The internet has provided markets with an opportunity to develop leads early in a consumer’s purchase process. And marketers are looking to measure the success of their efforts. A survey carried out by research company Marketing Sherpa in January 2012 found that 52% of markets said their top lead gen strategy for the next year was to meet or exceed quantifiable return on investment goals. Other figures included optimizing the marketing/sales funnel (51%), gleaning more audience insight (51%) and maximizing the lifetime value of customers (47%).
More than half of those surveyed said their organizations invested $50 or less per lead, with the largest group (36%) saying they spent less than $20. This indicates that at the present time marketers are valuing quantity over quality in terms of lead gen, although this could change as ROI measurements improve. Increases in lead generation budgets over the next year are expected to focus on web optimization, social media and search engine optimization.
