Need to Track Website Leads? Use KPIs!
Find Out Where Your Website Leads Are Coming from with this KPI Tracking Template
When you market your business, you need to track how well your marketing efforts are doing so that you can put more resources into the methods that work best for you.
We know, this sounds boring. Tracking leads? Who cares? Design me my flashy new website and then stand back and show me the money!
Not so fast there, sparky. While it’s true that so much business starts by people visiting your website, you’re still going to want to know how effective your website is in generating leads — because if the leads aren’t coming, neither is the money, and Tom Cruise can’t save you.
So, you’ve got to do a little bit of work now to later guarantee those riches you imagine.
There are a lot of ways to do this, but we recommend using KPIs.
What is a KPI?
Simply put, a key performance indicator (KPI) is an objective way to measure something. Companies typically use KPIs to measure a goal or a target, such as how many leads come from the website. KPIs help track the progress toward reaching that goal or target, which in turn helps companies figure out if they’re swimming in cash or suffering through a drought.
There are two general KPI measurements: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative measurements deal with values such as preferences, opinions or feelings. Quantitative measurements often are about numbers, so when it comes to tracking leads, you probably would be using quantitative KPIs.
First Thing’s First: Consider Your Baseline & Categories
To use a KPI, you first need a starting point or a baseline. The reason we want a baseline is we want to know where we’re starting when we first work together. Then we can then check in later to measure how effective your website is in generating leads. If it’s working, great! It proves how awesome you are. If it’s not, we can adjust, and that proves how awesome you are in working with us.
Create Your Baseline Question
We suggest starting with one simple question. Ask, “How did you find my website?”
Where to Add the Baseline Question
- Add this to your contact form (example)
- Incorporate it with your sales pitch
- Make it part of your client onboarding, like in a kick-off meeting or a 1:1
How to Track the Responses
When each lead answers, you can enter them by category in a spreadsheet.
Here’s our example: SHD Sales Metrics Template
Try it for yourself! Here’s how to make a copy:
Organize Your Sales Metrics Template
You’ll only really need to add lead information that includes the date, contact details, where the lead came from, and some notes. Although, options are limitless as you can organize how you see fit and add as much detail as you need.
In our template, for example, you’ll see three tabs at the bottom of the Google Sheet, listed as New Leads, Overview, and Sources.
- The New Leads tab details what we’ve shared above.
- The Overview tab adds an additional, more granular layer to tracking KPIs by adding the success metrics that provide you with a quick snapshot of your business on a quarterly and yearly basis.
- The Sources tab includes lead tracking categories.
While we’re keeping things pretty simple, many businesses prefer to use customer relationship management, or CRM, software. CRMs are great at letting businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best serve them. This in turn keeps them as customers and drives sales.
In our case, we’re using the Sales Metrics Template as our starting point or an interim CRM.
Important: Make sure you update it so it tracks your lead source. There are almost no limits to what categories you can use. In our example, we use the following broad ones: Client, Referral Partner, Networking, Phone Call, Online, Other. If you want to be a bit more specific, we use the actual name of the client, networking group, or service vendors, such as BNI, Google Search, LinkedIn, or MailChimp.
Adjusting the dropdown to choose a lead source is done with Data Validation. Here’s a quick look at how you do that:
Tracking Leads and KPIs = The Most Valuable Data You’ll Ever Need
KPIs provide real, true, and honest proof of what you’re measuring, which helps you make better decisions (like if you really should have another drink). If those measurements change over time, KPIs tell you so. Say your goal is to generate 20 new leads a month from your website. Did you easily meet or fail to meet this goal? KPIs can help explain why: because you’re awesome or you’re not.
Tracking KPIs is Liquid Gold for Business Owners
SEO
KPIs can also help you track leads with some of the other tools you might want to use or are using. You could invest in search engine optimization tools that improve traffic to your website to measure how effective your SEO is.
Advertising
You also could try pay-per-click advertising, in which you only pay if someone clicks on your ad. Again, KPIs can accurately measure how many times people click on your ad, how much you paid, and how much business you got from that ad.
Networking
Many people get better website leads by networking. We agree that face-to-face meetings are great, and people can meet you and then go to your website. The right KPI can tell you what percentage of people you spoke to actually visited your website, and how many of them bought what you’re selling.
Key Business Decisions
By using KPIs, we found that roughly 75%-80% of our leads came from word of mouth: clients, referral partners, and networking. This helps us invest and focus our efforts in the areas of our business that matter most.
KPIs are wonderful ways to measure something such as how well your website is generating leads and where they’re coming from. We hope we have provided you with a solid starting point, or baseline. That way, over time, you’ll be able to tell how well the website helped and determine any next steps you may need to take.