Having trouble keeping track of your different lead generation tactics and methods? Worry not, for this problem can be solved using quite the straightforward tool: a lead generation dashboard. It is a digital interface that tracks the performance of your different lead generation tactics and methods. This handy gizmo, also known as a “KPI” or a “demand generation dashboard”, will let you know in which areas you are already performing, and which ones will require some further work.
How so, you ask? Well then, among other things, it can give you a quick overview of your lead generation figures for specific weeks, the associated conversion rate, and the digital marketing channels you are using. You can then use this data to further research and refine marketing strategies.
Nowadays, business growth is heavily reliant on online lead generation, as you are reaching people (and potential customers) where they spend most of their time (free, or otherwise). But with how spread-out platforms and users are over the vast internet, businesses need a way to understand their actions’ impact and reach.
That is why, to measure key performance indicators (“KPIs”), such as conversion rates for certain targets over certain periods, they can rely on a nifty tool: the lead generation dashboard.
To ensure maximum effectiveness, your lead generation metrics dashboard should highlight your leads’ lifecycle. It should thus answer key questions such as:
Answering these questions is key in understanding where your leads come from and how you can reliably turn them into buyers. This information will be valuable to your entire team.
If you are still not sure which KPIs to monitor in the first place to answer these questions, or you are creating your first lead generation metrics dashboard, you can even opt for a lead generation dashboard template. But while lead generation templates can be a very useful tool to start with, you will definitely want to fine-tune them to your particular case. That is why even if you start out with a lead generation template, you should still read on about the most key KPIs to monitor.
As with any marketing strategy, you should always adapt to your specific case and market. That is why you first need to ask yourself two questions:
Once you have answered these two questions, you only need to input said information into the dashboard software program. Then, you can effectively create dashboards and data visualizations for your team. And among the selected KPIs, you should seriously consider the following:
Click-through rate, also known as CTR, is focused on the performance of your CTA (meaning your Call To Action). It is the percentage of people who have clicked on your CTA link (which can be a blog post, an email, a landing page, a link or an ad). You should therefore both determine which CTA were clicked, and measure the associated CTR.
For instance, if you created a blog post with multiple links to your website, you should determine which links were clicked, and how many visitors did click them.
The formula to calculate click-through rate is therefore: [Total number of clicks / Total number of visitors] * 100
Similarly, the conversion rate is the proportion of people who took an action; an action being any kind of activity on your site, such as making a purchase, clicking a button or a link, subscribing to your newsletter, etc. The formula for this KPI is therefore: [Total number of conversions / Total number of visitors] * 100
Remember however that a conversion needs not be a sale: it can be any goal you set for your business. Also keep in mind the average conversion rate in 2019 was 3.48%, so remember anything above that can be quite admirable.
As a side note, you can also calculate lead conversion rate, which reflects the rate at which visitors are deemed leads.
For all these KPIs, the higher the number, the better. It tells you how effective your marketing plan is.
Marketing usually focuses on Marketing Qualified Leads, for good reason: you don’t want to take swings that are too broad and generic, as it can quickly become a waste of time. Instead, focus on MQLs and target them specifically with marketing campaigns. If you have successfully interested these MQLs, you can then deem them Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), which is when the sales team takes over to seal the deal. This is why knowing their numbers is a key information for your entire team.
Similarly, the number of sessions on your website will tell you more about how many potential customers have visited your site, a pivotal indicator to identify your customer journey, among others (such as bounce rate: the number of visitors who only viewed one page before leaving the site, indicating your engagement or your targeting needs some fine tuning).
Talking about engagement, it is a measure of how many of your prospective customers actually followed through your marketing plan. In layman’s terms, it means how many of them shared your posts or links, liked your comments, etc. It is most commonly used as a social-media related metric.
The CAC is the correlation between every dollar you have spent and the related customer gains. Concretely, it is used to tailor your marketing budget.
The formula to calculate it is therefore: Total sales and marketing expense / number of new customers.
For that figure, the lower the number, the better, since a lower CAC means a better Return on Investment (ROI). Obviously, the less you spend to acquire new customers, the higher the profits.
You should know this metric is a shade different from CPL, or online lead generation, which refers to a pricing model where you, as an advertiser, pay for each qualified sign-up instead of for each thousand views (Cost Per Mille, CPM) or per click (Cost Per Click, CPC), thus guaranteeing returns for your spending on online advertising.
The CLV is the total revenue or profit generated by a customer throughout their entire relationship with your business. In other words, it measure the total amount of money a customer has spent (or is expected to spend) on your products and/or services throughout their “customer lifetime”.
A commonly accepted formula to calculate CLV is therefore: Number of purchases * Profit margin * Customer retention time
This KPI helps you identify your best customers and therefore optimize your revenue through better targeting (since you know “what kind of customer” you want) or better customer service (to serve these customers better and make them want to spend even more or improve retention).
Identifying the right channels to target customers is critical for businesses: it helps you optimize your marketing expenses and target the right customers at the right locations. This KPI will help you identify which channels perform best, and so which ones you need to invest more in (and which ones are less important to you).
Understanding which actions were relevant and useful, and how much they spent performing them, enables companies to target the right areas for maximum efficiency in pursuing leads. The data they thus obtain through their lead generation metrics dashboard will allow them to fine-tune their marketing strategy (or even completely rebuild it from the ground up), in order to draw the most attention and interest from their intended target audience.
In the current digital economy, you can easily see how a lead generation metrics dashboard can quickly turn into an essential part of your digital strategy. It will keep track of all the data you require to understand your business and your customer journey. That data will ultimately prove essential in crafting your very own lead generation campaign, a complicated and downright arduous process, making the lead generation metrics dashboard a pivotal tool.
And even if you start out with a lead generation dashboard template, you will always need to refine it to answer your specific questions and needs. That is why this article will always come in handy, until you master this powerful tool to implement at the core of your digital marketing strategy.