Where Do Leads Come From? Here’s How To Better Understand Lead Sources

Where Do Leads Come From Here’s How To Better Understand Lead Sources

Lead generation may sound a bit confusing for beginners at first, but the basic idea is not that complicated at all. In simple words, lead generation is looking for people who are interested in your brand, product, or service. You can compare this with a matchmaking system, the purpose is to connect customers with the brands or products they desire in a perfect timing.

In the modern era, people find things they want through various platforms, like search engines, emails, social media, word of mouth, and many other ways. You need to keep tabs on the sources, not just for general knowledge, but to identify the most effective source. Whether you run a small or large business, having a clear idea of your lead sources is the key to evolving your marketing and making the right decisions. Let’s dive into the details of lead sources and tracking them.

What are the Primary Lead Sources?

As all the leads are not of the same quality, the lead sources are not also equal. You get different kinds of leads from different platforms, and understanding the sources is crucial to maximizing the efficiency of your marketing strategies. For a general idea, here is a breakdown of the most common lead generation sources.

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is the visitors who find your website naturally through search engines like Google without any paid ads. To get organic traffic, you must hold rankings in the search engine using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website. The leads from organic traffic are high quality and hot leads, as they are on your website because you are providing something that they already want.

2. Paid Advertising

Paid ads on different platforms like Facebook or Google Ads temporarily boost your reach and allow you to target a specific potential audience quickly. This is an effective strategy for short-term lead generation in a large amount where you pay for every click or impression.

3. Social Media

In this era of digital marketing, social media are not just about memes and selfies; they are also high-potential lead generation tools. Look at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram, for example, where they allow you to communicate with high-quality leads, nurture them, and drive traffic to your website. If you can handle your social media followers wisely, you can turn them into leads.

4. Email Marketing

Emails may sound old gen, but in the marketing industry, it is one of the most reliable platforms to generate leads. Email marketing is an unbeatable strategy, especially if you are looking for B2B leads. The cool fact about email marketing is you can target a highly customized and specific audience. Whether through targeted email campaigns or newsletters, you can get in touch with your potential target leads directly in their inbox. It is a great opportunity to build trust and drive conversation with the lead over time.

5. Referral Programs

The referral program is one of the strongest strategies to generate new leads through your current customers. With this, you encourage your current clients to recommend your product or service to others around them. In exchange, you can offer them a discount or coupon for their next purchase. Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool; if you can utilize that, then you won’t need to find leads; the leads will come running to you.

6. Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the most common approaches to attracting sales leads for your business. You can use various materials as content, like videos, blogs, webinars, or even podcasts. The crucial thing about content marketing is understanding what type of content your target audience is interested in. The goal is to provide value to your target audience to build a relationship of trust and credibility, which can lead to conversations and purchases.

7. Direct Outreach

This is the oldest textbook trick to generate leads, including cold calls or emails to approach your target lead directly. This is one of the most used lead generation for B2B leads. Of course, this approach requires quite a bit of effort and patience, but as the outcome, you may end up with high-value leads that can be a game changer.

8. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing means partnering with someone who will promote and sell your products with an exchange or specific amount of commissions on each sale. You can use popular bloggers or influencers to promote your products to attract their massive followers and get a new stream of leads.

Online vs. Offline Lead Sources

Leads can come from both online and offline sources, with unique advantages. To maximize the flow and efficiency, you need to maintain a balance between online and offline leads. Let’s break down both types of leads for a clear understanding.

Online Leads

It is easy to guess that online leads are the leads you get from the internet. Here are some of the most common online lead sources:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Paid Ads
  • Social Media
  • Email
  • Content Marketing
  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Online Events

The advantages of online leads are listed below.

  • You can have a big reach and drive even international clients with minimal efforts
  • You can keep precise calculations of the generation process, and it is easily measurable
  • The process is cost-effective, meaning you will get great benefits without spending a fortune
  • You can highly customize your target audience to aim for a very specific target audience

Offline Leads

These are the leads you get from typical real-world marketing methods like cold calls or making banners. Here are some of the most useful offline lead sources you can utilize.

