Lead generation software and tools
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A buyer’s guide to the best sales lead generation software
Last updated July 12, 2023
Manually prospecting for sales is time-consuming, stealing hours away from other sales activities that could drive profits. Lead generation software—or lead gen software—automates and refines the prospecting process. It allows sales and marketing teams to bring in higher-quality prospects by automating inbound and outbound lead generation.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll introduce you to the top 20 tools of 2023, so you can target your ideal customers with precision and equip your agents to surpass their sales targets.
If you feel like skipping around the page, click through the table of contents below:
- What is a lead generation system?
- Comparison chart of the top 20 lead gen tools
- The 20 best B2B lead generation software solutions
- Features of lead gen software
- Benefits of using lead generation tools
- How to choose the right lead generation tools
- Lead gen software FAQs
- Lead generation software free trial
What is a lead generation system?
Lead generation systems help sales teams create or identify sales lead opportunities, find contact information, and manage prospects as they travel through the sales funnel. The two types of lead generation are inbound and outbound, and most software solutions only offer features for a single type of lead gen.
Inbound lead generation software typically comes with tools that allow businesses to collect contact information from online channels like email, social media, landing page interactions, and other website forms.
Outbound lead generation software helps salespeople find leads and reach out to the point of contact to pitch their product through data enrichment, lead scoring, messaging, and meeting scheduling.
Comparison chart of the top 20 lead gen tools
Our comprehensive comparison chart shares pricing information, free trial details, and key features of the 20 best lead gen tools so you can quickly gauge which systems may be the right fit for your business.
| Software | Starting price | Free trial | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zendesk Sell | $19 per agent/month (Billed annually) | 14 days |
|
| Pipedrive | $21.90 per user/month | 14 days |
|
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | $0 per month | 14 days |
|
| Agile CRM | $0 per month | Unavailable |
|
| CallPage | $25 per month | 7 days |
|
| AeroLeads | $0 per month | Available |
|
| LeadFuze | $147 per month | Available |
|
| LeadsBridge | $0 per month | 14 days |
|
| OptinMonster | $16 per month | Unavailable |
|
| Dealfront | $199 per month | 14 days |
|
| Sumo | $0 per month | Unavailable |
|
| Extole | Schedule a demo | Unavailable | N/A |
| RollWorks | Contact sales | Unavailable |
|
| Salesforce | $25 per month | 30 days |
|
| Intercom Convert | $74 per month | 14 days |
|
| Keap | $189 per month | 14 days |
|
| Ocean.io | Call for a quote | Available | 15 days |
| Zoho CRM | $20 per user/month | Available |
|
| Unbounce | $99 per month | 14 days | N/A |
| LeadPages | $49 per month | 14 days | N/A |
The 20 best B2B lead generation software solutions
There are multiple B2B lead generation tools on the market. The solution you choose should fit your business’s needs, grow with your organization, and support high-volume lead management efforts. To help you narrow down your options, we’re sharing some of the best lead generation tools of 2023.
1. Zendesk Sell
Discover new leads, increase deal won rates with complete, contextual customer profiles, and personalize mass outreach to maximize sales outcomes. Zendesk Sell offers built-in sales engagement tools, including lead gen, prospecting, and enrichment solutions.
Use prospecting or enrichment credits to build out lead lists and automate outreach to streamline your prospecting process. Prospecting credits allow users to identify fresh prospects and add contextual information to their databases. Enrichment credits rely on existing prospect information to acquire additional details that support sales.
These CRM features let your salespeople ditch tedious prospecting and administrative tasks and get back to crushing their quotas. Zendesk Sell lets agents create targeted prospect lists for multiple channels and build custom templates to create a surplus of leads and engage contacts with a personalized touch.
Features
- Prospecting credits
- Enrichment credits
- Email sequencing
- Lead scoring
- Pipeline and lead management
- Bulk outreach
- Power dialer
Pricing
- Team: $19 per agent/month
- Growth: $55 per agent/ month
- Professional: $115 per agent/month
- Enterprise: Starting at $169 per agent/month
*Pricing plans are billed annually.
Free trial: 14 days
2. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a lead management and CRM platform for sales teams that includes pipeline management and code-free development.
If you purchase its LeadBooster add-on for an additional $32.50 per month, you will also gain access to the Pipedrive prospect database, which makes outbound lead generation simple.
