7+ critical lead generation KPIs to track in 2023 (+ report template)

If you own a business, chances are you are focusing on gaining leads that will convert you into potential customers. Measuring the success of your inbound and marketing campaigns is critical and if you’re unsure where to start, today is your lucky day. Here is your guide on the top lead generation KPIs to track in 2023.

What is lead generation?

According to Hubspot: “Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and increasing their interest through nurturing, all with the end goal of converting them into customers. Some ways to generate leads are through job applications, blog posts, coupons, live events, and online content.”

People still associate lead generation with telephone books, pushy salespeople, and annoying newsletters. This couldn’t be farther from the truth as now; all departments within a business must come together to gather quality leads. Content marketing, social media, demos, product-led ad campaigns, influencer marketing, landing pages, and SEO - there are hundreds of ways to get people to know your brand and become loyal customers.

Why is tracking lead generation and KPIs important?

Measuring your lead generation progress with metrics is crucial for sales and marketing teams alike:

It gives you a benchmark to compare with other periods. This allows you to notice patterns, better months vs. dryer periods, etc.
It provides transparency across the whole company, as people from other departments might want to know about those specific lead generation metrics to redirect their strategies.
Lead generation KPIs help you support your sales goals.

By setting the most important KPIs for lead generation, you’ll better see how effectively your strategies convert leads. This can help you get a higher spending budget depending on data and proves the worth of the sales and marketing team to higher management.

The best lead generation KPIs

Data is everywhere, and we’ll be the first to admit that it can get overwhelming. You could look at many metrics regarding your lead generation, but some give you a better perspective on your results than others. It’s much easier to stick to a few quality metrics and track them periodically instead of looking at all data daily. Here are the top metrics to track for lead generation.

Number of leads

If there’s one metric that involves both the marketing and sales team, it’s the total number of leads. Typically, the main goal of the marketing team is to gather marketing qualified leads (MQLs). To turn these leads into qualified leads, marketers want to target them with marketing efforts strategically. In return, the sales team will now take these qualified leads and add them to the sales funnel to turn them into paying customers. Teamwork does the best work!

Number of sessions

The number of sessions refers to the total number of new and repeat visits to your website within a period. Like other website indicators, like session duration, unique visitors, and bounce rate, these art part of Google Analytics metrics that you could easily find by creating a GA account. Those metrics indicate how well your users respond to your website content and how they got there. In a business, you want to look at the number of sessions to measure progress on how people are finding the website and visiting. Although it’s not a standalone metric, you want to look at other website metrics, especially the conversion rate, to ensure they give you the correct information.

Cost per lead

You probably do tons of different marketing efforts to get new leads: ads, social media, SEO, and it’s crucial to calculate how much it costs you to get those potential customers. The average cost per lead (Cpl) is for each new lead you get in your ad campaign. This metric measures how cost-effective your marketing campaigns are to see if they are worth the spend. It’s calculated using the following formula: Total ad spend / number of leads

Conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that complete a desired action. Therefore, lead conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors considered “leads.” Conversion rate is a crucial metric because it’s a measure of success: it indicates that your marketing strategy is working.

It’s calculated using the following formula: Number of conversions / total number of visitors

Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value (CLTV or CLV) is the total revenue a business can expect to earn from a specific customer during their relationship. Although this doesn’t specifically indicate if your marketing campaigns are working or not, it shows how happy a customer is with your service or product. This can be enhanced by surveying your customers to see if they are happy, having an awesome customer experience, and creating an exit survey. It’s calculated using the following formula: The average value of sales x Number of transactions x Retention time

Click-through rate

Click-through rate (CTR) is a ratio that shows how often people see your ad and click on it. It is specific to ads and indicates how well your keywords and ads perform. If ads are part of your marketing strategy, you are most likely familiar, as it are one of the most crucial metrics to measure. It indicates how people react to your product or service and visit the landing page or website. It’s calculated using the following formula: Clicks ÷ impressions

Return on ad spend

ROAS stands for return on ad spend, or return on advertising spends - a marketing metric calculates your company’s revenue for each dollar it spends on advertising. It is very similar to return on investment (ROI or ROMI). Again, if ads are an integral part of your marketing strategy, this is particularly important to track. This can help you determine which budget you attribute to ads and if they perform well. It’s calculated using the following formula: Total revenue dollars from marketing/advertising dollars spent

Bonus!

As we previously mentioned, there are tons of lead generation key performance indicators you could be tracking, so it was hard to limit ourselves to the top metrics. Here is a few important metrics:

Lead value
Customer Engagement
Cost per acquisition

How to Track Lead Generation KPIs

If only there were a way to gather all these metrics into one awesome report. Meet Dashthis. Try this template with yourdata After signing up for an account (the first 15 days are on us, btw!), here are the steps to create a dashboard:

Connect your data sources.

Choose between our 35+ integrations to quickly gather your most crucial data. From Google Analytics to social media and email marketing tools, select the one you want to integrate into your report.

Create and edit your report

Start from our 40+ templates or from scratch, whatever you prefer. Then, choose your metrics and widgets or select our preset widgets.

Save and share the report.

When you’re done, save the report and share the link with team members, clients, and stakeholders. The dashboard is accessible 24/7 with the link and updates automatically, depending on your selected frequency. You can even customize marketing templates further.

Static Widgets > Comments to share your high-level recommendations within the same interface.
Edit Widget > Data Display to change the style of your KPI
Add a Note to explain what the results mean—context matters. Add notes next to a KPI to define your strategy to clients without expertise.