Lead generation tools are indispensable for businesses looking to expand their customer base and reach out to new users. Managing the contact information of potential leads and grabbing their interest is impossible without a proper lead management tool in place.
If you want the top lead generation tool in 2022, this guide is for you. We have put together a list of the best lead generation software based on ease of use, effectiveness, integration features, and efficiency in building lead generation sales funnels to help your business grow faster in 2022, so be sure to read this lead generation software review all the way through.
Our Pick for the Best Lead Generation Software in 2022: Zoho
Although each lead generation tool in our list caters to a particular need, we feel Zoho CRM is the ultimate winner for its comprehensive package of services.
Here are some of Zoho’s standout features:
- Zoho is a multi-purpose marketing automation tool, meaning you get diverse business solutions under one roof.
- Zoho is one of the oldest marketing tools in the market. There are little to no tools that can beat the service, reliability, and legacy of this software.
- Embedding Zoho with your website is extremely easy. Moreover, it also offers a free trial to help you get acquainted with its services.
Best Lead Generation Software for 2022: Top 10 Lead Generation Funnel Tools
After endless research and multiple rounds of testing, we have put together the ultimate list of the best lead generation software for both funnel lead generation and lead management. What are the best lead generation tools, you ask? Have a look:
- Zoho CRM: Best Automated Lead Generation Software
- Pipedrive: Best CRM Tool To Drive Sales
- Hubspot Live Chat: Best Lead Generation Software Overall
- Live Chat: Best Lead Generation Funnel Tool for Live Chatbots
- OptinMonster: Best Software to Collect Lead Generation Sales Funnel Data
- Hunter: Best B2B Lead Generation Software
- Vocus: Best Lead Generation Software to Automate Email Followup
- Constant Contact: Best Email Marketing Tool for Lead Generation
- Help Scout: Best Free Lead Generation Software
- Zonka Feedback: Best Funnel Lead Generation Tool for Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Best Lead Generation Software for 2022: Top 10 Tools in Detail
Here is a detailed glimpse into each of the top 10 tools for efficient lead generation:
1. Zoho CRM: Best Automated Lead Generation Software
Zoho CRM is a lead generation tool that operates in more than 180 countries and helps over 250,000 businesses nail their customer relationship management game. With renowned brands like Amazon, Suzuki, and IIFL under its wing, Zoho CRM is easily one of the best CRM tools on the market right now.
You can communicate with your customers through any channel and get real-time notifications when they interact with your company. Zoho CRM also shares detailed reports on your customer interaction success and performance.
Best Features
Here is what we love about Zoho CRM:
- Automation: Zoho CRM automates repetitive tasks like follow-ups and data collection to help you cut back on unnecessary time wastage.
- Omnichannel Presence: Whether your customers are on social media, website, or your email list, Zoho CRM is designed to cater to each channel.
- Reminders & Suggestions: Get automated alerts on pending tasks and suggestions on the best time to interact with your leads for maximum response.
- Powerful Insights: Track all your KPIs, including current factors and future predictions, to make the most of your evaluation report.
Pricing
Starting from $12/month
Pros
Cons
2. Pipedrive: Best CRM Tool To Drive Sales
If you are looking for a competent sales and CRM management tool, try Pipedrive. This software is designed by seasoned sales experts, making it practically much more equipped than competing tools. It also offers excellent insights into your performance and helps you save time by automating mundane tasks.
Best Features
Here is what we love about Pipedrive:
- Activity-focused: Pipeline doesn’t threaten you with deadlines; instead, it helps you prioritize certain activities for maximum productivity.
- Email Marketing: Unify your contact list and send customized bulk emails to capture new leads or close existing deals with Pipedrive’s highly effective email marketing tool.
- Versatile: Pipedrive has plans for every business size, making this tool perfect for growing startups and medium-sized organizations.
- Lead Management: Pipeline helps you manage lead data and guide them to the next step with tools like Chatbot, Prospector, Web Visitor, and Web Inbox.
Pricing
Starting at $9.90/month
Pros
Cons
3. Hubspot Live Chat: Best Marketing Automation Lead Generation Software
HubSpot is a complete marketing automation tool that addresses various aspects of lead generation and management, including improving conversions with chatbots by reducing response time. This no-code chatbot is very user-friendly and doesn’t need any technical skills to set up. You can quickly integrate it with your website and begin using it for free!