Pipedrive also has a mobile sales app, making this lead gen software a viable solution for traveling salespeople. Whether your sales team is hitting the road or sitting in a cubicle, they can talk to customers via live chat and collect prospects’ information from web forms and chatbot conversations.
Features
- Pipeline management
- Deal rotting
- Prospecting
- Web forms
- Smart contact data
- Visual contact history timeline
- Lead inbox
Pricing
- Essential: $21.90 per user/month
- Advanced: $37.90 per user/month
- Professional: $59.90 per user/month
- Power: $74.90 per user/month
- Enterprise: $119 per user/month
Free trial:14 days
3. HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot Marketing Hub is a marketing software for growing teams. The platform contains a lead management system with contact and campaign management functions.
The Marketing Hub helps businesses capture inbound leads with website forms, pop-ups, live chat, and chatbots with their lead capture tool. It also offers a free plan with some limited lead gen features.
According to HubSpot, the tool can also integrate with your preferred customer relationship management (CRM) software, email system, and customer data platform (CDP).
Features
- Performance metrics
- Pipeline management
- Prospecting tools
- Lead qualification
- Lead nurturing
Pricing
- Free tools: Starting at $0 per month
- Starter: $45 per month
- Professional: $800 per month
- Enterprise: $3,600 per month
Free trial: 14 days
4. Agile CRM
Agile CRM is a customer relations and auto-dialer program for small to mid-sized sales and marketing teams.
Sales teams can use Agile CRM to capture and nurture leads. With a user interface, custom workflows, and functionalities like finding unknown email addresses and monitoring lead activity on social media, it’s versatile enough for businesses to customize it to their specifications.
Features
- A/B testing
- Automated routing
- Appointment management
- Blended call center
- Call logging
- Dynamic web pop-ups
- Drag and drop landing page designer
- Email finder
- Auto dialer
- Lead scoring
Pricing
- Free: $0 per month for 10 users
- Starter: $14.99 per user/month
- Regular: $49.99 per user/month
- Enterprise: $79.99 per user/month
Free trial: Unavailable
5. CallPage
CallPage is a sales call platform for small and medium-sized companies with outbound lead management features, including auto-dialer, live chat, and lead capture.
The platform promises automated callbacks in 28 seconds or less through its click-to-call widget, which makes it possible for customers to instantly receive a call from a business representative to convert inbound sales leads.
However, as a full-service lead capture tool, CallPage also offers several additional features that aid in lead generation.
Features
- Lead qualification and distribution
- Sales lead dashboard
- Call list management
- Contact database
- Lead capture
- Automated meeting scheduler
Pricing
- Basic +: $25 per month
- Professional: $129 per month
- Premium: $329 per month
Free trial: 7 days
6. AeroLeads
AeroLeads is an outbound prospect generation program that allows users to find personal and business contact information.
AeroLeads can integrate with the CRM of your choice, and also offers a Chrome extension and prospecting plugin to simplify finding phone numbers and email addresses.
Its database currently has more than 650 million emails and the AeroLeads system regularly validates them to reduce prospecting time.
Features
- Pipeline management
- Prospecting tools
- Lead qualification
- Lead capture
- Lead database integration
Pricing
- Free: $0 per month
- Take off: $49 per month
- Climb: $149 per month
- Cruise: $499 per month
Free trial: Available
7. LeadFuze
LeadFuze is a contact finder for salespeople, recruiters, and marketers. The software’s automated lead generation system includes features like lead verification and segmentation.
LeadFuze users can adjust filters to perform a market-based search and find hyper-specific leads based on factors such as industry or number of employees. Or, they can conduct an account-based search to find contact details for specific customer segments. For example, salespeople can run a bulk query to find the emails of all C-level execs in a specific list of companies. This frees up your agents’ time to focus on their pitch rather than list building.
Features
- Prospecting tools
- Contact database
- Lead distribution
- Lead nurturing and qualification
- List-building AI assistant
- Prospect background insights
Pricing
- Scaling: Starting at $147 per month
- Unlimited: Starting at $397 per month (requires annual commitment)
- Custom: Contact sales
Free trial: Available
8. LeadsBridge
LeadsBridge is a lead generation program for advertising agencies, retailers, financial services, and real estate businesses. It includes social media marketing tools and offers more than 380 integrations.
