Lead acquisition guide: how to get quality leads

In this article, we will dig deep into the lead acquisition process:

• Describe how the lead acquisition process works from defining the target audience to sending lead data to the sales team.
• List lead acquisition strategies, including using a proper attribution model and segmenting leads on different criteria (e.g., acquisition channel, buyer profile, specific behavioral patterns).
• Provide tools required for lead acquisition, such as a CRM system, marketing automation platforms, outreach, and analytics tools.

Lead acquisition is the process of identifying and targeting potential customers who might be interested in the specific product or service. It includes building a relationship with them to guide potential customers toward becoming a client.

Lead acquisition and lead generation are often used interchangeably; however, there is a difference between them. Basically, the lead generation process involves creating interest in your product or service via blog posts, live events, and some online content.

Lead acquisition is further work with potential clients, including their nurturing and segmentation. It implies building relations with leads and sending them to the next steps of the marketing funnel up to a conversion.

Although lead generation and lead acquisition are different processes, they are closely related. In some cases, a lead acquisition specialist performs the responsibilities of a lead generation specialist, so the whole process of new lead acquisition is as follows:

1. 1.
   Defining the target audience. That's the first step, as before acquiring leads, it is essential to understand who you are going to reach. The research stage includes gathering and analyzing data on demographics (leads' age, location, industry, etc.), defining their "pains", desired gains, and goals.
2. 2.
   Choosing lead acquisition channels. This step includes analyzing and estimating the audience's interest in the product/service from different channels and choosing the ones that fit current needs. The channels can be such as SEO, paid advertising, email, and social media platforms. Also, at this point, you can decide on trying lead magnets (offering some value such as a free trial, discount, or content) in exchange for contact info.
3. 3.
   Collecting lead data. This stage can be performed by a lead generation specialist as well. Usually, such information on leads is captured through filling out the contact forms, placing clear calls to action on the landing pages, adding pop-ups, communicating at live events, etc.
4. 4.
   Leads analysis and segmentation. It includes assessing the buying stage and the potential of each lead to become a customer. The data from the first step is also taken into account. All the leads that were gathered can be divided into two categories: Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs). The second group is ready for building relationships, which leads to a conversion.
5. 5.
   Leads nurturing. The key challenge of a lead acquisition manager is building relationships with potential customers, so that their needs are covered and conversion happens. On this stage, you can create personalized email sequences with relevant content to warm up the interest in the product/service, conduct the demos, and if you have chosen PPC as a channel, you can run retargeting ads to target people who earlier interacted with your website.
6. 6.
   Sending lead data to sales teams. Once the lead is ready to make a conversion, they can be sent to the sales team, which will engage with them directly and lead to the purchase.

To gain leads that are most likely to make a conversion, it is important to understand their intent and target those leads that are more likely to convert. There are a few types of search intent:

• Informational - when a person isn't aware of a product/service, for example, it can be a search "what is server-side tracking".
• Commercial - the person is sure about product buying and wants to decide on a specific product, including pre-transactional searches, e.g., "Google Cloud Platform vs Stape".
• Transactional - a user has made their mind and is ready to buy a specific product/service. The search query can be like "host server on Stape". If, for some reason, a user didn't convert, this audience can also be retargeted by the lead acquisition manager.

A lead acquisition manager needs to analyze the whole customer journey and attribute the successfully converted leads to the specific channel. In this way, you can monitor what channel works the best for your business growth and refine the user experience to improve the acquisition process.

The attribution tracking starts with picking an attribution model. Below is a quick breakdown of the models available in Google Analytics 4. For more details on attribution tracking, please see our other blog post.

When you classify the leads in different groups based on some criteria (e.g., acquisition channel, buyer profile, specific behavioral patterns), it becomes easier for you to analyze them and pick strategies to build relationships.

The segmentation will be helpful to prioritize leads, select the most qualified leads, and target them with personalized content for better results.

Despite the market segment you target, one of the best-working strategies to generate leads is providing some value to them. It can be a free demo with a demo account, conducting some events or presentations. In this way, you can demonstrate your expertise and build person-to-person relations.

As for the tools you can use to monitor the lead acquisition process, you can use the following tools:

• CRM system (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, GoHighLevel, Pipedrive) - track leads throughout their journey, from initial contact to conversion.
• Marketing automation platforms - they automate repetitive tasks like sending emails (for this purpose, use Mailchimp or Klaviyo), scoring leads based on criteria.
• Outreach tools - helpful for identification and reaching out to potential leads. They provide search filters and automated outreach options. As an example of these tools, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Hunter, and UpLead.
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) or any other analytics platform - with the help of UTM parameters, you can track the source, medium, and campaign of the leads. Also, using GA4, you can set up attribution tracking.