Best Features
Here is what we love about HubSpot Live Chat:
- Automated Responses: For teams that do not have the time to respond to each query manually, HubSpot Live Chat offers the perfect solution with its automated chatbot responses.
- Chat History: HubSpot’s Live Chat tool stores all the chats in a universal inbox which is further linked with the data from HubSpot CRM. This feature allows you to keep every member of your team on the same page.
- No-code Chatbot: The chatbot offered by HubSpot doesn’t require any coding to be embedded in your website. You can automatically connect the chatbot to the website listed on your HubSpot account.
- Comprehensive Suite of Tools: Get all your marketing needs met under one roof with HubSpot’s suite of marketing automation tools.
Pricing
Starts from $45/month
Pros
Cons
4. Live Chat: Best Lead Generation Funnel Tool for Live Chatbots
If you are looking for a tool that exclusively focuses on customer service and communication, try Live Chat. This application caters to over 35,000 renowned brands, including companies like Unilever, Paypal, and Mercedes Benz. Creating and embedding chatbots in your website is a breeze with Live Chat. The tool also enables seamless transfer from AI communication to human executives.
Best Features
Here is what we love about Live Chat:
- Easy Chat Assignments: Smart keywords allow the Live Chatbot to understand which department is best suited to handle a query, and it’s transferred accordingly.
- 200+ Integrations: Since Live Chat integrates with more than 200 applications, embedding on different sites or collecting data from other tools is a cakewalk.
- Product Display: Live Chat allows you to display your products in elegant cards as you chat with your leads to improve your sales.
- Faster Response: The Live Chat AI is designed to anticipate responses that help it respond faster.
Pricing
Starting from $16/month
Pros
Cons
5. OptinMonster: Best Software to Collect Lead Generation Sales Funnel Data
OptinMonster is the perfect tool to capture leads and collect their personal and contact information. The best thing about OptinMonster is the diversity of lead capturing tools it offers, including pop-ups, floating bars, gaming wheels, scroll boxes, etc.
OptinMonster has a comprehensive menu, meaning it will give you exactly what you desire more often than not. Along with that, it also offers over 1000 templates to let businesses design their own forms and pop-ups that resonate with their brand.
Best Features
Here is what we love about OptinMonster
- Exit Intent Detection: OptinMonster can understand when a user wants to leave and immediately shoot up a pop-up form to store their contact details before you lose them forever.
- Geo-targeting: Don’t limit your knowledge to the information provided by the customer alone; let OptinMonster extract their location information and segment them better.
- Smart Redirection: Are you scared that your customers might leave before making a significant move? Redirect them to pages that are more likely to interest them and track their engagement with OptinMonster.
- A/B Testing: OptinMonster simplifies A/B testing of forms and pop-ups to ensure that only the best versions make it to your campaigns.
Pricing
Starts at $9/month
Pros
Cons
6. Hunter: Best B2B Lead Generation Software
Hunter offers a simple, straightforward service; its only purpose is to help you find email IDs of prospective leads. This tool is used by more than 3,000,000 brands and is trusted by renowned companies like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, etc.
Here’s how Hunter works: say you need to get in touch with a lead. In that case, all you need is the name of their organization. Hunter will extract all relevant email IDs in a click by simply using the company name.
Best Features
Here is what we love about Hunter:
- Easy to Use: The best feature of Hunter is its simplicity. A simple search with the company name is all you need to get the email IDs you want.
- Verification: Hunter also verifies the emails it provides and offers an accuracy score for each result.
- Easy Exports: Save all the important leads on Hunter and easily export them to your favorite CRM tool.
- Email Sources: Hunter provides the public sources for each email to help you check the last discovery date for each result.
Pricing
Paid plans start at $49/month
Pros
Cons
7. Vocus: Best Lead Generation Software to Automate Email Followup
Vocus is a popular email outreach program offering full-scale email marketing and lead generation solutions, including managing campaigns, sending automated email follow-ups, syncing with your CRM tool, etc. It also integrates with popular tools like Zoho, Zoom, Gmail, and Salesforce to streamline your workflow.
