Blog Articles

How Do I Track Leads in HubSpot?

Written by Kristopher Crockett | July 2023

Imagine a world where your marketing and sales efforts are fully optimized, and you are closing deals left and right. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not as far-fetched as you might think. The secret lies in effective lead tracking, and HubSpot CRM is here to help you unlock its full potential. In this blog post, we will explore the importance of lead tracking, its benefits, and how to utilize HubSpot CRM to track leads efficiently and effectively, by answering the question “How do I track leads in HubSpot?”

Short Summary

  • Lead tracking is essential for businesses to understand the buyer’s journey, evaluate marketing initiatives and refine strategies.

  • HubSpot CRM offers a suite of tools and features to track leads from identification to opportunity, allowing for efficient lead management.

  • Lead tracking data can provide valuable insights that inform marketing & sales strategies for improved conversion rates & higher revenue.

Leads and Lead Tracking

The lifeblood of any business are its leads - potential customers who have shown interest in your product or service. However, generating leads is only part of the equation. To truly excel in your marketing and sales efforts, you must be able to track and manage these leads effectively.

This is where HubSpot CRM comes into play, offering a plethora of tools and features designed to help you monitor leads, their activities, and interactions with your business. So buckle up and let’s dive into the world of leads and lead tracking.

What is a lead?

A lead is a person who has expressed interest in your product or service and provided their contact details. Leads can be generated from multiple sources like paid search, organic search, email marketing, trade shows and social media. Sales prospecting is also a great way to generate leads. In today’s digital age, the list of lead sources keeps growing, with new channels like paid social leads from platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as paid search leads. Among these leads, a marketing qualified lead stands out as a potential customer who has shown a higher level of interest and engagement. Once a marketing qualified lead has been further evaluated and deemed ready for the sales team, it becomes a sales qualified lead.

The key to success in your marketing and sales efforts lies in understanding these leads and effectively tracking their journey through the sales funnel, also known as the buyer’s journey.

Why is lead tracking important?

Lead tracking is crucial for businesses as it enables them to evaluate the efficacy of their marketing initiatives, recognize patterns, and make decisions based on data. By attributing deals to their lead’s original source, businesses can identify which forms of communication generated the highest return on investment. With lead source tracking, companies can further refine their strategies and optimize their marketing efforts.

In essence, lead tracking helps you understand the buyer’s journey and assists in the development of lead nurturing tactics and discussions with prospective customers at any stage of the sales funnel.

How to track leads in HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM offers a myriad of tools and features to track leads and their activities throughout the entire customer journey. From predefined lifecycle stages to AI-powered tools that establish versatile criteria for complex evaluations of lead qualification, HubSpot CRM has got you covered.

Moreover, its lead status contact property tracks leads from the time of identification until they become an opportunity, providing invaluable insights into their journey. With HubSpot CRM, you can effectively manage your leads and optimize your sales efforts.

Benefits of Lead Tracking

Effective lead tracking offers a multitude of benefits, including an improved sales process, increased efficiency, and better decision-making based on data. By understanding customer behavior and preferences, you can personalize your approach to each lead, manage prospects efficiently, and prioritize leads with the highest potential for conversion.

In short, lead tracking is a game-changer for businesses looking to optimize their marketing and sales strategies.

Improved sales process

Lead tracking plays a pivotal role in enhancing the sales process by helping sales teams prioritize leads based on their engagement and potential value. By focusing on leads with the highest likelihood of conversion, sales teams can allocate their time and resources more effectively, thus increasing the chances of closing deals and driving revenue.

It’s like having a crystal ball that helps you identify the most promising prospects, allowing you to concentrate your efforts where they matter the most.

Increased efficiency

Efficient lead tracking not only saves time but also resources by automating tasks and providing valuable insights. With the right tools, such as those offered by HubSpot CRM, you can automate lead qualification and nurturing, leading to a decrease in time and resources expended.

In addition, lead tracking data can provide valuable insights into lead behavior, equipping businesses with the information necessary to make informed decisions and optimize their sales process.

Better decision-making

Data-driven decisions based on lead tracking can help businesses optimize their marketing and sales strategies. By analyzing lead data, businesses can identify trends in lead behavior, focus their marketing efforts in the most effective direction, and increase their close rate.