To measure lead acquisition and lead generation efforts, you should track the following metrics:

To understand whether your lead acquisition works properly or you should give more attention to the process optimization, it is important to pay attention to the benchmarks. Below, we list the benchmarks for different acquisition channels and industries for lead conversion rate and cost per lead.

Lead conversion rate depends on the channel type, according to Umbrex:

• For inbound marketing channels (content marketing and SEO), the typical lead conversion rate ranges from 3% to 8%.
• For outbound marketing channels (cold calling or direct mail), a good conversion rate is lower, from 1% to 3%.

According to Thunderbit, here are the conversion rates by industry.

Below are the average CPL by channel and industry according to Appsflyer.

Multi-channel outreach is an effective strategy to improve the lead acquisition process. It includes engaging potential leads through different platforms, including LinkedIn, email, and cold calls. By spreading outreach efforts across multiple touchpoints, lead acquisition specialists can increase their visibility and chances of converting users into leads.

According to statistics, only 38% of users who interacted with a contact form completed it and submitted their information. One of the common reasons can be a complicated flow and a long form.

The only way here is to analyze the customer journey and work on its optimization. If you are using paid search as a channel for lead acquisition, you can also try Facebook Lead Ads or LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. They help capture customer data more effectively - users can submit contact details directly on the platform without leaving it.

Before implementing AI tools in your lead acquisition marketing efforts, it is important to understand your ideal customer profile (ICP), structure the data, and share it with the AI app you use for automation.

The data includes, but is not limited to: demographics, behavior patterns, industry, and location.

This data can be gathered from analytics platforms (like GA4) and CRM systems you use.

The next step is deciding on the AI tool that fits your needs. AI automation can be used for various cases, for example:

• Identifying potential leads and collecting their contact details.
• Lead scoring based on the criteria of the ideal customer profile.
• Enriching data with missing information to build a complete customer profile and improve personalization.
• Personalizing messages and creating follow-ups after meetings.

Another step is checking whether the AI app can be integrated with your CRM system.

No doubt, AI apps can simplify the lead acquisition process; however, every specialist should take AI suggestions with a pinch of salt, as it still requires some time to study and obviously can make mistakes.

When lead acquisition struggles with nurturing leads, it can lead to a decrease in sales and ROI. So, it is essential to spot the mistakes in the process and adjust the strategy to avoid them.

Common mistakes include a lack of research on potential customers, leading to poor personalization, ineffective sales pitches that don't correspond to users' needs. To prevent these errors, it is important to create your ideal customer profile (ICP).

According to the HubSpot report, inbound leads can be up to 61% cheaper than those leads generated via outbound channels. In addition, inbound marketing and sales efforts can bring 3x more leads per dollar.

A good strategy to try and see how it works for your case is creating valuable and relevant content that covers users' pain points, it can be PDF files, eBooks, checklists, or other downloadable content, blog and social media posts, and work on SEO optimization to cover a large scope of potential paying customers.

The review of the customer acquisition process can bring valuable insights, as a one-size-fits-all approach usually doesn't provide expected results, especially if you target different user segments.

To avoid this mistake, you should build the following flow:

• Indicate and visualize the customer acquisition process (channels, marketing campaigns you use, describe the lead qualification process, list all of the touchpoints).
• Segment users and define high-quality leads you target (their location, position, demographics, behavioral patterns).
• Set KPIs and goals (list performance indicators you are going to track and set the review period for these metrics, for example, review them once per month or quarter).
• Analyze your lead acquisition efforts and identify bottlenecks (it may include a lack of process optimization, poor CTAs, lead scoring, etc.). Based on these data, you generate theories and conduct A/B tests to see what works the best.

Lead acquisition is a critical component of the customer journey, and it differs from the lead generation process. While lead generation initiates the process by capturing attention, lead acquisition takes a more strategic and relationship-focused approach (nurturing leads, segmenting them, and guiding them toward conversion).

By analyzing lead data, using the right tools and multi-channel outreach, and building well-structured workflows, lead acquisition specialists can turn leads into paying customers. To succeed, marketers and sales teams must regularly measure performance, avoid common pitfalls, and remain open to refining their strategies.