Lead tracking is a crucial part of measuring the results of your marketing campaigns. By tracking your marketing leads, you can learn information about where those leads come from and how they engage with your marketing campaigns. 

With this information, you can determine which of your campaigns have been the most effective in acquiring sales qualified leads (SQLs). In addition, you can use this information to improve future campaigns. Below are some solutions to help you track leads in digital marketing.

Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics or Google Ads 

You can use Google Analytics or Google Ads to track leads by determining the sources that generated your leads and caused them to convert. Here are some ways you can use Google Analytics or Google Ads for conversion tracking. 

  • You can track who signs up for your email subscription list or who completes a fill-in form. This will allow you to track Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), which are leads who may be interested in your products or services but haven’t converted.
  • You can use Google Ads to track conversions from your paid advertising campaigns. This will show you which keywords or campaigns generated conversions.
  • You can use Google Analytics to track conversions. With Google’s elimination of tracking third-party cookies, you will need to set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and configure conversion tracking to do this. 

Call Tracking 

Call tracking is especially important for companies that acquire a lot of their marketing leads through phone calls. It’s also a great way to gain detailed information about the quality of your leads. Below are some reasons why call tracking is a good way to learn information about your leads.

  • According to research by Salesforce, 92% of all customer interactions occur over the phone. Since so many consumers rely on phone calls for these interactions, using call tracking to track your leads will provide you with access to information about a large number of these leads. 
  • Having an actual phone conversation with a lead will provide you with insights that you may not have through any other contact method. A one-on-one phone conversation will allow you to hear what the caller is saying in a way that can help you determine if the client is a qualified lead or not.
  • You can also use call tracking for in-depth data analysis by integrating it with Google Analytics and other marketing platforms.

While there are several reputable call tracking software options available, the WTM Digital team recommends CallRail due to its affordability, ease of use, voice-to-text translation features, and form tracking for lead generation. 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

If you’re already using a CRM system, you already have access to valuable information about your customers and their interactions with your business. By using your CRM system for lead tracking, you will also have access to more detailed information throughout the entire lead journey. You can use your CRM to:

  • Manage and organize your leads in one place.
  • See details of each customer’s journey to determine when leads become customers.
  • Integrate with Google Analytics or other marketing platforms.
  • Future-proof your business by adapting to Google’s elimination of third-party cookie tracking. This allows you to continue to gather useful customer data while protecting their privacy in a cookieless world.

Other Tips for Lead Tracking 

In addition to conversion tracking through Google Analytics or Google Ads, call tracking, and using your CRM to collect and store customer data, there are a few other things that you can do to accurately and efficiently track your leads. Below are a few of our favorite tips for tracking leads in digital marketing.

Identify Your Challenges Upfront

Be proactive about finding solutions for lead tracking early in your campaign so you have all of the information you need to make the data-informed decisions right from the start.

Qualify Your Leads

Have a system in place for qualifying your leads from the beginning of your campaigns. This will make it easier to make changes as needed to optimize your campaigns.

Automate Lead Tracking

Don’t rely on manual data entry, which can be time-consuming and tedious. Streamline your lead tracking process with tools, such as Zapier, which will collect your leads from multiple sources and store them in one centralized location.

Align Your Sales and Marketing Teams

Your sales and marketing teams should work together to generate leads. Your sales team may have valuable information that will help your marketing team focus on the tactics that achieve the most conversions. You will get better results when these teams collaborate. 

Whether it’s Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, content management systems, CRMs, social media platforms, social management tools, email marketing tools, or call tracking, you may need to use multiple platforms to get a clear picture of the journeys that your leads take as they move through the conversion process. 

If you are ready to start earning more leads from your online marketing initiatives, reach out to WTM. Our marketing experts can help you create a strategy to track your marketing efforts so you can generate the best results possible from your campaigns.