Role of Lead Tracking Software in Improving Business Performance

In today's technology-driven marketing, the main emphasis of digital marketers lies in generating leads. It is the engine that runs the sales vehicle. So by emphasizing lead generation, you attract visitors who are high-quality prospects and have the potential to become your valuable customers.

After considering the significant role of leads and lead tracking, we have come up with this informative blog. In this, we will cover leads, lead collection procedures, and their sources. Also, we will outline lead tracking, lead tracking software, and the purposes served by the lead tracking software.

So let's dive into it!

What is Lead?

Leads, also known as prospects, are those who show some sort of interest in the product or service of the business and have a greater likelihood of becoming actual consumers. A lead is simply an action taken by a visitor. This activity is set by the advertiser and can be anything prior to the sale, such as signing up, completing the form, subscribing to the newsletter, etc.

The core objective of every organization is to generate leads. The business must next take the steps necessary to turn those leads into customers by providing pertinent information. This will influence their decision-making process and also show them the proper way to make a purchase.

In affiliate marketing, the lead plays a very crucial role. Affiliates, who promote the brand’s products and services, mainly focus on generating leads because nowadays the "pay per lead" pricing model is more prevalent. In this model, affiliates receive a commission based on the number of leads they have generated through promotion. Thus, how many site visitors actually make the purchase of a targeted product has an effect on how much the affiliates are paid.

A few examples of leads encompass:

• Users scan the QR code or click on the promoted URL and get redirected to the advertiser's landing website.

• Visitor fills out the form and downloads the informative resource.

• Opt for the trial offered by the subscription-based platforms.

• Initiates a discussion over chat support, fills out the contact us form, requests information over the call, etc.

What it Takes to Capture the Lead?

Capturing the lead is a way to acquire information about the people who express an interest in your brand. Basically, leads are prospective customers' details collected from a large pool of the target audience. The same information can be used later to convert them into actual customers.

The lead-gathering procedure works this way:

1. First and foremost, the advertiser selects the expected action to be referred to as the lead.

2. Then either he provides the details of the same to the affiliate for promoting it on their platform or directly promotes it.

3. Users discover the product through social media, emails, blogs, videos, or any other mode through which the affiliate has promoted it, and click on the same.

4. Afterwards, they are redirected to the landing page, where the CTA of the lead is prominently showcased in the form of a button, a hyperlink embedded in a banner, or text.

5. Eventually, users click on the URL and become successful leads for the company.

6. But one thing you should take into consideration is that to track and analyze the accurate details of the leads, one must use the services of lead tracking software. Software of this type provides real-time information on the engagement of users as well as accurate statistics regarding the leads provided in a variety of fields.

Sources of Capturing Lead

There are multiple sources for capturing the lead, and all of them have their own advantages. But one thing you should consider beforehand is that, to generate leads from different sources, you have to follow different approaches. The majority of the lead-capturing sources are provided below:

1. Captivating Landing Pages: - The main target of a landing page is to generate leads. In this way, the pertinent information is provided to the visitors in a very clear manner, and the call to action is precisely mentioned below that. The likelihood of generating more leads through landing pages increases with a seamless and valuable user experience.

   According to a recent study, a promoted URL redirected to the landing pages gets more leads than the homepage URL. Why? because landing pages reduce complexity and direct visitors to a single page where information and an anticipated action are clearly provided. Due to their massive results, landing pages are widely used in paid campaigns as well.

   For instance, if you have a business that sells products or services to various market segments, after analysis, you get to know that one segment is functioning less well as compared to others and to boost the performance of the underperforming segments, you decide to use the discounting technique. However, since you are now offering discounts on a specific product, it makes little sense to include the website's homepage; a landing page with the relevant information works well in this scenario.

2. Social Media: It is the most popular and engaging platform for people nowadays, especially for generation Z. Say it for entertainment, information, or connections; they use it without skipping a day. So it is the most effective tool to capture leads. How exactly? Hear out.

   Posting equally interesting and valuable content consistently is the key. Also, testing and analyzing more engaging content and using it more often will enhance your followers and, ultimately, your leads. There are many social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and a lot more. One thing to keep in mind is that separate techniques need to be developed for each platform you use because a single strategy won't produce the same outcomes across all of them.

   For instance, Instagram is used by people for entertainment and fun. It has undoubtedly developed over the past few years into a huge platform for marketplaces, influencers, and companies, but it is still regarded as fascinating to use. It is widely used by businesses that are operating with a B2C business model. Unlike these, LinkedIn is said to be a more professional and ideal place for businesses functioning in the B2B model.

