Managing a steady revenue stream is a high priority for sales managers and business owners alike. Revenue is directly tied to the number of leads that you can draw into your sales pipeline. Lead generation can get the ball rolling.
But, just generating leads is not sufficient. To stay ahead in a competitive market, your sales team needs to pull in enough warm leads, which they can actually convert. This is where lead generation metrics play a role.
Lead generation metrics provide a clear and holistic picture of your sales strategies, whether your sales efforts are bringing in revenue or is it just burning a hole in your pocket.
According to Dale Dupree, Founder of Sales Rebellion, “Metrics are always helpful in ultimately measuring the effectiveness of “what” you are doing. By measuring, we can find patterns that are consistent in providing desired outcomes and results not only for ourselves but for the people we seek to serve. It is extremely important to be measuring lead generation metrics so that you can better understand what is effective and what doesn’t work for your business.”
Let’s find out more about the right lead generation metrics to boost sales.
Five key lead generation metrics to track
Here’s a list of lead generation metrics that can help businesses of any size. You can use the data collected from tracking these metrics to reevaluate your sales strategies and focus on channels that attract the most engaged leads.
1. Website visits:
Website visits measure the number of visitors who land on your website. If your website is new and you want to build authority, start by creating highly relevant and informative content for your target audience.
Website visits metric helps salespeople understand the customers’ purchase journey – it gives salespeople context into the number of interactions on your website. This interaction could include the forms they fill out, the type of content they are interested in, and so on. Salespeople can use this information to provide value and have contextual conversations with potential leads.
2. Lead Source:
A lead source is a channel via which a lead first discovers your business. For example, a potential customer may search for information online, which may lead them to your website or social channel. These are lead sources.
Tracking the source of the leads helps you build a list of successful lead generation channels. You can streamline your lead generation efforts by tracking how potential customers discover your business.
Here’s a list of default lead source channels:
- Direct: lead types your URL into the address bar or clicks on a bookmark of your site
- Organic: lead finds you from organic search results
- Social: lead arrives on your website from social networks
- Email: lead follows a link to your website from an email
- Affiliates: lead comes from an affiliate marketer’s website
- Referral: lead is “referred,” i.e., they come to your website from a link they find in another website
- Paid search: lead finds you from PPC (pay-per-click) ads in search results
- Other: lead comes from online advertising apart from search and display, like cost-per-view video ads
- Display: lead finds you from display ads
Understanding the lead source gives insight into the lead’s purchase intent. For instance, if the lead has visited a landing page on your website via a paid ad, salespeople can monitor their intent based on the CTA. After that, salespeople can provide leads with relevant information and systematically guide them through their purchase journey.
3. CTR (Click-through rate):
CTR helps you track if your potential buyers have performed the desired action as indicated through the CTA button on your ad or the page. CTR underlines the overall quality score of your ad or webpage.
Tracking CTR will aid in understanding the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
Based on the data, you can analyze how your ads or pages are performing and whether it needs improvement. CTR also helps you understand the behavior of your target audience.
CTR= (Number of clicks on CTA's/ Number of emails delivered) * 100
A low CTR indicates that you are not resonating with your audience and that you may have to revisit your content or offer to generate interest from your potential buyers.
4. ROI (Return on Investment):
ROI is essential to understand how your business is doing, where you are spending money, and the success of your sales strategies and tools. A positive ROI indicates you are generating money from sales efforts.
ROI= (Profit or loss from each lead/ Initial investment) * 100
By calculating ROI, you can allocate extra budget to the sales campaigns. With a positive ROI, you can invest more in lead databases, sales enablement efforts or upgrade sales software that yields more ROI. Monitoring ROI also helps you determine which sales strategies work best for you based on your sales team, budget, target audience, etc.
5. Lead Conversion Rate:
A vital top-of-the-funnel conversion metric, lead conversion rate, is essential in analyzing the effectiveness of tools, messaging strategies, channels, etc.
Lead conversion rate indicates the total number of conversions on your site. It is the percentage of visitors who convert to customers on your website. A high lead conversion rate means you can efficiently attract the right audience to your website and turn them into leads.
Takeaway
It’s important to note that lead generation is not one size fits all. Companies can set their lead generation metrics based on their unique goals, customer base, and functionalities. Determine the right lead generation metrics that work for your business, track those metrics, make data-driven decisions, and finally, optimize your sales efforts based on the data.
Learn more about lead generation, its importance, and the stages of lead generation.