Best Features
Here is what we love about Vocus:
- Email Track: Vocus can integrate with your Gmail or G suite and track your email’s open rates, link click-throughs, etc.
- Team Collaboration: Vocus also allows you to share templates with your team member and work together in sync with your chosen CRM tool
- Set Reminders: Set reminders on important tasks or emails to be sent out to you never miss a deadline.
- Mass Email: Send out emails in bulk to your entire mailing list and track each one of them individually.
Pricing
Starting from $5/month
Pros
Cons
8. Constant Contact: Best Email Marketing Tool for Lead Generation
Constant Contact is a stellar email marketing tool perfect for lead generations and nurturing interested leads. One of the most impressive features of Constant Contact is that it works with leads from websites, emails, landing pages as well as social media. Also, once you get to know your audience, you can send out automated messages and save time on lead nurture.
Best Features
Here is what we love about Constant Contact
- Experience-based Package: Constant Contact has created a separate user journey for people experienced with email marketing and lead generation and beginners.
- Social Media Ads: It helps you run and manage ads on Instagram and Facebook and nurture the leads you get from them.
- Contact Growth: Constant Contact helps you grow your contact list with the right mix of social ads, landing pages, and SMS marketing.
- Refund: If you don’t like their service, you are eligible for a full refund within 30 days of purchase.
Pricing
Starting at $20/month
Pros
Cons
9. Help Scout: Best Free Lead Generation Software
Help Scout is a renowned helpdesk tool that doubles up as customer communication and lead generation tool. One of its most impressive features is the no-code chatbot that seamlessly integrates with your website and takes care of your customers while you are away. Trusted by brands like OkCupid and Trello, Help Scout is designed to offer your customers a smooth and memorable experience.
Best Features
Here is what we love about HelpScout:
- Shared Inbox: No matter what channel your users come in through, the shared inbox will give you access to messages from all mediums in one place.
- Easy to Use: Getting used to Help Scout is super easy; it has a fairly simple learning curve, and you can become a pro user within a day.
- Free Demo: Not sure if Help Scout is the one for you? Try their free product demo and trial to know more about the software and its adeptness in meeting your needs.
- Knowledge Base: Help Scout also helps you create a knowledge base to minimize the load of customer service and encourage self-service among your users.
Pricing
Starts at $20/month
Pros
Cons
10. Zonka Feedback: Best Funnel Lead Generation Tool for Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Zonka Feedback is a powerful survey tool that is currently helping 10,000+ customers in over 50 countries, including brands like Apple, American Express, and Nikon. You can get started for free, and setting up only takes a few minutes. Once you’re logged in, you can choose from over 25 types of questions for your survey and embed them in your website or email.
Best Features
Here is what we love about Zonka Feedback:
- Omnichannel Presence: Surveys by Zonka can work both offline and online through kiosks and emails or websites.
- Multiple Feedback Genre: Whether you want feedback on your service, website experience, or product, Zonka takes care of every type of customer feedback genre.
- Dynamic Surveys: Create dynamic surveys for your diverse user base with skip logic, answer piping, and survey redirection.
- Exit Intent Detection: Detect when a user is about to exit your website and hit them with your survey before it’s too late.
Pricing
Starting from $79/month
Pros
Cons
What Different Types of Lead Generation Tools Are There?
Lead generation is a vast field consisting of multiple processes and categories that amalgamate to create a perfect strategy to capture and convert new leads.
So, before you finalize the best lead generation for your company, make sure you are fully aware of these seven different types of lead generation software:
1. Email Follow-up Tools
Converting any lead in the first contact is almost impossible; it often takes multiple rounds of discussion and constant retargeting and follow-ups to finally make a lead believe in your brand and do business with you.
However, reaching out to the same old leads manually can be cumbersome. That’s why most businesses these days use automated email follow-up tools to reach out to users who haven’t responded to their first message.
Our Top Recommendations for Email Follow-up Tools
Here are our 3 favorite email follow-up tools:
Vocus: Vocus is a full-stack email marketing software offering multiple email management tools, including automated follow-ups to dormant users. It offers enough resources to encourage team collaboration and can also be integrated into your CRM software for better result tracking.