  • Networking Events and Trade Shows
  • Direct Mail
  • Print Advertising
  • Cold Calling
  • Referral Programs
  • Community Engagement

So, why should you go for offline leads when it needs more effort and patience? Here are the advantages you can’t miss:

  • Face-to-face interaction creates a stronger and more reliable connection with the lead
  • Physical interaction creates faster credibility 
  • Sometimes, you come across companies who just focus on offline lead generation as it is less competitive and easier to stand out

Online vs Offline Leads: Which is Better?

There is no straightforward universal answer to this question, as the answer depends on your business type, the audience you target, your business goals, and many other factors. Online lead sources are optimal if you want scalability, analytics, and better targeting. On the other hand, offline lead sources are the best choice if you prioritize building personal relationships with clients and establishing brand trust.

The best choice for any business is to use both and maintain a proper balance between online and offline lead generation. In this way, you will have an enhanced audience reach with trust and credibility.

What are the Tools and Techniques for Tracking Leads?

Tracking leads is also crucial for understanding which platform provides you with the best leads and where you should concentrate your efforts. The good news is you can use many tools and techniques to track your leads efficiently.

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

A proper CRM system is the most effective and powerful tool for tracking where your leads are coming from. Some of the most popular CRM tools are:

2. UTM Parameters

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes are tags that you add to URLs that help you track the medium, source, and campaigns of a lead. You can easily track where your traffic and leads are coming from by using UTM parameters in the URL. It will help you track the effectiveness of each marketing campaign.

3. Web Analytics Tools

Analytics tools provide in-depth reports of the performance of your website. They help you with not just the lead source; you can also track the behavior of leads and their action on your website. You can leverage some of the most common web analytics tools for tracking your leads, like Google Analytics(GA4) or Adobe Analytics.

4. Lead Capture Forms

You can use lead capture forms in various lead sources like your website, landing pages, or even social media platforms to collect the contact information of your potential customers. The contact information may contain an email address, phone number, or social media account. You can even collect data on their personal preferences. Combining these forms with your CRM will help you automate the lead capture and tracking.

5. Call Tracking Software

For businesses who depend on calling to generate leads call tracking software can be a lifesaver. You can use CallRail or RingCentral to track which marketing efforts resulted in that call. They will track which keywords, ads, or marketing campaigns are driving the inbound calls. They also offer features like call recording and analyzing call conversations.

What are the Challenges in Identifying Lead Sources?

You may face several challenges while identifying the source of your leads. Some of the common challenges you may come across are listed below.

1. Multi-Channel Attribution

One of the hardest parts of lead tracking is identifying which platform is driving the most valuable leads when you interact with them on multiple platforms. Suppose you generated a lead from LinkedIn then they clicked on a retargeting ad there, and finally, you had a conversation in the email to confirm their purchase. Now, which platform will you use as the source of that lead? Sounds pretty complex, right?

In this case, you can use multi-touch attribution to the leads, giving credit to all the platforms that were engaged in the process. It will also help you to have a clear understanding of the customer journey.

2. Inconsistent Lead Tracking Across Various Channels

You can not use the same tracking method to keep tabs on your lead sources for multiple platforms properly. Often, different lead generation sources require different tracking methods. For example, if you are tracking your leads coming through Facebook, you need to use pixel tracking. On the other hand, if you are tracking organic search traffic leads, you need to use analytics tools.

To get rid of such situations, you can use a central system, like CRM or any marketing automation platform that allows lead tracking across various platforms.

3. Offline Lead Sources

If you compare offline lead source tracking with online lead source tracking, then offline lead source tracking will be harder. You can automate or leverage various tools to easily identify where the leads are coming from. Offline leads may not have any digital footprint, so it is harder to connect them to a specific marketing source.

To solve this issue, you can use manual data tracking, unique numbers for phone tracking or QR codes to connect the offline leads to the tracking system.

4. Inaccurate Data Entry

Another great challenge is to ensure the accuracy of data while registering them, especially when you are using manual data entry. Often, the issue is not with the system or tools but with human errors. It is common to make mistakes while entering large amounts of data in your CRM or tracking software, and it is normal. You may input the wrong source or mistakenly leave some fields blank, but it will create inaccurate reporting and cause confusion in the future.

The solution to this issue is to leave sensitive tasks like data entry to the automation tools. Automate the lead tracking as much as possible to avoid any human errors.

