Lead generation has evolved. Has your strategy kept up?

In today's digital world, people are bombarded with messages and offers. To stand out, businesses need to capture attention, build genuine interest in their products and services, and keep experiences connected and personal throughout the entire customer journey.

That’s the goal of lead generation: Attract the right people, earn their trust, and guide them closer to a sale. And now, with AI agents helping teams personalise outreach and act on real-time customer signals, marketers have a better way to keep every opportunity moving.

Let's explore what lead generation is, what steps you can take to find and nurture leads effectively, and how agentic marketing software can make the whole process easier.

Ultimately, lead generation is about generating customer interest and then converting that interest into a sale. But there are different routes you can take to make this happen.

Inbound and outbound lead generation involve two different strategies for acquiring new customers. The primary difference between the two is that, with inbound lead generation, you encourage prospective customers to come to you. With outbound lead generation, you make the first move and reach out to potential customers.

Inbound lead generation helps your customers find you

Inbound lead generation focuses on attracting prospective customers with tailored content they find valuable, such as webinars, blog posts, social media, ebooks, and newsletters.

This personalised content engages people and builds trust in your brand. That’s particularly important, as 85% of marketers say customer expectations are now higher than ever, and 69% say it’s harder than ever to acquire new customers.

When your personalised content delivers what customers are looking for, they’re more likely to engage on their own terms. They might download a resource, sign up for your newsletter, or register for an event. In the process, they’ll actively share their details and opt into communications, giving you everything you need to nurture the lead toward a sale.

This makes inbound lead generation a cost-effective, sustainable way to turn attention into leads and build a loyal customer base over time.

Outbound lead generation is more proactive and direct. It involves identifying and reaching out to potential customers through email marketing, direct mail, social media messages, and cold calling. You’re essentially hunting for leads, hoping to capture their interest and convert them into customers.

The benefit of outbound lead generation is that it can be a faster way to generate a large number of leads and drive immediate results. However, prospective customers might also find it intrusive. It can be counterproductive if potential leads aren’t ready to hear from you yet or if your business isn’t fully prepared to engage the customer.

It’s all about finding balance and using both inbound and outbound lead generation to garner better results.

Lead gen marketing has always been about identifying and attracting prospects with the goal of converting them into paying customers. That part will never change.

What is changing is the environment teams are working in. Today, 83% of marketers say customers increasingly expect two-way conversations, and 69% struggle to respond promptly to inquiries.

Lead generation isn’t going anywhere, but the dynamic is changing. A few years ago, a marketer might have launched a campaign, captured a handful of customer details, and then followed up a couple of days later once the dust had settled.

But today, customers expect live conversations and hyper-personalisation. The average business markets across 10 channels , and the highest-performing organisations are those that can engage in real-time conversations. The goal now for marketers is to create timely, relevant experiences that keep people engaged while the moment is still alive.

The big obstacle to reaching that goal is time. Marketers are being asked to respond faster and personalise more touchpoints at the same time. This explains why 78% of marketers say they need more personalised content than they’re currently able to produce, and 63% struggle to keep pace with content production needs.

There are a few hurdles to overcome, but businesses are up to the task. One of the ways companies are catching up with customer expectations is with AI agents that can surface and qualify leads faster, personalise content based on customer data, and keep engagement moving with two-way conversations that free up time for marketing teams.

High-performing marketers are using AI agents to reclaim eight hours a week and boost ROI by 20%. Top use cases include personalising content, predicting campaign performance, and generating copy and visuals for marketing materials. We’ll explain how AI agents can support your lead generation efforts in more detail later in this guide.

The most effective lead generation strategies are those that help businesses attract the right audience, establish trust, and guide customers to the next step. You still need a good understanding of your audience and strong content with good calls to action (CTAs).

The difference is that marketers now need to work faster and keep touchpoints more personalised and connected along the way. Here are five strategies, some timeless, some new, that work well when speed and relevance are top of mind.

It all starts with a strong content marketing strategy. Focus on your target audience’s pain points and how your product or service can solve those.

For example, if your business offers project management software, it would be a good idea to create a series of videos about project planning tips or case studies showcasing examples of successful timeline implementations. Customers like seeing proof that companies can actually do what they say, so make it a point to show your customers that you can deliver.

The goal now is to guide customers on a journey through your content to build interest and eventually drive a click. Lead magnets like ebooks, webinars, whitepapers, and product demos will give curious customers a reason to share their details and start a relationship.

You also need a lead scoring system. This is when you assign points based on specific actions, such as webinar attendance, whitepaper downloads, or engagement with high-value pages on your website.

If leads consistently engage with product features on your site, assign them a higher lead score than someone who only occasionally visits your homepage. By prioritising efforts on leads with higher scores, sales teams can focus on prospects who are more likely to convert to save time and money.

AI agents can make this process easier by spotting real-time patterns in lead behaviour and surfacing those signals to your teams, which can help marketers prioritise the prospects most likely to convert.