Boomerang: Boomerang is an extension for Gmail and allows you to create a follow-up message while you send the first pitch and set a timeline for it to be sent if the user does not respond. It also allows you to schedule regular emails and offers insightful suggestions on crafting the perfect email copy.
Rebump: Rebump is another popular email-followup tool that keeps sending follow-up emails at a set interval until the user responds. Needless to say, you can customize the copy and frequency of emails to better cater to your target audience.
2. Email Address Lookup Tools
Businesses are required to integrate various lead generation tools to maximize their reach. But not all of them will provide sufficient contact information on your users. If you find a user base that perfectly fits your ideal customer profile, you can use an email address lookup tool to get their personal or business emails.
These tools browse through millions of web pages and bring you what you need. Simply put, if your leads are on the internet, these tools will find out their email IDs come what may.
Our Top Recommendations for Email Address Lookup Tools
Here are our top 3 email address lookup tools:
Snov: Snov is a popular outreach automation platform that allows marketers to maximize their user reach and convert as many interested leads as possible. One of its most popular services is its email finder tool. Simply enter the company or domain name, and Snov will find all relevant email IDs associated with it.
Hunter: Hunter is another popular B2B lead generation software known for services like email tracking, email finder, and email verifier. All it asks of you is to share the name and organization of the target lead. Next, it will deliver 100% accurate email IDs of the user.
Aeroleads: If you want a little more help with finding the right way to reach your leads, try Aeroleads, the best LinkedIn lead generation software. This tool pounces on the tiniest of details, including the lead’s location, organization name, or LinkedIn URL, to help you get in touch with your favorite lead.
3. Lead Data Collection
Managing millions of data all by yourself is impossible. Without a proper lead data collection tool in place, all the time and effort you put into fishing quality leads for your company will go down the drain. You will naturally pave the way for numerous human errors that could lead to data and lead loss.
On the other hand, a lead data collection tool will automatically collect all the data of interested leads and keep them organized to help you skim through.
Our Top Recommendations for Lead Data Collection Tools
Here are our 3 favorite Lead Data Collection tools:
OptinMonster: OptinMonster comes with pre-designed lead capture forms which you can use to entice your target audience with lucrative offers. It automatically stores each of the data entered by the interested leads in your OptinMonster account, so you never miss out on a potential lead.
WPForms: WPforms, the best lead generation tool for WordPress, is a popular WordPress plugin with over 300 pre-designed templates to target and capture leads. Along with seamless lead data collection, it also sends you instant notifications on new leads, allowing you to respond to them faster.
Constant Contact: Constant Contact is a popular email marketing tool designed to send out lucrative cold pitches and store information on interested leads to be added to your email subscriber list. If your business has larger lead data collection needs or if you simply need an alternative to mainstream tools like HubSpot and MailChimp, try Constant Contact.
4. Form and Email Collection Tools
New businesses often focus on customer outreach so much that they fail to make the most of the users willingly walking onto their website. Each visitor is a valuable asset, so it’s crucial to have the best system in place to capture their email and contact information.
We recommend embedding email capture forms in your website and opt-ins in emails or any other sources through which you might be trying to reach out to your audience.
Our Top Recommendations for Form and Email Collection Tools
Here are our top 3 form and email collection tools:
ConvertBox: ConvertBox is a popular lead generation tool that simplifies capturing emails of target leads. Whether you want to create emails, forms, pop-ups, or opt-ins, ConvertBox has templates for everything. It also allows you to run A/B tests to see which version of your forms will most likely attract the maximum number of leads.
Leadpages: Leadpages is a sales and lead generation tool that works best for non-WordPress users. It allows you to create opt-ins, alert bars, and forms with its simple drag and drop builder and templates to capture and store data of the best leads for your business.
Optinly: Optinly is the perfect lead email capture tool for startups. It has a generous free plan that allows you to create multiple types of forms, pop-ups, and floating bars to attract your leads into leaving their contact information. Optinly is certainly the tool to use if you want to create thriving long-term relationships with your customers.
5. Automation /CRM Tools
The process of capturing and converting leads has to be seamless; one small hurdle and you could lose a week’s worth of progress. To keep the process hurdle-free, you need a competent CRM tool to store lead information, record service issues, identify sales opportunities and manage your lead generation campaigns.
