Imagine you launch a promising LinkedIn campaign with a sleek landing page, captivating copy, and a clear call to action. You’re eagerly waiting for the leads to start rolling in, but after a week, the numbers are disappointing. What went wrong?
Without clear campaign objectives and the right metrics in place, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint where things fell apart. Maybe your cost per lead (CPL) was too high, or the quality of leads from LinkedIn was lower than anticipated. Or perhaps your conversion rate from leads to customers was dismal. Whatever the issue, the problem is solvable—but only if you know where to look.
The solution? Tracking the right metrics. And with 61% of marketers reporting that generating traffic and leads is their biggest challenge, it seems like we could all use a little help in this arena. Even the best campaigns can fall short if you don’t have the right metrics to measure success.
This article provides an in-depth guide with concrete steps to monitor performance of your B2B lead generation campaigns. You’ll learn how to use specific metrics to refine your efforts over time, ultimately driving more high-quality leads for your B2B business.
Understanding B2B Lead Generation Campaign Metrics
Lead generation metrics are measurable data points that tell you how effective your marketing campaigns are at attracting and converting potential customers. In a B2B context, these metrics are crucial for assessing campaign effectiveness and refining your approach to generate higher quality leads.
B2B lead generation isn’t just about filling your pipeline with a large volume of leads. Quality matters, which is why tracking the right metrics can make a world of difference. Here’s why:
- Improve Campaign ROI: By understanding which campaigns drive the most high-quality leads, you can invest more in those channels and reduce wasted spending on ineffective channels. In fact, companies that use data-driven marketing are six times more likely to be profitable year-over-year.
- Optimize Marketing–Sales Alignment: Marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) and sales-qualified leads (SQLs) often have different definitions. Tracking metrics like lead scores ensures that only the best leads are passed to sales, improving win rates.
- Predict Revenue Growth: Metrics like lead velocity rate (LVR) can help forecast future revenue growth, providing valuable insights for long-term strategic planning.
Setting Campaign Objectives
Metrics alone won’t help if you don’t have clear objectives guiding your campaigns. That’s why setting specific goals is crucial for ensuring your efforts translate into measurable results. Here’s how clear goals influence metric selection:
Brand Awareness Goals
Objective: Increase brand awareness by 20% in Q3
Key Metrics:
- Impressions: Track the total number of times your ads or posts are displayed.
- Website Traffic: Monitor unique visitors, page views, and session duration.
- Social Media Engagement: Measure likes, shares, comments, and followers.
Say you’re running a LinkedIn awareness campaign targeting mid-sized tech companies, you’ll want to measure how many impressions and clicks your posts receive. If website traffic increases by 25% with a significant rise in tech company visits, you’ll know your campaign is hitting the mark.
Lead Generation Goals
Objective: Generate 200 new leads from the upcoming webinar series
Key Metrics:
- Total Leads Generated: Track the total number of leads captured from the campaign.
- Cost Per Lead (CPL): Measure the total campaign cost divided by the number of leads generated.
- Lead Quality: Assess lead scoring and qualification metrics.
Suppose your webinar campaign generated 220 leads at a CPL of $50. By comparing the lead scores and conversion rates, you realize that webinar leads have a 40% higher conversion rate than those from paid ads. You make the decision to host more webinars and reallocate some budget from your paid ad spend.
Lead Conversion Goals
Objective: Increase MQL to SQL conversion rate by 15% next quarter
Key Metrics:
- Conversion Rate: Track the percentage of MQLs converting to SQLs.
- Sales Funnel Drop-Off Rate: Identify where leads are dropping off in the sales process.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Measure the total cost of acquiring a new customer.
If your goal is to increase MQL to SQL conversion, you’ll refine your lead scoring criteria to pass only highly-qualified leads to sales. After revising the scoring model, your MQL to SQL conversion rate jumps from 30% to 45%, and CAC decreases by 10%.
8 Key Metrics for B2B Lead Generation Campaigns
Let’s take a look at some of the most critical metrics to track for your B2B lead generation campaigns. These insights will help you make informed decisions to improve lead generation performance and help boost your return on investment.
1 – Total Leads Generated
Total leads generated is the number of potential customers who have shown interest in your products or services by providing their contact information through a channel like website forms, social media, or email campaigns.
Total Leads Generated = # of potential customers who’ve shared their contact info.
- How to Measure: Track the total number of leads using CRM systems and analytics platforms like Google Analytics or HubSpot. These tools allow you to monitor performance across different channels and consolidate leads from multiple sources into a single dashboard for easy tracking.
- Why It Matters: It’s an initial indicator of campaign success that helps you understand the effectiveness of your marketing strategies in attracting potential customers. For example, if a campaign generates 500 leads in a month, it shows strong engagement and interest from your target audience.
2 – Lead Quality and Segmentation
Lead quality refers to the likelihood that a lead will convert into a customer. Segmentation involves categorizing or scoring leads based on specific criteria like demographic or firmographic data.