In a nutshell, lead tracking empowers businesses to make smarter decisions that drive growth and success.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Now that we’ve explored the importance of lead tracking and its benefits, let’s dive into the step-by-step instructions on how to set up lead tracking in HubSpot CRM, add leads, track their activities, and analyze the data.

With these guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to mastering the art of lead tracking and reaping its rewards.

Setting up lead tracking in HubSpot CRM

Lead tracking is essential for improving your sales process. HubSpot CRM provides a powerful tool for tracking leads, and by following the steps below, you can set up lead tracking in HubSpot CRM and start tracking leads effectively.

Step 1: Create custom properties

Custom properties are additional fields that you can add to your lead records in HubSpot CRM. These properties can be used to track any information that is important to your sales process, such as the lead's industry, company size, or website.

To create a custom property, go to Settings > Properties and click Create Property. Enter a name for the property, select the field type, and choose whether the property is required.

Step 2: Create workflows

Workflows are automated processes that can be triggered by certain events, such as a lead visiting your website or opening an email. Workflows can be used to send leads follow-up emails, assign leads to different sales reps, or change the lead's status in your CRM.

Example workflow:

Trigger: Lead visits your website.

Action: Send lead an email with a link to a white paper.

Condition: If the lead opens the email, then...

Action: Change lead status to "MQL".

This workflow would automate lead status to change to "MQL" if they open an email with a link to a white paper. This would help you to track lead progress and ensure that they are being moved through your sales funnel effectively.

Step 3: Track lead activity

Once you have created custom properties and workflows, you can start tracking lead activity. You can track lead activity by viewing their contact records, viewing their activity reports, and using HubSpot's lead scoring system.

Additional tips

  • Use clear and concise names for your custom properties.

  • Make sure that your workflows are well-defined and easy to understand.

  • Test your workflows before you deploy them.

  • Monitor your lead tracking data to identify trends and areas where you can improve your sales process.

Adding leads to HubSpot CRM

Once you’ve set up lead tracking in HubSpot CRM, it’s time to add leads to the system. You can do this manually by inputting them one by one, or in bulk via import. Alternatively, you can integrate HubSpot CRM with other tools and systems through the HubSpot Marketplace, allowing for seamless lead addition from various sources.

No matter which method you choose, adding leads to HubSpot CRM will ensure that your sales team has a constant pipeline of prospects to engage with.

Tracking lead activity

Monitoring lead activities is a crucial aspect of lead tracking. HubSpot CRM’s tracking features enable you to keep an eye on various lead activities, such as website visits, email opens, and form submissions. This data offers valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, helping you tailor your sales approach and marketing efforts to match the needs and expectations of your leads.

With a clear understanding of lead activities, you can make data-driven decisions that optimize your sales process.

Analyzing lead data

To truly leverage the power of lead tracking, you need to analyze the data collected by HubSpot CRM. By using the platform’s reporting tools, you can gain insights into lead behavior, preferences, and the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts. This information enables you to identify trends in lead behavior, target your marketing efforts more effectively, and close more deals.

In essence, analyzing lead data is the key to unlocking the full potential of lead tracking and driving your business success.

Tips for Optimizing Your Lead Tracking Process

To get the most out of your lead tracking efforts, it’s essential to continually optimize your processes. In this section, we’ll share some tips on how to do just that, including using lead scoring to prioritize leads, nurturing leads with valuable content, and following up regularly.

By implementing these strategies, you’ll be well on your way to maximizing the benefits of lead tracking and driving growth for your business.

Use HubSpot's Lead Scoring to Prioritize Leads

Lead scoring is an essential strategy to rank leads by their level of engagement and potential value. By attributing numerical values to leads, you can center your sales initiatives on the most valuable prospects and use your resources judiciously.

How to use HubSpot's lead scoring system:

HubSpot's CRM facilitates both contact and deal scoring, empowering you to adjust the points added or subtracted from leads according to their involvement and attributes. To use this system:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Properties.

  2. Search for "HubSpot score" or a custom score property and select it.

  3. Click "Add criteria" to define the criteria and allocate points.

  4. Adjust points for positive or negative criteria.

  5. Save your settings.

Example of lead scoring:

In HubSpot's CRM:

  • Award 10 points for a lead visiting your website.

  • Give 20 points for email engagement.

  • Allocate 50 points for downloading a resource.