These integrations allow businesses to capture leads from various sources and upload that data to the CRM of their choice. LeadsBridge is primarily a marketing automation tool, assisting users with email workflows, lead qualification, and segmentation to help businesses make the most of inbound leads.
Features
- Lead capture
- Lead nurturing
- Data import/export
- Lead management
- Lead segmentation
Pricing
- Free: $0 per month
- Pro: $29 per month
- Business: Starting from $999 per month (billed annually)
Free trial: 14 days
9. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a marketing-based lead generation tool for small businesses, bloggers, marketing agencies, and e-commerce websites.
The platform offers numerous functionalities that help businesses turn website visitors into buyers. Some useful tools that fall under the category of lead capture include exit intent detection, landing page templates, and gamified wheels.
OptinMonster also shares its path to success and provides the necessary tools to help customers follow it, too. The platform includes everything from landing pages and message personalization with behavior automation to campaign reporting and analytics.
Features
- Prospecting tools
- Lead capture
- Lead segmentation
- Email integration
- Drag-and-drop pop-up builder
Pricing
- Basic: $16 per month
- Plus: $32 per month
- Pro: $49 per month
- Growth: $82 per month
Free trial: Unavailable
10. Dealfront
Dealfront—formerly Leadfeeder—is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), B2B sales prospecting and lead generation tool. Its functionalities help sales and support teams generate leads and keep their sales funnels full of prospects.
The tool has more than 100 unique filters to help salespeople identify prospects that fit seamlessly into their target customer profile. This feature then leads users to complete customer profiles that offer complete, contextual information that supports sales efforts without infringing on an individual’s right to privacy.
Dealfront differs from many other solutions because it supports not only outbound lead generation, but also inbound. The lead generation system alerts users with sales triggers when a strong candidate visits their website or appears in the news.
Features
- Data access
- B2B look-alike recommendations
- Sales triggers
- CRM integrations
- Buyer intent signals
- Web visitor tracking
Pricing
- Basic: $199 per month
- Pro: $999 per month
- Premium: $2,999 per month
Note: All price tiers are billed annually.
Free trial: 14 days
11. Sumo
Sumo is an email marketing tool for e-commerce businesses that offers integrations for Mailchimp, Shopify, and Campaign Monitor.
The company offers a free email capture tool to help salespeople connect with key decision-makers—even on a tight budget.
Features
- A/B testing
- Subscriber management
- Templates
- Conversion tracking
- Campaign management
Pricing
- Free: $0 per month
- Pro: $49 per month
Free trial: Unavailable
12. Extole
Extole is a cloud-based referral software platform businesses can use to build engagement and advocacy among existing customers.
Extole primarily assists with inbound lead generation. Its software helps businesses attract qualified leads by incentivizing existing customers to refer friends and family members.
Features
- Advocate management
- Gamification
- Lead engagement
- Analytics/ROI tracking
- Bonus management
- Multi-channel marketing
Pricing
Schedule a demo for pricing information.
Free trial: Unavailable
13. RollWorks
Designed for information technology and service industry B2B companies, RollWorks is an accounts-based marketing (ABM) lead generation platform that offers audience segmentation and campaign personalization tools.
The company can align sales and marketing departments by identifying sales opportunities. It leverages intent data and predictive analysis to give salespeople a shortlist of leads that may convert.
Features
- Collaboration tools
- Engagement tracking
- Data extraction
- Contact management
- Lead qualification
Pricing
- Standard: Contact sales
- Professional: Contact sales
- Ultimate: Contact sales
Free trial: Unavailable
14. Salesforce
Salesforce helps businesses manage leads and automates several simple tasks. The company’s sales and marketing clouds work together to simplify inbound and outbound lead generation.
The Marketing Cloud Account Engagement tools allow sales teams to collect customer data from web forms, social media, email, or any inbound channel.
For outbound lead gen, sales teams can use the Salesforce CRM to create prospect lists, automate outreach and lead scoring, and route the best opportunities to salespeople.
Features
- Lead management
- Automated lead scoring
- Lead alerts
- Lead routing
Pricing
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Growth: $1,250 per month
- Plus: $2,500 per month
- Advanced: $4,000 per month
- Premium: $15,000 per month
Sales Cloud
- Starter: $25 per user/month
- Professional: $75 per user/month
- Enterprise: $150 per user/month
- Unlimited: $300 per user/month
Note: All price tiers are billed annually.
