5 ways data analytics can help you generate more leads

Lead generation is crucial for identifying potential customers who are genuinely interested in your business’s products or services.

With leads now coming from all sorts of places – search engines, email campaigns, paid ads and social media – it’s important to take an informed approach. That way, you can cut waste and focus your budget on the channels that are actually bringing in quality leads.

And to get a decent marketing budget in the first place, you usually have to prove return on investment.

So how can small businesses use data to spot what’s driving leads, trace where they came from, and improve future campaigns? We asked Daniel Reilly, director at Ruler Analytics, to explain.

In the past, analysing lead sources was often guesswork. Marketers might rely on sales reports, feedback, or just gut instinct to decide what was working – and which search terms brought people to the website.

The trouble is, without the right tools or time to dig into that data, you can’t properly see how people found you or what they were actually looking for.

These days, there are plenty of tools that can help. When used well, analytics can help improve lead generation and boost conversions by showing what’s really working and what’s not.

Here’s how.

1. Get more customers

If you can see where your best leads are coming from – whether that’s Google, PPC or social – you can focus on what’s working and stop wasting time on the rest.

With the right analytics or call tracking software, sales teams can see which channels are driving real opportunities and prepare ahead of time.

They can also prioritise the channels that deliver the most value. For example, you might run a PPC campaign that leads to lots of phone calls, but those aren’t being tracked back to marketing. Without proper tracking, it’s hard to prove what made the phone ring.

Tools like Ruler Analytics can show the full journey from search to phone or web conversion, helping teams make decisions based on real data.

2. Understand your audience

You can also learn a lot by looking at how people move through your site. It helps the sales or marketing team see what customers are interested in and whether your site is doing a good job of presenting it.

If people are landing on a product page and leaving straight away, it could be because the page is confusing, missing key info, or attracting the wrong type of search.

Some platforms even offer company identification tools. These show which business is browsing your site, so you can follow up with more targeted information.

3. Know which regions are generating the most traffic

As well as who’s browsing, it’s helpful to see where they’re based.

This can help marketing teams focus local SEO or social campaigns. It also gives the sales team a clearer view of where leads are coming from, which makes it easier to plan and forecast.

Many tools can track this kind of detail using a visitor’s IP address.

4. Know which products and services are working

It helps to know which products or services people are interested in before they make contact. That way, your sales team can tailor what they say.

For instance, if someone looks at the conveyancing page on a law firm’s site and then asks for a quote, the sales call can start with that in mind.

To get this level of insight, you need to track individual visitors – something standard Google Analytics doesn’t really offer. But other tools can give you a breakdown of the pages a lead visited before they called, filled in a form, or asked for more info.

5. Get more from your marketing spend

Call tracking and analytics can help you strip out what isn’t working and focus your spend on what is.

For example, you might find a campaign is generating calls – but the calls aren’t being answered, or handled properly when they are.

By seeing the full picture, you can fix issues in the sales process, improve conversion rates, and stop money slipping through the cracks.

At a higher level, good analytics helps you prove marketing ROI to senior teams or investors. You can show exactly what impact your campaigns are having and how much of the budget is bringing in results.

This article was originally written by Daniel Reilly at Ruler Analytics. It was lightly updated by the Bytestart team in 2025 to reflect current tools and practices.