Our Top Recommendations for Automation/ CRM Tools
Here are our 3 favorite automation/CRM tools:
Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM serves some of the biggest companies in the world, including Amazon, Suzuki, Hotstar, etc. It offers a unified CRM dashboard to manage your leads from multiple channels, including email, website, social media, and others. Get faster conversions and higher ROI with Zoho CRM!
PipeDrive: If you want a tool that exclusively focuses on CRM, try Pipedrive. It’s easy to use and offers substantial resources to track customer information and utilize them to make faster conversion and sales. It might not have additional marketing or survey features but it’s certainly a powerful CRM tool.
FreshSales: Freshsales is a great CRM tool for startups with not enough budgets for expensive and high-end CRM softwares. FreshSales makes managing customer data and creating the perfect customer journey easier than ever.
6. Live Chat Software
One of the easiest ways to grab a lead’s attention is by responding faster to their queries; the faster you reply to them, the lower will be their chances of seeking other options. However, sticking to your desk in the hope of replying to interested leads as soon as possible isn’t a very feasible option. That’s where live chat software steps in.
These tools send automated responses to interested leads and carry the whole conversation until a customer executive can step in. They keep your leads engaged while you get back to them.
Our Top Recommendations for Live Chat Tools
Here are our 3 favorite live chat tools:
Live Chat: Trusted by some of the biggest companies like Adobe, Unilever, Mercedes Benz, McDonald, etc., Live Chat is the simplest way to automate user interaction. This tool will allow you to work across multiple communication channels from the same account and solve customer queries faster than they can imagine, creating the ultimate user experience.
HubSpot: HubSpot is a popular marketing automation tool offering several customer interaction tools, including live chats. It’s best for companies looking for a one-stop comprehensive solution to their business needs. Easily embed the chatbot in your website and engage with customers in real-time, and that too, for free.
ClickDesk: Certain industries and product types require detailed chat options to solve complicated user queries. If you feel that plain texts aren’t enough to communicate with your leads, try ClickDesk’s video and voice calling feature. The best part is that the tool works perfectly fine in a browser such as Google Chrome, meaning you don’t have to put in extra effort for installation.
7. Customer Satisfaction Survey Tools
The biggest mistake you can make in a business is to not evaluate your performance. When it comes to lead generation, you must analyze the areas where you went wrong and those that made you hit the jackpot. And the only full-proof way to evaluate your performance is through customer feedback.
However, as a growing business, you might not have the time to manually manage individual customer reviews and feedback. That’s why we recommend using customer satisfaction survey tools to automate feedback collection and processing.
Our Top Recommendations for Customer Satisfaction Survey Tools
Here are our top 3 customer satisfaction survey tools:
Zonka Feedback: Zonka Feedback has made capturing and storing customer feedback easier than ever. It comes with multiple survey templates with over 25+ question types to help you understand what exactly a customer feels about their interaction with your business. Moreover, setting it up is also easy and you can start your surveys for free!
HelpScout: Customers often do not have the time to leave detailed reviews on your service. That’s where the email satisfaction rating tool by HelpScout comes in handy. It allows you to embed a rating feature into your email, allowing customers to share their experience satisfaction in a single click.
OutGrow: If you want more options in terms of feedback format to understand the interaction experience of your customers, try OutGrow. In addition to surveys, this tool also allows you to create questionnaires, polls, quizzes, chatbots, and much more to amplify your ROI. With more than 1000 templates to choose from, OutGrow is easily one of the best, if not the best platform to boost customer experience.
What is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is an essential keg in a company’s marketing strategy that plays a huge role in gaining new customers. The term “lead” usually refers to a potential customer interested in the products or services offered by the company. A company tries to market its products or services to a lead only after the latter initiates communication first, such as providing contact details for a subscription, special offer, etc. However, it is necessary to generate the leads in the first place, i.e., get people to submit the necessary information.
Lead generation involves attracting prospective customers and nurturing them to grow their interest. Ultimately, the goal is to convert them into your customers. When run properly, lead generation strategies can be highly effective in increasing a company’s sales. After all, contacting a potential customer after they have shown interest is far less intrusive than randomly reaching out to anyone whose contact information you purchased.