Figuring out which social media channels your target audience uses still matters. If you’re fishing for clients, you have to be in the right spot.

You wouldn’t use LinkedIn if your business was targeting a visually-oriented demographic, just like you wouldn’t try B2B sales on Pinterest. Choose platforms that meet your audience where they are, with content styles that they prefer, and you’ll have an easier time attracting the right leads back to your magnets.

For some extra help here, solutions like Agentforce Marketing can help teams unify their customer context and segment their audience into fully fleshed-out customer profiles.

Regardless of the channel, you’ll need a clear and compelling CTA and a user-friendly design. You’ll get better conversion rates for subscription-based services by featuring a persuasive sign-up form on the site’s landing page, accompanied by customer testimonials.

Lead generation gets better the more you refine it. Use A/B testing and analytics to compare multiple versions of things, such as headlines, visuals, or CTAs, based on real-time performance data. You could also A/B test email marketing subject lines and analyse open rates to determine the most effective messaging.

This will help you understand and optimise your email campaign for better engagement and lead conversion over time.

Lead qualification will help you work out which prospects are the most likely to become customers, so you can focus your time and budget on the most promising leads. Below, we’ve outlined the different components that go into a strong lead qualification process.

The first thing to do is define your ideal customer profile (ICP), a description of the type of business or buyer that’s the best fit for your product or service. Once that’s clear, you can start assessing potential leads to see how they stack up against that ICP. Do they have the right budget? Are they the primary decision-maker? Are they your target demographic?

One framework you can use to assess leads is the BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) framework. It’s valuable because it establishes key criteria for assessing lead readiness that guide marketers to prioritise efforts on prospects with a higher likelihood of conversion.

Let’s say you have a software company and you’re using BANT to qualify leads. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Budget: Does the lead have the financial resources to invest in my software? I want to make sure I’m targeting prospects who can afford my product.
• Authority: Does the lead have decision-making authority? I want my sales team to engage with individuals who can make purchasing decisions.
• Need: Do the lead’s specific needs align closely with what my software offers?
• Timing: Does the lead have near-term timing to purchase my software?

These criteria help you filter leads and prioritise those who are ready to take action.

Lead scoring builds on this by assigning numerical values to leads based on their behaviour and interactions. For example, a lead downloading a product demo will receive a higher score than one who only visited the homepage. This lets marketers move beyond “looks like a good fit” and start seeing which leads are actually likely to take the next step.

Lead grading complements scoring by evaluating the overall fit of a lead within your target market. A lead from a large enterprise in your target industry would receive a higher grade than a lead from a smaller, unrelated business. Use both, and you’ll get a nuanced understanding of lead quality.

AI can also strengthen lead qualification by making scoring more dynamic and intuitive. Rather than relying on static rules, an AI agent could analyse prospect behaviour and identify buying signals in real time by finding patterns in customer data.

From there, AI can give marketers a clear, prioritised list of likely-to-convert leads. That means less manual effort and more time to make conversions happen.

Once you’ve established your scoring and grading, your next step is to strategise how you’ll nurture your leads. Here are a few tips:

An automated email sequence, like a welcome note to new subscribers, helps nurture them toward a first purchase. The goal of drip marketing is to keep leads engaged over time by delivering a sequence of targeted and relevant messages.

These allow you to get customer insights and interact directly. A software company, for example, might organise a webinar series showcasing advanced features, with a Q&A at the end.

Tailoring content to individual preferences enhances engagement. An example of this is an online fashion retailer sending product recommendations based on a lead’s browsing history.

The key is to make every interaction feel relevant and timely, rather than sending the same message to every lead. Marketing automation can help with this process by using real-time customer signals to tailor content, personalise product recommendations, and suggest the next best action to marketers.

It’s crucial to understand which social media channel your prospect uses most, but active participation on platforms like X, LinkedIn, or Facebook is always a good idea. Anytime you can engage in industry-related discussions, share relevant content, and respond in the comments, you build awareness and credibility with leads.

Lead nurturing now starts earlier than a lot of businesses realise. As more people use tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews (AIO) to find information, useful content can help your brand stay visible online long before anyone fills out a lead form.

Marketers are taking notice and making adjustments. According to our latest State of Marketing Report , 85% of marketers say AI is reshaping their SEO strategy, and 88% are optimising for AI-driven search experiences.

Quizzes or assessments keep leads engaged while providing valuable data about their preferences. A fitness app could create a quiz that helps leads determine their ideal workout routine while simultaneously collecting first-party data to tailor future content and promotions.

AI agents can assist with lead generation by helping marketers identify and prioritise the best opportunities sooner. For instance, agents could build priority lead lists based on buyer signals, or they could welcome website visitors and warm up potential leads with personalised recommendations based on live customer data.

This helps marketers get more qualified leads with less manual effort. It also supports the real-time, two-way conversations that keep customers engaged and ready for the next step.

Lead generation is getting faster, smarter, and more connected. It’s just in time, too, because customer expectations aren’t getting any lower.