   

3. Search Engine Optimization: Your website is the primary representation of your business, thus it is crucial to optimize it in accordance with Google's ever-changing standards in order to receive organic searches. Since organic searches are already leads, you must improve your website's usability and appeal in order to get more of them. SERP positioning, backlinks, keywords, internal linking, useful content, etc. are key areas that you should consider for better search engine optimization of your website and webpages.

   Paid Google ads are also the medium of lead generation through which the advertisement displays at the top of your provided keywords. PPC campaigns are most frequently used in Google ads. This is the ideal method for obtaining leads if your website is not well-optimized and you lack the resources to do so. Fewer efforts and more leads are what it aims for.

4. Newsletters: Emails are intended for professional conversations and for presenting concise messages to people. Over the past several years, newsletters have gained in popularity and become a means for companies to provide timely information about their brands' activities to the public at large. Information with the main headlines and CTA buttons is provided in these newsletters. CTAs can point to news, webinars, landing pages, case studies, e-books, whitepapers, events, etc.

   It has developed into an efficient marketing tool for collecting genuine leads and has the ability to turn them into actual consumers.

   

5. YouTube Videos: Since video form is more consumable content these days, they are ultimately utilized by marketers for lead generation. This can be done in two ways, either through paid advertisements on niche-specific channels of creators or by making your own videos. You can create your product- or service-related videos, and add the landing page URL in the description or comment section of the video. Precisely provide the information and guide them towards the URL, where the CTA is clearly provided for them.

6. Webinars: They are virtual, live, knowledge-sharing events that emphasize a particular subject matter. These live webinars are engaging and effective ways of promoting your business and generating leads. Businesses get the contact information of the users when they register for the webinar. People can attend these webinars without going anywhere and learn the new skills or knowledge provided by corporations these days. Also, they can communicate, ask questions, review, and demand via live chatting.

   

7. Blogs: A powerful tool for obtaining leads because the content is extremely educational and adds value to the visitor's life. Now, in fact, you are reading Offer18's blog, and we hope it is providing you with the information that you were seeking before.

   Blogs are published on the website, and if users find them helpful, they share the same with friends and on social media. So it is like a free-of-cost referral program where you can collect a handsome amount of leads without paying a commission. This is why organic content is beneficial.

   Despite the helpful content, you can still employ a variety of other lead generation techniques in the blog posts, like:

   • Adding a banner embedded with the URL of the landing pages in between the blog content
   • Using a squeeze landing page, or popup to capture the contact details of the visitors
   • Employ a real lead capture landing page as a reference, and so on.

8. E-book/Whitepapers: The most detailed and thoroughly researched content is provided in such sources. This is also addressed as a lead generation tool because a visitor gets access to such information only after submitting a form with their personal information. Here visitors don't only ask about their email but also other details such as contact information, business name, gender, and so on.

   E-books are actually meant to educate the visitor, they are based on a particular subject matter and provide thorough detail on that very topic. Because e-books are long and concentrate on providing in-depth knowledge, they are published less often compared to blogs, which excite the users every time they appear on the website. To get access to the free information, they don't mind providing their personal details.

   

What is Lead Tracking?

Lead is anything you consider important before achieving the final target of sales. It is the mode of interaction that users have with your brand. You can create leads from the sources mentioned above, but now the question arises:

• How will you get to know the activity of the users?
• Who is interacting with what source?
• Are people actually converting from your material or are they merely viewing it?
• Are you getting enough output from the provided efforts?

Well, well, well! All the answers are hidden behind the term "lead tracking."

Lead tracking is the entire process of monitoring a visitor's behavior from the first point of contact through the moment of sale. Impressions, clicks, conversions, sources, geolocation, and much more information are covered under lead tracking. It helps the marketers in analyzing from where and from which sources the traffic is coming, how close the lead is to becoming a genuine customer, and what measures are suitable to enhance the lead count.

What are Lead Tracking Platforms?

Lead tracking seems so crucial for performance analysis, right? But how to do so might be the other question juggling in your head. Its answer lies with lead tracking software. Lead Tracking platforms are the technology software that provides real-time lead-tracking services to users at a nominal cost. These platforms provide an easy-to-use dashboard, track the activity of the visitors, provide real-time statistics on user behavior, and much more. These reports will provide you with an indication of how well your campaigns and promotions are actually performing, and if not, what improvements you can make to keep them moving forward.

Out of the other platforms, Offer18 is the foremost lead-tracking software that utilizes robust technology and provides accurate data on the user's activities on the web. Additionally, it gives digital professionals the ability to create their own affiliate network, measure and manage every lead touchpoint, and increase traffic to eventually improve ROI. An anti-fraud kit provided by Offer18 protects the campaigns from fraudulent leads and ensures reliable information, that too at no additional cost.