5. Dark Social

The term “Dark Social” seems suspicious, right? Dark social leads are those that come from platforms that are hard to track. For example, you can consider leads coming from direct messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram as dark social leads. The traffic is marked as “direct” in the analytics, but the real origin of the lead remains unclear. To reduce the hassle, you can use UTM parameters in shared links and use lead tracking tools that analyze user behavior more effectively across various platforms.

6. Cross-Device Tracking

Your clients may switch between devices, like from mobile to PC during their journey of becoming a lead. If you don’t use proper cross-device tracking, the same lead may get registered as two separate people. As a result, it will be really hard to track the full customer journey in the future.

7. Cookie and Privacy Restrictions

The concern around the privacy of the users is increasing as everyone is more concerned about their data protection. Therefore, browsers now often block third-party cookies, and you also need to follow the new data and privacy regulations like GDPR. These restrictions make it hard for the tracking tools to keep tabs on the leads, especially in the remarketing and attribution section.

To avoid such issues, use first-party data that comes directly from your website. Don’t forget to ensure compliance with the latest privacy regulations by implementing transparent and opt-in tracking.

8. Data Overload

Data is undoubtedly essential, but too much data can be a problem. Often, collecting data from different sources can lead to data overload if you don’t have an appropriate analysis and organization system. Without proper data processing, you will be overwhelmed and get no actionable insight from it.

To ensure your data is processing properly, focus on KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the analysis. Also, ensure your KPI tool has a clear dashboard that provides accurate and actionable insights.

Enhance Your Lead Generation with LeadSpider

Overall, generating leads can be a complex task that requires quite a bit of effort. Have you ever wondered about any tool or software that can reduce the hassle of lead generation?
Are you looking for an easy and effective lead source for your business? If you are, then you are on the right track. Introducing LeadSpider, an effective answer to your lead generation problems. It will come in handy if you want leads from a specific area or niche, especially in cases of local businesses or B2B leads. Tons of advantages of LeadSpider make it one of the greatest lead generators in the market, such as:

  1. Location-based lead search is one of the most important features of LeadSpider. You can find leads inside your service area without wasting your resources on leads that are not eligible for your service.
  2. In the case of B2B leads, you can’t just randomly knock businesses that are not connected to your niche or product. For that, we have implemented a high-grade filtering feature, allowing you to filter through the search results based on various parameters.
  3. LeadSpider will show you leads in real-time, meaning you get leads as soon as they appear. So, don’t worry; you will find the leads before anyone else and will be able to bring them into your sales funnel.
  4. We understand the importance of a user-friendly interface. Therefore, LeadSpider has an optimized and simple interface that will make your work even easier, and you can adapt to the tool in no time.
  5. You got your leads, but how will you link them with your CRM or other necessary system? The good news is you can export the leads from LeadSpider in Excel format and import them easily into any CRM software without any hassle.
  6. There are times when you need to know the exact location of your leads, especially for local businesses where you need to launch marketing events in a specific area. Thus, LeadSpider features Geo Mapping, showing you the exact location of the lead in the map.
  7. It is not possible to take your laptop everywhere and there are times when you have to do your job on mobile phones. Considering this, we make sure that LeadSpider is a mobile-friendly tool, allowing you to find your leads whenever you want with just a smartphone.

Conclusion

In the end, there are various sources of leads, and it depends on how many you can utilize properly. Also, if you don’t have a proper lead processing system, generating leads will turn into a waste of time and effort. Therefore, try to automate the system as much as possible and put efforts into the sources that provide valuable leads for your business. Knowing where your leads are coming from will help you direct your attention to the important sources, that can benefit your company and marketing strategy.

FAQs

Which businesses should focus on offline lead generation?

That depends on the marketing strategy and business niche of a company. Generally speaking, businesses that involve legal issues and big transactions prefer offline lead generation, like mortgage lead generation. Often, local businesses also get great benefits from offline lead-generation strategies.

How does SEO help in lead generation?

Depending on your business, SEO can be your greatest lead-generation medium. If you sell products, especially on an e-commerce website, then you have to make sure that the audience can find your products easily when they search on Google. SEO puts your product at the top, increasing your visibility and bringing the leads to you.

How to maximize the efficiency of lead generation from social media?

Social media is one of the most potential online lead generation sources you can utilize. Try to make an engaging community on social media and interact with them regularly. Help them solve their real-life issues regarding your business niche and promote your product or service strategically. You can also run paid ads, which is highly effective if executed properly.