Free trial: 30 days
15. Intercom Convert
Intercom Convert can help users qualify leads and turn them into customers by opening the doors for engagement through live chat and chatbot conversations. The Intercom platform supports detailed data capture and collects details like VIP status, industry, remaining trial days, and newsletter subscription information.
All of this makes manual lead qualification a quick, hassle-free experience.
Features
- Lead generation chatbot
- App integrations
- New lead reports
- Live chat CTA buttons
- A/B testing
Pricing
- Starter: Starting from $74 per month
- Pro: Custom pricing
- Premium: Custom pricing
Free trial: 14 days
16. Keap
Keap—formerly Infusionsoft—is an email marketing company, but also offers lead generation tools that sales teams can implement into their workflows. Businesses can use Keap to automate email campaigns, personalize bulk messages, and nurture sales leads until they win the deal.
Some Keap users report that the software is useful for lead generation but note some issues with overall functionality, customer support, and a steep learning curve.
Features
- Lead capture forms
- Landing page templates
- Appointment scheduling
- Dedicated business line
- Invoicing
- Payment processing
Pricing
- Pro: $189 per month for two users
- Max: $249 per month for three users
Free trial: 14 days
17. Ocean.io
Ocean.io’s lead generation software is useful for B2B businesses conducting outbound sales lead prospecting.
The Ocean.io AI look-alike search helps businesses find prospective customers within their target audience by analyzing current and former clients’ websites. The Ocean.io AI can then scan website text for context to verify that a lead is a good fit. If it is, the system creates an outbound opportunity for the sales department to pursue.
Features
- AI look-alike search
- Machine learning
- Advanced lead filters
- Pipeline management
Pricing
- Essential: Call for a quote (one seat)
- Professional: Call for a quote (up to five seats)
- Advanced: Call for a quote (up to 10 seats)
Free trial: Available
18. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM’s platform helps businesses capture leads and gather key data from email marketing campaigns to identify additional opportunities.
With Zoho, sales teams can collect leads from inbound marketing efforts like web forms or through social listening. Zoho also helps users host virtual events for an extra prospecting push.
Along with 800+ integrations and rich analytics, Zoho helps company representatives keep tabs on prospects and close more high-profit deals.
Features
- Sales activity scheduling
- Advanced lead filters
- Lead scoring
- Sales forecasting
- Smart web forms
Pricing
- Standard: $20 per user/month
- Professional: $35 per user/month
- Enterprise: $50 per user/month
- Ultimate: $65 per user/month
Free trial: 15 days
19. Unbounce
Unbounce is an inbound lead generation landing page builder for agencies, e-commerce, and SaaS companies. The marketing tool helps these businesses keep their funnels full by offering landing page builders, website pop-ups, and sticky bars. It also has an AI conversation feature to help agents identify conversion opportunities.
If you want an influx of inbound leads, Unbounce can help you turn web traffic into sales. Use Unbounce to create high-conversion landing pages for all of your pay-per-click (PPC), social media, and email marketing campaigns.
Features
- Customizable templates
- Form builder
- Real-time editing
- Reporting and analytics
- SEO management
Pricing
- Launch: $99 per month for one domain
- Optimize: $145 per month for five domains
- Accelerate: $240 per month for 10 domains
- Concierge: $625 per month for 25+ domains
Free trial: 14 days
20. Leadpages
Leadpages is a landing page builder program for small businesses. Unlike some other prospecting tools in this roundup, this platform supports SMBs with inbound prospecting, increasing conversion rates by providing landing page templates and generating sales copy with their proprietary AI engine.
Businesses can use the tool to create beautiful landing pages, track key metrics, and easily collect payments. Leadpages also provides ongoing support to help users make the most of their purchases by offering live chat support, tutorials, and guides.
Features
- Form builder
- Pre-built templates
- A/B testing
- Lead magnet delivery
- Pop-ups and alert bars
- Automated lead notifications
Pricing
- Standard: $49 per month for one site
- Pro: $99 per month for three sites
Free trial: 14 days
Features of lead gen software
When shopping for a lead generation system, the five key features you should look out for are prospecting credits, enrichment credits, email sequencing, lead scoring, pipeline management, and lead management.
1. Prospecting credits
Businesses can use prospecting credits to find new leads without any existing contact information to rely on as a jumping-off point. This sales engagement tool is capable of generating entirely new leads.