Today, the goal is spotting intent sooner and keeping momentum high from the first interaction. Here’s how new developments are making that possible.

Using AI is already becoming standard in marketing, with 75% of teams using at least one form of it.

But most AI tools have a single purpose. They can do one task well, but it’s up to marketers to fill the gaps, and that isn’t always easy when time is tight. That’s why the new shift is towards agentic AI that can handle complex workflows autonomously.

AI agents can keep website visitors engaged, guide leads to content or products they’re likely to enjoy, surface promising leads faster, qualify interest based on live signals, and recommend the next-best action to a marketer before momentum drops. This helps customers feel “seen” and keeps every lead warm until it's time for a human to step in.

And when it’s time to hand a hot lead over to sales, the agent can pass the signals forward in real time, giving sales reps the context they need to step into every call with confidence.

This is big for efficiency, but it’s a bigger win for teams. When agents can handle all of the busy work in the background, marketers, as well as every other team in the business, have more time to focus on the strategies and moments that encourage loyalty and drive revenue.

Marketers are also taking a more forward-looking approach to generating and qualifying leads. Forty-one per cent of marketers with AI say they use predicted behaviour to segment audiences, compared to only 30% of marketers without AI.

This is changing the nature of lead generation. Instead of reacting only after a person has clicked a lead magnet or watched a video, marketers can use AI to spot emerging intent earlier and tailor content in the moment to capture early-stage leads before they drop off.

With buyers wanting more connected experiences, the quality of lead generation depends on how much context marketers (and AI agents) can access. But only 60% of Australian marketers say they have access to sales data, 59% to service data, and 55% to commerce data.

When those views are disconnected, lead generation is less precise, qualification is harder, personalisation gets weaker, and handoffs between departments risk losing context.

Bringing these views together means every team can work from the whole picture and collaborate to deliver the connected experiences customers want.

Here are some of the key metrics to use in evaluating lead generation:

• Conversion rate: This metric tracks the percentage of leads that take a desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
• Cost per lead (CPL): For CPL, you calculate the cost incurred for acquiring a single lead and divide the total spend by the number of leads generated. If a marketing campaign costs $1,000 and generates 200 leads, the CPL is $5.
• Customer acquisition rate: This metric allows you to track how effectively your lead generation efforts turn prospects into new customers over time. This will help you understand whether you’re attracting leads that actually contribute to growth.
• Lead quality: You can assess the quality of leads based on their likelihood to convert into customers. For instance, if a business uses lead scoring and finds that leads with a score above 80 are more likely to convert, it indicates the effectiveness of the lead generation strategy.
• Return on investment (ROI): Measure the overall effectiveness of lead generation efforts by comparing the revenue generated to the total investment.

Best practices in lead generation aren’t just about increasing leads. They’ll also help you create faster, more relevant experiences and build trust across every interaction. The stronger your foundations, the easier it is to find the right customers, deliver experiences that delight, and build lasting customer relationships. Here are some tips to try out:

• Target the right audience: The better you understand your buyer personas, demographics, and behaviours, the better you can use data analytics to prioritise segments that align with your product or service.
• Define clear lead qualification criteria: Reliable lead qualification and scoring depend on clearly defined criteria. Regularly review and adjust your scoring system based on data analysis, feedback, and changing buyer signals.
• Keep your messaging aligned: Consistent brand messaging and delivering on promises build trust and credibility. This might mean sharing customer testimonials and showcasing industry awards or certifications.
• Manage your leads in one place: Use a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that features lead scoring, activity tracking, and communication history to ensure a comprehensive view of each lead’s journey.
• Keep lead capture simple: The more concise and easy-to-understand your lead capture forms are, the less friction customers will have completing the action. Focus on simplicity, and use strategic placement on landing pages.
• Utilise your network: Successful companies know sales leads come from a variety of sources. Utilise your online network to make sure no opportunity gets missed. In-person networking works, too.
• Ask for referrals: Happy customers are often happy to give referrals. Let your customers do the talking for you by asking for support and empowering your audience to gather their own leads.
• Be a trusted source of information: Go the extra mile and become an expert in your respective field. Speak at trade shows or conferences, and be active on LinkedIn and social media to become a spokesperson for your field.
• Refine what works with a clear testing process: Use A/B testing to refine elements like form fields, layout, and CTA language. Track these metrics: conversion rates, CPL, lead quality, and ROI.
• Build an environment for honest feedback: A culture of iterating on strategies means regular assessments. Ask for feedback from your sales teams. Ask yourself: Is our workflow agile? How can we improve?
• Get on board with AI agents: Agents can help you identify intent signals earlier, surface and engage leads in real time, support personalised interactions, and keep the journey flowing from team to team. This gives teams more room for high-value projects.

Lead generation is how you build trust and bond with your audience. It takes some work to set up properly. But do it right, and you’re more likely to earn more business and create those lasting, meaningful relationships with customers.