinking this, I will be happy to point you in the right direction. My company, ClientsIO, which specializes in lead generation for business brokers, has spent over $3 Million dollars in marketing in the business broker space generating leads for hundreds of brokers per year. I’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and what you should absolutely avoid. to generate a quality lead.
So here’s my honest breakdown of the top marketing channels for business brokers and how I recommend approaching each one.
Cold Email Marketing
Back in 2022, this was my expertise. I was known as the “cold email guy” and I built ClientsIO on the back of cold email marketing. Back then, you could create an email campaign, send about 1,000 emails a day and generate more than enough leads every single month. Nowadays, these types of results simply cannot be accomplished. Around Thanksgiving time of 2022, I saw a huge algorithm update with Google which lowered my open rates and response rates substantially. After years of testing and trying every angle out there, I can to the realization that the market had shifted and cold email marketing will never be the same.
Now, if a broker were to ask me what I think about cold email marketing, I would still recommend it. Why? Well, it really depends on how much time and energy you are looking to put into it. Overall, my recommendation is the following.
Based on everything I have seen, here are the steps on how you can utilize cold email marketing.
- Buy a list of business owner data. I suggest Apollo.io
- Buy 10 burner domains that are similar to your companies domain.
- Create 2 email accounts on each domain. Yes that’s all.
- You will need to clean the data that you purchased using any online cleaning software.
- Warm up the email campaigns. Some cold email softwares can do this for you. I suggest signing up for Smartlead.
- Once you have given everything a couple weeks, I recommend only sending up to 40-50 sends a day per email account. So that means if you have 2 email accounts per domain and 10 domains, that’s around 1,000 send per day. I would not try to increase over this number.
This is the best strategy for cold email. I do not recommend trying to scale cold email. Once you start scaling to 2,000 or 5,000 sends per day, you are likely to start burning domains quickly and sabotage any long-term strategy. Keep it around 1,000 sends per day and you should be fine.
For more insights, check out Best Places To Buy Business Owner Data As a Business Broker.
Cold Calling
One of the oldest tried and true methods to get leads is cold calling. I have offered cold calling services to many business brokers and ran many successful campaigns for them. Yes, cold calling can work but it is getting harder and harder to get great results. Why?
Mobile phones numbers are a prized treasure when it comes to cold calling. When you buy a list of business owner phone numbers, you will most likely get the corporate number or office number. It is ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to call the front desk of a company and weasel your way into speaking with the owner. Again, not impossible… but when cold calling, most of your callers time is spent getting wrong numbers, voicemails or gatekeepers.
When I talk to a lot of business brokers, they tell me how they are able to find callers for super cheap that can call all day for them. They think that if the caller is calling all day, that HAVE TO get appointments, right?
After having a call team call over 100,000 businesses for business brokers. Here is the reality…
Let’s say you hire an overseas caller to call 8 hours per day. Here are the stats:
- In 8 hours the caller should be able to call at least 150 businesses.
- Contact Rate: 10-15%
- Missed Call/Voicemail Rate: 85%
- Business owners talked to: 10-12
- Gatekeepers/Others: 5-7
Overall, in a full day of calling, the caller was ONLY able to actually talk to 10-12 business owners.
Now do you know the percentage of business owners that are generally thinking about selling their business?
Figures show that around 20% of business owners think about selling their business. This figure is the total number and not how many are actively looking to sell.
At the end of the day, if you want to book 3-5 appointments per month with business owners looking to sell their business within the next 2-3 years, cold calling can work for you. If you are looking to scale your business or do more than 5 deals a year, I do not recommend investing in cold calling.
LinkedIn Marketing
LinkedIn is a great platform to connect with Business owners in your target market. I recommend every business broker create a strategy to utilize LinkedIn. The biggest thing to note about LinkedIn is that the platform has set parameters in place to limit your outreach. This means that you can only do so much on the platform. It is not a scaleable marketing channel.
To maximize your LinkedIn outreach strategy, I would do the following:
- Make sure to get Sales Navigator. This will allow you to build lists of business owners to prospect through.
- Please utilize LinkedIn automation. It will make a world of difference. Trying to prospect manually on LinkedIn is a lot of effort for little payoff. The automation platforms can be set up in a way to make it look very realistic your behaviors. I recommend Dripify It’s the best and most inexpensive option to automate your LinkedIn outreach.
- Post industry tips on LinkedIn at least once a week. It will help make you an authority in the space for your network.
Paid Advertising
The last marketing channel I would recommend is paid advertising. There are two different paid Advertising channels many business brokers use. Google ads and Facebook ads. I’ve tested both and here are the results I have seen.
Google Advertising:
- Great to target specific keywords and only pay when your ads are clicked on.
- Lead quality is mediocre because you have no control over who is submitting their info through the ads.
