B2B Lead Generation

Most B2B lead generation underperforms for a small number of specific reasons, and almost none of them are the ones being discussed in the meeting about it. Here they are, roughly in the order we find them.

The numbers being discussed are usually wrong

Almost every account we open has at least one conversion action that is misconfigured. A thank-you page counted on every reload turns one enquiry into four. Spam submissions inflate the total. A form reports success without delivering. Google's conversion tracking documentation sets out how a conversion should be defined and counted; most accounts we inherit depart from it in at least one place.

This matters more than it sounds, because ad platforms optimise toward whatever you tell them a conversion is. A broken signal does not just misreport, it actively directs budget at the wrong people.

The check takes an afternoon: count the enquiries that actually reached a human last month and compare it with the reported figure. If they are far apart, every other conversation is premature.

The site is built for a buyer who does not exist

Most B2B sites are built for someone who arrives, is persuaded and fills in a form. Technical buyers do not behave that way. They research for weeks, form a shortlist and make contact once they have already decided you are plausible.

By the time an enquiry arrives, most of the decision happened on pages you either had or did not have. Which reframes the problem: it is less about converting your traffic and more about existing at the point the shortlist is written.

The form asks too much, too early

Budget range, project timeline, company size, on a first enquiry from someone still working out whether you are relevant. Every additional required field costs completions, and these particular fields are asking a researching engineer to commit before they are ready.

The counter-argument is that it qualifies. It does not. It filters by willingness to fill in a form, which is not correlated with buying intent, and it disproportionately removes the careful people.

The specification is behind a gate

A buyer needs a dimension, a tolerance, a compatibility confirmation. It is in a PDF behind an email capture. They leave and get it from a competitor who published theirs, and specify that competitor's product.

The gate captured an email address. It cost the specification.

There is one call to action for every stage

Usually "request a quote", which suits the final week of a three-month evaluation and nothing before it. Someone eight weeks out has no available action other than leaving.

Lead quality is never fed back

Marketing reports cost per lead. Sales knows which leads were worthless. In many companies those two facts never meet, so the account optimises toward volume it should be optimising away from.

It is also easy to improve cost per lead by asking for less, which produces a pipeline full of enquiries going nowhere while every report improves. Without the feedback loop, that looks like success for a full quarter.

Everything is judged on a timescale the sale does not have

A programme aimed at a nine-month buying cycle gets reviewed after one quarter and cancelled for underperforming. Sometimes it was underperforming. Often it was two thirds of the way through the first cycle.

The fix is agreeing what the leading indicators are before starting, so there is something legitimate to look at in month two that is not a lead count.

What we would do first

Related: measurement, conversion optimization and paid media.