  • Assign values based on attributes like company size, sector, or position.

Additional tips:

  • Choose straightforward names for lead scores.

  • Ensure your lead scoring criteria align with your sales strategy.

  • Periodically assess your scoring model's accuracy.

  • Examine lead scoring data to discern patterns and refine your sales approach.

Nurture leads with valuable content

Providing leads with valuable content tailored to their interests and needs is essential for nurturing them through the sales funnel. This could include blog posts, videos, webinars, ebooks, and other relevant forms of content. By personalizing your content and communication, you can better engage with leads and move them closer to conversion.

Remember, a nurtured lead is more likely to become a loyal customer.

Follow up with leads regularly

Regular follow-ups are crucial for maintaining engagement and moving leads closer to conversion. Whether it’s through email, phone calls, or social media posts, staying in touch with your leads helps to keep them interested and informed about your products or services.

Establish a follow-up schedule and utilize notifications and reminders to ensure that no valuable leads slip through the cracks. With consistent and effective communication, you can turn leads into loyal customers in no time.

Examples of How to Use Lead Tracking Data to Improve Your Sales Process

Lead tracking data can be a goldmine of information for improving your sales process. In this section, we’ll explore some examples of how to use this data to your advantage, including identifying trends in lead behavior, targeting your marketing efforts more effectively, and closing more deals.

By leveraging the insights gained from lead tracking data, you can refine your sales process and drive greater success for your business.

Identify trends in lead behavior

Analyzing lead tracking data can help you identify trends and patterns in lead behavior, providing valuable insights for your marketing and sales strategies. For instance, you might notice that leads who engage with a particular type of content or channel are more likely to convert.

By recognizing these patterns, you can adjust your marketing efforts and sales approach accordingly, targeting the channels and tactics that have proven most effective in driving conversions.

Target your marketing efforts more effectively

Lead tracking data can also be used to target your marketing efforts more effectively, focusing on the channels and tactics that generate the most leads, including direct traffic. By analyzing the cost versus benefit ratio of different marketing channels, you can allocate your resources more efficiently and maximize your return on investment.

In turn, this will help you attract more high-quality leads and increase your chances of closing deals.

Close more deals

Leveraging insights from lead tracking data can help you close more deals by understanding lead preferences and tailoring your sales approach accordingly. For example, you might discover that leads who engage with certain types of content or channels are more likely to convert.

By focusing your sales efforts on these high-potential leads and adapting your sales approach to match their preferences, you can increase your close rate and drive higher revenue for your business.

Quick Recap and Conclusion

In conclusion, lead tracking is an essential component of any successful marketing and sales strategy. By understanding the importance of lead tracking, leveraging the tools and features offered by HubSpot CRM, and optimizing your lead tracking processes, you can unlock the full potential of lead tracking and drive growth for your business.

So don’t wait any longer – start tracking your leads today and reap the rewards of a data-driven sales process, and we here at Selworthy can help you get started today!

Summary

As we’ve journeyed through the world of lead tracking, we’ve explored its importance, the benefits it offers, and the tools and features available in HubSpot CRM to help you track and manage leads effectively. By implementing the tips and strategies discussed in this blog post, you’ll be well on your way to optimizing your lead-tracking process and driving success for your business. Remember, the key to unlocking the full potential of lead tracking lies in understanding your leads, leveraging data, and continually refining your sales processes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best way to track leads?

The best way to track leads is to understand the customer’s buying process, use a lead tracking tool, develop a lead scoring system, and customize lead generation forms to research your competition campaigns.

By understanding the customer’s buying process, you can better identify potential leads and target them with the right message. A lead tracking tool can help you keep track of leads and their progress through the sales funnel. Developing a lead scoring system can help you prioritize leads and focus on your goals.

How do you track where leads are coming from?

Tracking leads can be done easily by setting up automated labels or tags in emails, storing leads in a spreadsheet or database, investing in marketing attribution, using marketing mix modeling, setting up UTM tracking and Google Analytics, asking leads directly, and creating hidden form fields.

This will help you gain greater visibility into where your leads are coming from and the amount of revenue they generate.

How do I track traffic in HubSpot?

To track traffic in HubSpot, navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools and click Traffic Analytics. You can use the Date range and Frequency dropdown menus to filter data by time range and frequency.

If your website is external, make sure you install the tracking code first.