The Main Purposes Served by Lead Tracking Software

Lead tracking software is beneficial for ad networks, agencies, businesses, and affiliates, as well as for every person who is willing to and is currently producing or collecting leads. These solutions facilitate you to effortlessly track the whole lead management activity. The main areas in which it assists you in running your business smoothly are:

• Reporting and Analytics: The customizable dashboard offered by the lead tracking platform facilitates the analysis of actual user activities throughout the lead funnel. Such software will provide you with all the quantitative data in the systematic reports formed with various fields. Software like Offer18 gives a sorting option to easily monitor the key data points required and form a qualitative analysis out of it.

• Boosting Lead Count: The lead tracking platform not only allows you to track and evaluate the effectiveness of the campaigns but also helps in enhancing the count of leads. You can focus on that part after you know where your traffic is coming from and whether it is a quality lead. Weak campaigns can also be improved with the right measures taken at the right time.

  To provide you with more clarity, let's understand with an example. Y, the digital marketer, and the business director want to enhance the lead count on his product, and to do so, he has created a landing page and run paid promotions on a variety of channels, such as Google Ads, Instagram, LinkedIn, Guess blogging, and banner ads on third-party platforms. He started getting visitors to the landing page but later noticed that people from South Africa were filling out the lead forms, despite more ad budgets being allocated to Europe. On tracking the performance, in the lead tracking software, he has analyzed certain things.

  • There are more impressions from European audiences than from South African audiences, but leads from rope are minimal.
  • More people are engaging with LinkedIn and Google ads, though the money allocated to these two sources is one-fourth of the other areas.

  From the metrics, he has concluded that there is a language barrier in the content. Google is not translating the page into Croatian or another European language. Following these crucial evaluations, he carried out the subsequent actions:

  • Removed the language translate barrier
  • Allocated more budget to the high-performing channels
  • Specified the required targeting in the lead tracking software.
  • Enhanced the quality of the content on the less-performing platforms And boom! Within the span of a month, his lead count increased by up to 30%. Just like person Y, you can also boost the count of your leads.

• Greater User Insight: It offers more in-depth information about what draws customers the most. The least and most traffic-producing geos, and the most engaging sources of promotion. In addition, if campaigns are not generating the leads you want, you will discover what you are lacking from customer reviews. Following this analysis, you can decide to change your strategy or refine your existing one in order to achieve better outcomes.

• Drive Sales: Sales totally revolve around the user's behavior, if they are not clicking or willing to enter their contact details, how can you reach out to them and persuade them to purchase? That is why you should adopt lead-tracking solutions. These platforms will give you a precise figure of the number of people who are seeing the advertisement, clicking on it, and ultimately fulfilling the task of becoming the lead. The accurate analysis and proper measures will help you in achieving the sales target.

• Accurate Forecasts and ROI Calculation: The progress of the business can be accessed with the lead track. It provides you with proper insights that reflect the overall performance of the business. With this, you can calculate your returns and formulate a strategy to enhance this number.

  Quantitative data can also be used to make future forecasts. One can access the real customer statistics out of the pool of the leads generated and also compare the lead performance from the historical data. This analysis will lead you towards an accurate future forecast.

• Protection from Fraudulent Leads: Generating more leads is not enough unless they are quality leads with greater chances of being converted into real customers. Having a lower count of quality leads is still superior to a higher count of bogus leads. Lead tracking software has also covered you here. 

  They provide various in-house and third-party anti-fraud tools to protect users' digital campaigns. 

Conclusion

Generating leads is a vital part of any successful enterprise. One can use a variety of sources (as mentioned above) to generate leads and enhance their ROI. Tracking of leads is equally important to get the most out of marketing strategies adopted and to keep up with ever-changing technologies. For that you have to partner with the lead tracking software because without lead-tracking software, it's like jumping in the dark. Your entire marketing strategy relies on illusions because you are unable to determine which platform is producing what results.

For marketers, lead tracking software saves a tremendous amount of time and offers the appropriate lead insights. The systematic data presented in the various fields simplifies the analysis procedure and identifies the potential for improvement. The technical support offered by such a platform is another underrated benefit. You don't have to hire technical experts to use such platforms. Software like Offer18 provides round-the-clock support assistance to users. From migration to set-up, and from advanced features to integrations, you don't need to worry at all.

In this blog, we have discussed every aspect of leads and how you can achieve the target of generating the maximum leads. We believe you now have enough knowledge to take the needed measures. To learn more about affiliate marketing and its related topics, you can read our other informative blogs. We attempt to deliver pertinent information promptly.