What a lead is, and is not
A lead is a named person with a need and a way to contact them. A form submission asking for a quote is a lead. A phone call is a lead. A visitor to your website is not a lead; a social media follower is not a lead; an email address bought from a list is not a lead. The distinction matters because much of what is sold as lead generation produces the second group and calls it the first.
Quality varies enormously. An enquiry from someone who read your prices, saw your work and asked for a quote on a specific job is worth many times an enquiry from someone who filled in a comparison site’s form and is now being called by five firms. Count leads, but weigh them.
Generating your own against buying someone else’s
| Generating your own | Buying leads | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | Your profile, pages, reviews and adverts bring enquiries directly to you | A company collects enquiries on its own site and sells each to you, usually to several competitors too |
| Who the customer contacted | You | The lead company |
| Exclusivity | Yours | Typically shared with 3–5 others |
| Cost | Work, then near zero per lead; adverts if you choose | A fee per lead, for ever |
| When you stop paying | Enquiries continue | Enquiries stop the same day |
| Conversion to a job | High: they chose you | Low: you are one of several calling |
| Best for | Every business with a year to build | Filling a gap this month |
Source: Cybrial, from client experience across trades, retail and leasing. Lead-selling companies publish their own per-lead prices.
Bought leads are not a scam; they are a product with a specific shape, and for a business that needs work next week they can be rational. The mistake is buying them for years instead of spending a fraction of the money building the machine that produces your own.
The machine that produces your own
- Be found. A Google Business Profile with reviews for local searches; pages titled in the customer’s words for the specific things you do. The getting-found guide sets out the order.
- Convert. A first screen that says what, where and how much; a short form; a visible phone number; speed on a phone. A van leasing site we rebuilt is reported by its client at roughly four enquiries per hundred visitors, up from roughly one.
- Answer the pre-purchase questions. “How much”, “how long”, “what if”. The business that answers plainly gets the enquiry when the searcher is ready.
- Follow up fast. A lead answered within an hour is worth several answered next day. Reply-time is a conversion lever most businesses never measure.
- Record where each came from. Ask, if the form does not capture it. Without attribution you fund the channel that feels busiest.
- Add adverts once the above converts, so each paid visitor is worth having.
B2B lead generation
For businesses selling to businesses the same machine applies with longer cycles and smaller numbers: fewer searches, higher value, more checking before contact. The pre-purchase content matters more, because a buyer researching a supplier reads several pages before emailing. LinkedIn replaces Facebook as the social channel that occasionally matters. And the lead form is often replaced by a “book a call” with a real calendar, because B2B buyers want a conversation not a quote.
What to be wary of
- “Guaranteed leads.” Anyone can guarantee a volume of form fills; nobody can guarantee they are real people with a need.
- Paying per lead with no definition of a lead. Agree in writing what counts: a named person, a stated need, a working phone number or email, not a duplicate.
- Lead generation that is really list buying. Emailing purchased addresses is spam under UK law (PECR) for consumers and rarely works for businesses.
- A monthly fee described as lead generation that is actually ad management charged as a percentage of spend. Ask how the fee is calculated.
