Most B2B marketers spend a great deal of time analyzing the performance of their programs and initiatives. The reason is obvious: With the growing pressure on marketing to produce measurable results, it’s critical that every marketing dollar is invested wisely.

That’s why I’m surprised when I come across companies selling complex products or services that fail to accurately track their lead sources -- arguably one of the most important pieces in the performance metrics puzzle.

Every lead has a “source” -- something that drove that individual to contact your company. Whether it is a clear, obvious reason -- or a combination of reasons (campaign that led to a Webinar…that led to a white paper…that led to an inquiry) -- if you fail to properly classify the inquiry’s source, you will invariably end up with flawed data. And flawed data can lead to poor marketing decisions.

Of course, many organizations have their campaign information and web request form data automatically fed into their CRM system. But the lion’s share of the leads may still be coming in via incoming calls, direct mail, and outbound telesales -- and that’s where many of the “lead coding” problems occur.

**Are You Properly Tracking Lead Sources?**

I know of a very successful technology company that still clings to an inadequate, overly simplistic lead source tracking system. As leads come in, their inside sales folks are forced to code them with one of only four “source” descriptions:

1. Telesales Outbound

2. Account Executive Outbound

3. Web Lead

4. Customer Referral

The problem with these limited definitions is obvious: There’s no way to account for leads generated through direct mail, email campaigns, trade shows, advertising, press coverage, webinars, or any of the many other marketing vehicles this company employs.

Secondly, this approach mixes the reason a prospective customer made an inquiry (“customer referral,” for example) with the vehicle the lead used to contact the vendor (the vendor’s website). Not a good idea.

When I asked them why they limit their “source” categories to these four, they explained it had something to do with their financial reporting -- not with gathering marketing intelligence (I’m not kidding!). Bottom line: marketing is making budgeting decisions every year based on very limited and misguided information.