Lead Quality = the likelihood that a lead will convert into a customer
- How to Measure: Use lead scoring models to evaluate lead quality. Assign scores based on factors like company size, job title, and engagement level. CRM systems can automate this process by integrating data from various sources. Explore other lead qualifying methods in this blog.
- Why It Matters: Focusing on high-quality leads improves ROI. By targeting leads with a high lead score, you increase the chances of conversion and maximize the effectiveness of your sales efforts. Companies using lead scoring models see a 77% increase in the ROI of their lead generation efforts.
3 – Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Cost per lead measures the amount of money it costs the company to acquire each lead.
CPL = total campaign cost / the number of leads generated
- How to Measure: Calculate CPL by dividing your total marketing spend by the number of leads generated during a specific period, or for a specific campaign. For example, if you spend $10,000 on a campaign that generates 1,000 leads, your CPL is $10 (10,000/1,000 = 10).
- Why It Matters: CPL tells you the cost-effectiveness of campaigns. By monitoring this metric, you can adjust your budget and strategies to reduce costs and improve ROI.
4 – Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures the percentage of leads or website visitors who complete a desired action, like making a purchase, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter.
Conversion rate = (number of conversions / total number of leads) x 100
- How to Measure: Calculate by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors or leads, then multiply by 100. Track conversion rates using CRM systems and analytics platforms.
- Why It Matters: Monitoring conversion rates helps businesses identify strengths and weaknesses in their campaigns, allowing them to optimize their strategies to improve performance. For example, if a landing page has a low conversion rate, you could test different headlines, calls to action, or design elements to see what drives more conversions.
5 – Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total expense a business incurs to acquire a new customer. This metric includes all costs associated with marketing, sales, and any other expenses involved in attracting and converting leads into customers.
CAC = total sales and marketing expenses / # of new customers acquired
- How to Measure: Calculate CAC by dividing your total marketing and sales expenses by the number of new customers gained in a certain period. For example, if you spend $50,000 and acquire 100 new customers in a single month, your CAC is $500.
- Why It Matters: Monitoring CAC helps businesses understand the cost-effectiveness of their marketing and sales efforts. By tracking CAC alongside metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), companies can gauge whether their acquisition costs are sustainable in the long term.
6 – Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is a metric that estimates the total revenue a business can expect to generate from a single customer account throughout the duration of their business relationship. LTV helps businesses understand the long-term value of their customer relationships and assess the profitability of their customer acquisition strategies.
LTV = projected revenue from a customer over their entire business relationship
- How to Measure: Multiply the average purchase value by the number of purchases per year, then multiply by the average customer lifespan. Use CRM data and historical customer data to calculate LTV.
- Average Purchase Value (APV): Calculate this by dividing the total revenue by the number of purchases over a specific period.
- Average Purchase Frequency Rate (APFR): Determine this by dividing the number of purchases by the number of unique customers over the same period.
- Customer Lifespan (CL): Estimate the average number of years a customer continues to purchase from your business.
- Why It Matters: LTV is crucial because it provides insight into the long-term profitability of acquiring and retaining customers. By understanding LTV, businesses can make informed decisions about how much to invest in customer acquisition and retention strategies.
7 – Lead Source Attribution
Lead source attribution is the process of identifying and tracking which marketing channels and touchpoints are responsible for generating leads. This metric helps businesses understand where their leads are coming from, including:
- Organic search
- Paid advertisements
- Social media
- Email campaigns
- Other sources
Lead source attribution = identifies which marketing channels drive leads
- How to Measure: Use multi-touch attribution models and UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters in your analytics tools to track the source of each lead.
- Why It Matters: Lead source attribution is essential because it helps businesses optimize their marketing efforts by understanding which channels are most effective in driving leads. By knowing which sources generate the highest quality leads, businesses can allocate their budget and resources more efficiently. For instance, if most high-quality leads come from LinkedIn ads, you might allocate more budget to that channel.
8 – Lead Velocity Rate (LVR)
Lead Velocity Rate (LVR) is a metric that measures the growth rate of qualified leads entering the sales pipeline on a month-over-month basis. It gives you insight into how quickly your business is generating new sales opportunities and can serve as a forward-looking indicator of revenue growth potential.
LVR = (qualified leads this month – qualified leads last month / qualified leads last month) x 100
- How to Measure: Calculate LVR by comparing the number of qualified leads at the beginning and end of each month using CRM analytics.
- Why It Matters: LVR indicates future revenue growth potential. A steady increase in LVR suggests that your lead generation efforts are not only effective but also scalable.
LVR is a crucial metric for sales and marketing leaders because it tells you how efficient and effective your lead generation efforts are. A high LVR demonstrates that your marketing and sales strategies are successfully generating an increasing number of qualified leads, which can translate into future revenue growth.
Start Tracking Your B2B Lead Generation Campaign Performance
By consistently monitoring these 8 key metrics, sales and marketing leaders can refine their lead generation strategies, helping you not only attract a large number of leads but also ensure high-quality leads that drive business growth.
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