5 Powerful B2B Leads Tracking Methods

Generating quality leads is one thing. But it's all about improving that conversion rate. To track your B2B leads, here are 5 powerful methods you need.

What are your leads really costing you?

You spent thousands of dollars on a massive marketing campaign this quarter.

In addition, you engage in ongoing strategies. Among them, you have long-term SEO, PPC, content creation and social media marketing that cost you another quarter million.

You know that a comprehensive marketing strategy is important. But how do you determine which campaigns and long-term strategies are most effective?

Which ones are generating qualified leads, turning those leads into conversions and turning conversions into loyal customers?

Not tracking your B2B leads can cost you in wasted time, lost revenues, and a poorly allocated budget. But by understanding more about your leads, you can more efficiently turn leads into paying customers.

With technology today, you can go far beyond your conversion rate to gain insight into where quality leads come from, which leads are best, and how to make the most of those leads.

Let's explore five powerful methods you should be using to track B2B leads.

Source & Cost Attribution

We'll start by customizing Google Analytics (GA) or a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software you may be using. Your goal is to track the source of your digital leads.

You need to know where your leads came from. Maybe they came from:

  • Social Media

  • Organic

  • Direct

  • Referral

  • Paid search

As you drill down, you'll actually be able to see:

  • The sites from which this traffic arrives

  • How long visitors stay when they come from a certain source

  • How likely that source is to generate an immediate conversion

Each of these sources will have a cost attributed to them, according to which marketing effort most impacts that lead.

For example, your organic traffic comes in through SEO and content creation. You spend a certain amount on this area.

You can begin determining whether these leads are generating the right ROI by looking at how much you spend per lead and per conversion from this source.

Leads To Close Percentage

The leads to close percentage are obtained by simple math. No fancy technology needed here, but it's incredibly insightful.

You'll divide the number of conversions by the number of leads generated from that source.

For example, if you're purchasing B2B leads, then you divide the number of conversions generated from those leads by the number of leads you purchased. Furthermore, you can give a cost attribution (as described above) to each lead based on your average conversion.

By doing this simple math, you now know whether those leads were good leads. If so, you should put more of your budget toward acquiring qualified leads.

As a general rule, you'll pay less per lead for methods like social media and SEO. But the conversion rate will be much lower because these leads are often less qualified.

It's not that your strategy is deficient. The visitor may simply not be ready to buy. Depending on where the buyer is in the sales cycle, it takes 7 or more touches before a conversion.

But we're only getting started so secure your safety harness and get ready for a crazy ride.

Sales Cycle Length

Measuring the sales cycle length in the digital world is a little different. When you make your first meaningful contact with this individual you don't always know who this person is.

But through the use of cookies placed by tracking software like GA, you can determine:

  • The length of time between their first contact and conversion

  • Where the first contact originated (Organic, Social, etc.)

  • How they arrived when they converted

This gives you an important metric with which to measure the success of your various marketing efforts. You can put more behind the strategies that are turning B2B leads into conversions in the shortest time possible.

For example, you notice that you can close the deal with purchased B2B leads within 4 days while social media takes 8 days. When you factor in the cost per conversion, you determine that you need to allocate a greater portion of your budget toward qualified leads.

Are you getting excited about tracking leads yet? Once you open the floodgates tracking data, you'll be astounded by how lead tracking can completely change your strategies for the better. It can put you leaps and bounds ahead of your top competitors.

Tracking Across Devices

Tracking across devices is a technology that is definitely still in development. If one of your B2B leads visits your website from their smartphone, iPad and home computer, these will appear as three different visitors.

You won't be able to get a complete picture of their journey.

But there is a somewhat manual way to track important B2B leads across devices by giving that lead a UserID in Google Analytics or your CRM.

You will need to enter the basic information for the user. And then assign the lead an ID. You can then track the behavior of this lead across devices.

While you couldn't possibly do this for every lead, doing this for some of your larger accounts or qualified leads will give you greater insight into how that lead or customer is interacting with your company over time.

You can then better measure your efforts to build and maintain a relationship with that customer.

Behavioral Tracking

We've touched on behavioral tracking throughout. But it deserves its own section for a very important reason.

Understanding where your lead is in the buyer's journey and how what you do influences this journey can be named among your most valuable data.

Services like Google Tags and other CRM software allow you to track specific behaviors like:

  • Watching videos

  • Partially watching videos

  • Downloading documents

  • Leaving your site, then returning

  • Time spent on page when they converted

You can then evaluate where a person is in the buyer's journey based upon that behavior.

For instance, let's say that you offer a downloadable white paper. You may want to track not only the number of downloads but how quickly leads convert after download.

This can tell you A) if your white paper is effective B) how close the lead is to buying at the time they download your white paper.

You determine that downloading the white paper means a lead is in the decision-making phase and ready to be converted.

You have already determined through behavioral tracking of your B2B leads that if you send Email A at this point in the buyer's journey, you can seal the deal.

You send that email and convert that lead.

Wow! That's just how powerful tracking leads can be.

Understanding B2B Leads

You already know that not all leads are equal. A qualified B2B lead is a decision maker who has already decided that they need your service. And they know what they're looking for.

They must simply be convinced that now is the time to buy and that they should get that service from your company.

Tracking your B2B leads helps you understand how to get that lead to take this final step.

What would you add to our list of 5 powerful tracking methods? Add a comment below.