In the age of digital marketing, the success of a company’s marketing efforts depends largely on its lead generation techniques. When a business incorporates the right strategy for lead generation, it can market its products and services much more efficiently as it knows exactly who to reach out to. The more leads you generate for your business, the more customers you can potentially convert.
Which Lead Technique is Right for My Business?
In order to successfully generate valuable leads, a business must decide on its strategy and techniques first. There are various approaches to lead generation, all of which can be correct depending on the situation and your exact goals. You’ll have to choose the correct lead generation technique for your marketing strategy to be effective and efficient. Here are the most important lead generation techniques:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is one of the most basic lead generation techniques that any business with a digital marketing strategy should implement. Search engine optimization involves optimizing a web page and its contents to increase its chances of ranking high among the search engine results.
Search engines use algorithms to identify the most relevant search results and rank them. By getting your website to rank at the top, you can effectively reach potential customers, i.e., individuals searching for a product or service you offer. SEO is a technique that can benefit businesses of any scale.
2. Webinars
Webinars are online seminars usually held to educate people on a certain topic. Unlike traditional marketing techniques, webinars don’t usually sell products or services through obvious sales pitches. Instead, a company has to choose topics that are somehow related to what they offer and of interest to the target audience.
Successful webinars can help a company establish trust among potential customers and earn a place in their hearts. The audience will see the business as a reliable company and potentially purchase its products or services in the future. However, webinars aren’t always a suitable lead generation technique for every business and are more suitable for long-term marketing campaigns.
3. E-Newsletter
A large number of businesses issue e-newsletters as a lead generation technique. If your business can create newsletters with valuable content, potential customers will likely subscribe. You can directly collect their contact information during the subscription process, thus making it possible to reach out to them in the future.
E-newsletters are an excellent medium for making announcements about special deals and offers or new products and services. By sending such updates regularly to the audience, you can significantly improve the conversion rates. Additionally, a newsletter will also allow you to continue nurturing your clients and keep them interested.
4. PPC Advertising
Are you planning to run a paid advertising campaign to boost lead generation and gain exposure? Well, relatively conventional modes of advertising aren’t efficient as they reach out to everyone in general, even if they aren’t interested. At times, the audience may also find such ads to be irritating.
The best way around this challenge is to run a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign. Here, your ads will appear on web pages that the audience visits only when they are interested in your products or services in some way. By combining PPC advertising with SEO, you can even place your ads in the form of top search engine results on Google. It’s best to use these techniques simultaneously if you are trying to run a cost-effective marketing campaign.
5. Industry Research Reports
If your company runs on a B2B model or seeks to partner with other businesses, this is a very effective lead generation technique. Regular consumers typically do not read executive summaries or full research reports on a business and its industry. However, these are exactly the sources that companies turn to when they want to learn about potential business partners.
Industry research reports not only help your brand gain more credibility but also help spread brand awareness. This technique will make it easier to partner with non-competing firms and trade associations.
6. Blogging
Blogging is a relatively unique lead generation tool, which differs since it doesn’t generate a lot of leads directly. Rather, blogs drive potential leads to your website, where the lead generation will actually take place. It is an extremely effective marketing technique that almost every business can benefit from.
For instance, a search engine optimized blog will first grab the attention of an individual seeking information about a type of product you offer. It will then direct the audience to your website, where they may subscribe to newsletters, opt for a survey, or simply leave their contact information so that you can get in touch.
These are only some of the most popular lead generation techniques, besides other strategies like online marketing videos, eBooks, lead generation websites, etc. Now that you know how different techniques work and the goals they help achieve, you can make a more informed decision. Ideally, you should choose several suitable lead generation techniques and use them together in a synchronized manner.
Conclusion: What Is The Best Lead Generation Software?
Having discussed over ten incredible lead generation tools, we crown Zoho as as the best lead generation tool of 2022. Features like a no-code chatbot, automated email and chat responses to leads, the ability to store chat history, and a slew of other email and marketing tools that tag along with a HubSpot package make this tool a must-have for all growing and established businesses if they want to take their lead generation game to the next level.
Also check out our guide to the best CRM software this year.