Lead Generation TrendsMarketing Leadership Perspective on

Ascend2 Research Conducted in Partnership with Act-On Software.

Why lead generation objectives are changing and

how marketing leaders are planning to achieve them.

Marketing Leadership Perspective on Lead Generation TrendsAscend2 Research Conducted in Partnership with Act-On Software.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

You may adapt, copy, distribute and transmit this work. However, you must attribute the work as produced by Ascend2 and its Research Partners but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work.

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Table of Contents

Sales revenue is increasingly important to marketing leaders 4

Most important objectives 5

Rating success 6

Most challenging obstacles to success 7

Effectiveness of online tactics 8

How effectiveness is changing 9

Executional difficulty of online tactics 10

Resources used to execute tactics 11

Analyzing effectiveness and difficulty 12

Most useful measures of performance 13

Research methodology and survey demographics 15

About the Research Partners 16

3

Sales revenue is increasingly important to marketing leaders.

Increasing sales revenue is becoming a more important and more challenging objective for marketing

decision-makers to achieve, forcing a shift in focus from lead volume to lead quality.

How is this trend changing lead generation strategies for marketing leaders?

To find out, Act-On Software in partnership with Ascend2 fielded the Lead Generation Trends Survey

and completed interviews with 300 business, marketing and sales professionals.

The data in this edition of the study titled Marketing Leadership Perspective on Lead Generation

Trends represent the opinions of the 198 marketing leaders participating in the survey with roles

ranging from Marketing Director to CMO. We thank these busy professionals for sharing their insights.

This research has been produced for your use and can be used in your own marketing strategy

planning and presentation materials. Clip the charts and write about them in your blog or post them on

social media. Please share this research credited as published.

Kevin Bobowski

VP of Demand Generation for Act-On Software

4

Improving the quality of leads and increasing sales revenue

have become the most important objectives of an effective

lead generation strategy for marketing leaders.

5

Over 2/3 of successful

marketers say lead

scoring based on content

and engagement

significantly improves

revenue contribution.

-The Lenskold and Pedowitz

Groups, Nov 2013

70% of marketing leaders rate their strategy successful at

achieving important lead generation objectives to some

extent, while the other 30% are not yet successful.

6

The most challenging obstacles to lead generation success

are the lack of an effective strategy and an inadequate

marketing budget for executing the strategy.

7

Discover the building

blocks of a winning lead

management strategy with

our guide:

The Ultimate Lead

Management Playbook

http://bit.ly/1IcQNXC

Email marketing is the most effective online tactic used for

lead generation. Using email for relevant content marketing

purposes is key to improving the quality of leads generated.

8

Ready to move past the

basics of email marketing

and learn new techniques

to optimize your results?

Check out our eBook:

The Amazingly Effective

Email Guide

http://bit.ly/1CTW3TW

74% say lead generation effectiveness is improving, often as

a result of refining their strategy. Lead generation is a struggle

for the 7% of companies that say effectiveness is worsening.

9

Whether effective or not, many online tactics are difficult to

execute. Some tactics, such as testing and optimization, are

a combination of art and science requiring skilled resources.

10

Testing is essential for

optimizing digital marketing

campaigns and is often the best

way to uncover the perfect

combination of factors to boost

campaign performance.

The ABCs of A/B Testing

http://bit.ly/1JvFydQ

85% of companies outsource all or part of their lead

generation tactics to access the specialized skills and

technical resources that may not be available in-house.

11

Act-On Professional

Services

Get the best practices and

expert guidance to creating a

successful lead generation

strategy.

http://bit.ly/1INXoh2

The degree of difficulty required to execute a tactic often

impacts its use and perceived effectiveness, and is the reason

a tactical analysis is important during the planning process.

12

Marketing leaders are striving to contribute directly to revenue

growth. This is why they find “sales qualified leads generated”

the most useful measure of lead generation performance.

13

Notes

14

Research methodology and survey demographics

Ascend2 benchmarks the performance of popular digital marketing strategies and practices using a standardized questionnaire, research methodology and proprietary 3-Minute Survey format. Findings are examined in a quantitative context by experienced analysts and reported objectively.

This survey was conducted online from a panel of more than 50,000 US and international marketing, sales and business professionals. The following is a breakout of the company sizes and marketing channels represented in this report:

15

Number of Employees

• More than 500 12%

• 50 to 500 29%

• Fewer than 50 59%

Primary Marketing/Sales Channel

• B2B (Business-to-Business) 80%

• B2C (Business-to-Consumer) 20%

About the Research Partners

Our Mission: To Delight Small Marketing Teams with Big Ambitions!

Act-On Software is the world's fastest growing marketing automation company; its cloud-based marketing automation platform is the foundation of successful marketing campaigns everywhere – from small, simple and direct, to complex globally implemented programs.

Learn more at www.Act-On.com

Research-Based Demand Generation for Marketing Solution Providers

Marketing software, data companies and digital marketing agencies partner with Ascend2 to reliably generate demand and supplement marketing content. Our Research Partner Programs are transparent – spotlighting your brand and the interests of your market.

Learn more at www.Ascend2.com

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