Contact to Lead

Why it matters

Everything downstream inherits the quality of this stage. A pipeline full of unqualified leads does not just waste sales time, it corrupts the forecast that operations and finance are planning against.

• Channel coverage: Interest arrives by web, event, referral, campaign and inbound call. If one channel bypasses the system, its leads are invisible.
• Consent: Capturing consent at the point of contact is what makes later marketing lawful, and in Australia that obligation sits with the sender.
• Scoring discipline: A scoring model agreed with sales is the difference between qualification and guesswork.

The workflow

1. 01

   Channel capture

   Interest is collected from every channel into one place, with its source recorded.

2. 02

   Consent and contact creation

   A contact record is created, carrying what the person agreed to be sent.

3. 03

   Interaction tracking

   Subsequent behaviour is logged against that contact rather than against a campaign in isolation.

4. 04

   Lead scoring

   The contact is scored on engagement and fit using criteria sales has signed off.

5. 05

   Lead qualification

   Above the agreed threshold, the contact becomes a lead and moves on.

Decide what a qualified lead means before you configure scoring. Teams that configure first end up tuning a number nobody agrees on, and sales quietly reverts to its own list.

What you need in place

• One contact record: Deduplicated, so the same person arriving twice does not become two leads.
• Source attribution: Every lead carries where it came from, or you cannot judge a channel later.
• Consent management: Recorded, timestamped, and honoured on unsubscribe.
• An agreed scoring model: Owned jointly by marketing and sales, and revisited against real conversion data.

Metrics and KPIs to track