Master your budget: How to maximize sourcing performance on Indeed

While we’re all for strategically incorporating sponsored job listings into your overall sourcing strategy, it’s become all too common for employers to simply throw money at the problem and hope for the best. 

While this strategy will likely give you an easy boost to your number of applicants, it’s also a great way to burn through your budget. That’s why, when we analyze a new client’s Indeed spend, we want to ensure they’re getting the most from every penny in their Indeed budget. We recognize that you don’t need to spend more to get more out of Indeed; you just need to know a few key points:

Understand your options

When job seekers search for a job on Indeed, they see a mix of both sponsored and non-sponsored job postings. Non-sponsored listings, which are free, are pulled or scraped from your application tracking system and tend to rank lower in search results as newer listings appear. 

Sponsored listings, on the other hand, receive priority placement and can generate up to 5X more clicks than their non-sponsored counterparts. Deciding whether to sponsor a job depends on your current applicant flow, the difficulty of the position or market, and your available budget. 

In April 2024, Indeed introduced changes to their Healthy Marketplace that will impact job posting visibility. These changes aim to distribute visibility more evenly across all jobs, ensuring that even niche positions receive fair exposure. For sponsored jobs, this means a more consistent and predictable applicant flow. Whether you choose to sponsor a listing or not, it's crucial to understand the available options and how they will impact your Indeed strategy.

Understand your budget

Optimizing your sponsored job posting is possible, but it takes finesse. There is a science to the pay-per-apply start (PPAS) model, and while Indeed offers some budget guidance, it’s easy to spend more than necessary, especially if this approach is new to you. 

Keep in mind that some job listings will cost more to sponsor than others, and that cost will vary wildly based on industry, location, competition, and the individual listing. If many employers are competing to have their jobs appear at the top of the search results, you’ll need to shell out more to have your listing appear prominently.  

Indeed’s transition from the cost-per-click model to the pay-per-apply-start model has enabled employers to pay only for candidates who are interested in the position, meet the qualifications, and intend to apply for the position. Knowing your spending limits and tracking ROI over time will be key to your success. The real questions are, “How do you most effectively allocate your budget? Which listings should you sponsor, and should you sponsor everything?”

Understand your position in the market

The best way to determine how to spend your budget is by knowing your position within the overall job market. 

You need to know which of your open positions are the most difficult to fill. Take a careful look at the number of openings for each position, how long they’ve been open, the type of candidate you’ll need, and the location to determine which positions are higher on your priority list. 

Generally, if you are looking for highly specialized talent, need to hire many people to fill a role, or have struggled to find the right candidate in the past, you will likely have a tougher time filling those positions. That’s where sponsored listings can give you a much-needed boost to your pool of qualified applicants. 

Remember, the key to success is strategy. We don’t want you to spend more. We want you to spend wisely. 

Optimizing your sponsored listings strategy 

Creating an effective recruitment marketing strategy that optimizes paid and free options on the Indeed platform may be complex, but the fundamentals are simple: Understand your options, budget, and market position. 

If you need more information, insights on a current challenge, or an external perspective on an internal issue, reach out to our Wicresoft Recruitment Marketing experts. We specialize in advisory, solutions, and operations to improve all aspects of your talent management practice. We're here to help you achieve the results you need—after all, getting results is what we do best.