What is Lead Tracking?

Lead tracking is the process of attributing the interactions of leads to a lead profile, monitoring lead’s interactions, and analyzing results and improving processes. Sales and marketing teams can track every point of contact from every channel. These marketing and sales touch points can aggregate into a sales tool such as a CRM platform. Once touch points are tracked and aggregated, marketing and sales teams can view a chronological timeline of interactions. Sales and marketing teams have incentive to tracking interactions with their activities. If certain sales and marketing activities are not properly tracked, any sales and progress made as a result of these activities will not be attributed correctly. Because of this attribution, sales and marketing teams need to align to one common goal of properly tracking their activity timeline. In the monitoring stages of lead tracking, sales and marketing teams determine the appropriate course of action to convert leads to the next stage in the sales pipeline. During review and analysis stages of lead tracking, sales and marketing teams can take credit for interactions from their activities that contribute to conversions.

Website Tracking and Attribution

B2B anonymous website visitor tracking enables marketers to attribute website interactions to a company even if the user has not filled out a form. Website lead tracking is when an individual visitor until a visitor fills out a self-identifying form in which the website visitor becomes a known lead.

Tracking Marketing Interactions

Marketing teams should make sure that early stages in the buyer’s journey are tracked such as interactions on their marketing website including content marketing activities, and also lead nurturing activities such as email marketing and webinars. Below are example marketing interactions:

• Marketing website interactions such as page views and form fills
• Content marketing interactions such as blog visits, video views, and infographic views
• Webinar interactions such as sign ups and attendances
• Paid media interactions such as the messaging that was interacted with

Tracking Sales Interactions

Sales teams should make sure that all sales pipeline activities are tracked such as inbound sales activities and outbound sales prospecting activities. Also, major milestones should be tracked such as important meetings or closed deals. Below are example sales interactions:

• Events and tradeshows such as new connections or appointments with prospects
• Phone calling such as call attempts or conversations
• Emails such as opens, click throughs, and replies

Monitoring the Lead Tracking Timeline

A well established lead tracking timeline benefits sales and marketing teams by giving the insight to keep moving forward in the sales pipeline. Sales and marketing teams should monitor interactions with their activities in order to find sales opportunities and purchase intent indicators. For example, if a lead opens an email surrounding a particular solution then visits marketing website pages surrounding this same solution, this might signal to sales an opportunity for a phone call or invite for a sales consultation. Monitoring an lead activity timeline also gives sales a chance to prioritize leads for those that are showing the right interactions.

Analyzing and Attributing Results from Lead Tracking

A well established lead tracking system makes for more effective analysis of results. Sales and marketing teams can analyze the return-on-investment (ROI) of their activities and attribute a value to each marketing and sales activities. When a value is assigned to each marketing and sales activity, sales and marketing teams can gather insights and make conclusions about what was effective and can be improved on. For example, sales and marketing teams can analyze the results to see which activities were attributed to to the most qualified leads. Also, resources can be adjusted based on the effectiveness of each activity.