- Scalability is not very high because your ads ONLY show when someone searches the keyword. If there are low searches for a keyword, you won’t get many hits.
Overall: I do recommend running Google ads to branded keywords like your companies name, your name or for keywords such as, “sell my business [city]” and other related keywords.
Facebook Advertising:
- Best for scalability. Your ads will show to all the business owners within a geographical region.
- You can also filter by business revenue. For example, if the business owner says they are doing less than $500k in revenue, you have the option of disqualifying them before they are able to submit the form. This one option in Facebook’s form has saved my clients tons of headache of getting junk leads.
- Facebook will spend your money no matter what. This means you should probably know what you are doing before launching a campaign. My team can help you with this.
My Overall Opinion:
Each marketing channel has their pros and cons. If you have the marketing budget, I recommend dabbling in all of the marketing channels and see what works best for your local market. Many business brokers think that marketing is a one-size-fits-all but that’s really not the case. Depending on how big your market is and how saturated it is will help determine which channel you should use.
For example, if you are in a large metropolitan area, old school tactics like drop letters and direct mail may not work the best. If you are in rural areas, I recommend these older tactics because these markets are not being advertised as heavily to.
If ClientsIO were to recommend one marketing channel that delivers the most consistent lead flow month after month, we’d suggest Facebook ads. The leads are high quality, and the consistency of lead flow is unmatched compared to other marketing channels we’ve tested.
Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing Channels for Business Brokers
What is the best marketing channel for business brokers?
Facebook ads consistently deliver the highest-quality leads and most predictable monthly lead flow for business brokers. However, the best channel depends on your market size, competition level, and budget. In large metropolitan areas, digital channels like Facebook and Google ads typically outperform traditional methods, while rural markets often respond better to direct mail and cold calling due to less competition.
How do business brokers get leads online?
Business brokers generate leads online through four primary channels: cold email marketing (1,000 sends/day using multiple domains), LinkedIn outreach with Sales Navigator and automation tools, paid advertising (Facebook and Google ads), and cold calling with purchased business owner contact lists. Each channel requires different setup, maintenance, and budgets, making it important to test multiple approaches in your specific market.
Is cold email marketing still effective for business brokers in 2024?
Cold email marketing still works for business brokers but is no longer as effective as it was in 2022. After Google’s algorithm updates in late 2022, open and response rates dropped significantly. Success requires buying cleaned business owner lists, using multiple burner domains with 2 email accounts each, and maintaining a disciplined pace of 40-50 sends per account daily (1,000 total/day). Scaling beyond 1,000 sends/day risks domain burnout and long-term strategy damage.
Can cold calling generate sales for business brokers?
Cold calling can work but is becoming increasingly difficult for business brokers. Of 150 calls per 8-hour day, callers typically reach only 10-12 actual business owners while reaching 85% voicemails and gatekeepers. Since only ~20% of business owners actively consider selling, cold calling realistically yields 3-5 qualified appointments monthly. It’s viable only if you’re targeting fewer than 5 deals annually; higher volume brokers should invest in scalable channels instead.
How do I use LinkedIn as a marketing channel for business brokers?
Maximize LinkedIn for business broker marketing by: (1) investing in Sales Navigator to build prospect lists of business owners, (2) using LinkedIn automation tools like Dripify to manage outreach at scale while maintaining natural behavior, and (3) posting industry tips weekly to establish authority. LinkedIn has built-in outreach limits, making it a non-scalable channel best used as a supplementary strategy alongside other marketing channels.
Should business brokers run Google ads or Facebook ads?
Facebook ads are superior for business brokers seeking scalability and lead quality. Google ads work well for branded keywords and high-intent searches like ‘sell my business [city]’ but have mediocre lead quality and low scalability. Facebook ads excel because they target by geography and business revenue, allowing you to filter out unqualified prospects before they submit forms—a feature that significantly reduces junk leads. Choose Google ads for keyword-specific intent and Facebook for volume and qualification.
How much should business brokers budget for marketing?
Budget allocation depends on your target and channel. Cold email requires investment in domain rentals, email warmup software, and contact lists (relatively low-cost). LinkedIn automation is inexpensive but non-scalable. Paid advertising (Facebook/Google) demands ongoing spend with variable ROI based on market saturation and competition. Test all channels in your local market before committing heavy budget; most successful brokers allocate resources based on which channel performs best in their specific geography and market segment.
Why are marketing channels for business brokers not one-size-fits-all?
Market size, saturation, and geography dramatically impact channel effectiveness. Large metropolitan areas benefit from digital channels like Facebook and Google ads due to high search volume and targeting precision. Rural markets respond better to older, less-digitized tactics like direct mail and cold calling because fewer competitors advertise there. Additionally, the percentage of business owners ready to sell varies by region, making some channels more productive in certain areas. Always test multiple channels and adapt based on local market response.