In Lead GenerationSome important KPIs are quantity, quality, cost per lead and conversion rate into sales.
Once I have acquired a potential customer's contact, I can in fact understand if they are on target, how much they cost me and if they will become a paying customer.
These performance indicators, once understood, help me, backwards, to understand which sources are most appropriate for my lead generation initiatives.
But to understand it... I need to track it!
In this article we'll look at why it's important to track lead acquisition sources and how to do it.
What do we mean by lead acquisition source?
For the sake of clarity, let's quickly explain what "lead source" means: a lead source is a channel through which a user interacts before arriving on your website and is essentially a point of contact in your sales funnelThis could be the end point or the beginning point, it's up to you to evaluate which one to take into consideration (if the buying process is made of multiple touchpoint and in different channels) depending on the attribution model chosen.
Why it's important to track where the lead came from
Let's look at a number of reasons why it's important to understand exactly where a lead is coming from.
#1 Beyond Quantity: Understanding Quality, Revenue and ROAS
Let's assume you're acquiring leads from 2 typical online advertising channels, Google Ads e Facebook Advertising.
If we stop at the "mere" numerical data, the number of leads, the situation could be this:
A substantially equal situation then.
But if we try to go deeper by looking at another performance indicator, such as lead to customer conversion, the situation becomes this:
As you can see here the situation changes: the 50 leads generated by Facebook Ads, have in turn generated 1 sale, worth $3000, while the 50 of Google Ads have generated 10 sales of $50,000.
Accurately tracking the source of the lead then allows us to understand the revenue, the profit generated from a source.
Not only: at this point, by comparing the CPC spend in the 2 tools you can also understand the ROAS, the Return of Ad Spending.
If we then determine the quality of the lead based on its conversion rate into a customer, that's when we can once again give different weight to a certain traffic source.
But be careful: in certain contexts, for example B2B, the conversion of a lead into a customer can take months: at this point you can always evaluate the quality according to how close that lead is to the target you have in mind to reach.
#2 Identify and allocate budget in the best sources of Lead
Once I understand CPL (cost per lead), quantity, quality and percentage of conversion into customers, I can understand which are the best sources and allocate time and budget there, with a relative saving in time and money.
Once the lead has been acquired, it is a good idea to include it in a CRMa contact management system.
From there you can easily figure out, by tracking the activity with that lead over time, the quality of that lead: is it on target? How quickly does it convert, if at all, into a customer?
How to track the origin of the Lead in Google Analytics
Do you want to know where visitors who have filled out a form on your website come from?
Let's see how to track the origin of conversion into leads with 2 methods: via Plugin and directly with Google Analytics.
Via MonsterInsights
Tracking form conversions can be complex for people who don't do it for a living and time-consuming. Every time you publish a form for lead generation, you need to set up a goal in your Google Analytics account..
The easiest way to set up form conversion tracking in Google Analytics and understand in Reports the source of the lead is to use a plugin like MonsterInsights (www.monsterinsights.com). MonsterInsights Automatically track all module conversions as events without interfering with code and manual goal setting.
All you need to do is install and activate the MonsterInsights Forms add-on. It works with any contact form plugin without any additional configuration on your Analytics account.
After installing the MonsterInsights plu-in and linking it to Google Analytics, go to Insights " Addons and click Install under the Forms add-on.
Once the plugin is installed, the button will change to Activate. Go ahead and click the Activate button to make sure the addon is active and ready to use.
MonsterInsights will now automatically record your forms data and display it in its report.
You can view the report by going to Insights " Reports " Forms.
For each form, you can view its impressions, conversions, and conversion rate.
For a more detailed guide on how to optimize contact form conversions I refer you to this article: 12 Strategies, Statistics & Case Studies to Optimize Your Contact Form, Increase Lead & Conversion Rate.
Via Google Analytics
Now that you've set up form conversion tracking in Google Analytics, you may want to see which traffic source brought the most leads to your site and other metrics to gauge their quality.
While MonsterInsights shows you how your forms are doing and which one converts best, to find out where your leads are coming from, you'll need to log into your Google Analytics account.
After logging in, select Behavior " Events " Main events from the menu on the left.
Here you can view your modules as an event category. Click Module.
Next, you'll see Event Action, impressions, and total conversions.
Since we want to see the source of visitors who have completed the form, click conversions.
You will now see all the forms submitted by visitors. Now click on the form you are interested in to find the source of the leads.
After selecting a form, the next thing to do is to use the secondary dimension.
You can do this by clicking on the drop-down menu Secondary dimension and then select Source / Medium. The option is available in Acquisition, but you can also type Source / Middle in the search bar.
What it will do is show you all the sources that visitors come from and complete the form. For example, you can see people coming from search engines in google / organic.
You can take it a step further and break down your data further by using an advanced filter. Let's say you're interested in the traffic that other websites send you, i.e. referral.
Using the advanced filter, you can narrow down the data to show only referrals as a source. To do this, click Next next to the search bar.
Now select Include " Source / Medium " Contaning and then enter referral in the last field.
After entering these details, click Apply.
The filter will now only display referral origins for completed forms.
You can do the same for other sources and use an advanced filter to dive deep into module conversion sources.
Via WPForms
Another way to monitor module conversion sources is to use WPForms (www.wpforms.com). Its add-on User Journey records the path taken by a visitor before submitting a form on your website.
To get started, you'll need to install and activate the addon from WPForms. But keep in mind that you will need its Pro plan or higher (https://wpforms.com/pricing/) to access the add-on and view the reports.
Go to WPForms from your admin area of WordPress and then click on Add-ons. Now go to Add-on User Journey and click Install add-on.
Once the addon is active, go to WPForms " Entries and then select the form where you want to see the user's path.
Next, you will see a list of entries for your form. Click the View for any user and you can see the route they took before they submitted the form.
Next, scroll down to User Journey and displays the steps performed by a visitor on your website. The report shows the pages viewed by a user, the date, time and duration.
And if you click on the information, WPForms will display the parameter of the page used by a visitor. You can even open that page by clicking on the Open window in new tab.