For lead generation success, select a tool that offers prospecting credits to increase the likelihood that you will find qualified leads and the information you need to close deals with them.
Prospecting credits are a key component of Zendesk Sell Sales Engagement Tools (Reach)—a bundle of useful tools. For example, salespeople can use this tool by creating a list of companies they want to pitch and using Zendesk to find accurate contact information.
2. Enrichment credits
Sometimes your sales team needs more data to make a sale, and enrichment credits can provide just that. These credits are also a core feature of the Zendesk Sell Reach tools.
Salespeople can use Reach enrichment credits to fill in any informational gaps and prepare to pitch a product or service.
This may include finding contact information for a specific person, details about a company and its needs, or other insights that could influence the decision-makers at a business. You don’t need a lot to fill in those crucial information gaps:
- For company info, enter a business name and a website URL to obtain contact information.
- To gather additional contact information, you only need to enter an email address.
3. Email sequencing
Custom email sequences allow salespeople to reach high volumes of prospects without sacrificing personalization.
Email sequences are sales-driven messages businesses send on a preset schedule to connect with current and prospective customers. Customize email templates and set automated emails and follow-ups.
4. Lead scoring
Lean on lead scoring to determine if the prospects you find are a good fit for your organization and how likely they are to make a purchase.
To score leads and deals with Zendesk, add the most important variables for your business. Some common lead scoring business rules include:
- Industry
- Lead source
- Website visits
At the end, you can filter the results to find the hottest leads.
5. Pipeline and lead management
Sales lead and pipeline management work together to track a prospect’s progress through the sales funnel as marketing and sales teams work in conjunction to close the deal.
Select a tool that offers both features to track prospects as they progress through the sales funnel, meet lead qualification criteria, consult with a representative, and make a purchase.
Benefits of using lead generation tools
Lead generation software offers a host of benefits for all businesses. Below, we’ll tell you more about three key benefits that can positively impact any organization.
- Gain better customer insights.
- Find more qualified leads.
- Save time on prospecting and lead management.
1. Gain better customer insights
Your customers won't always tell you what they’re thinking. You need to ask the right questions and gather the right data to better understand their pain points—and why they are (or aren’t) buying from you.
Lead generation programs allow you to quickly capture more useful data from potential customers, which can help teams:
- Lean into the features that people like the most.
- Create sales content for different customer segments.
- Identify key selling points.
Sales teams can also use a lead generation tool to identify returning website visitors and sales leads that are likely to convert, which helps salespeople:
- Identify leads that are likely to convert.
- Personalize messaging and offers.
- Understand the reasons behind specific purchase decisions.
The better you understand your customers, the better you can tailor your sales pitch and pipeline to their specific needs.
2. Find more qualified sales leads
Having more leads isn’t always a good thing. More leads means more work, and if most of your leads are cold or lukewarm, you’ll work harder for smaller returns.
Lead generation software uses lead scoring to analyze customer data and identify the prospects who are most likely to buy from you. Lead gen tools track prospect engagement, personal information, and interactions with your company to determine who’s really worth your time and effort.
Calculating lead value lets you reach out to the best-qualified leads faster while you’re still fresh in their minds. And that sets aside the people who were just browsing.
3. Save time on prospecting and lead management
Guesswork drains your resources, wasting valuable hours and resources.
Lead generation provides sales reps with the most relevant customer information so they don’t have to spend hours researching leads, and spend less time chasing after cold leads.
That means more time following up on sales leads that are a good fit for your business and likely to buy.
How to choose the right lead generation software
The lead generation tool you select to prospect will depend on several factors. Some factors you should consider when choosing a B2B lead generation software solution include:
- Budget: Consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) when selecting a tool to ensure that onboarding or add-on fees aren’t making the software too expensive for you to see an ROI.
- Needs: Survey your customers and agents to identify any current service gaps and determine which features work well and which don’t to guarantee your new software checks all the boxes.
- Resources: Take inventory of your internal resources and the support your lead gen software vendor provides to make sure you have everything you need to implement the new tool.
Next, determine whether you will conduct inbound, outbound, or hybrid lead generation.
If you’re just looking for an inbound lead generation solution, a simple landing page builder or email-centric solution may work. However, if you rely on outbound lead generation to make sales, you’ll likely need a more robust tool like Zendesk Sell to manage all of your leads.
Outbound lead generation
Outbound lead generation relies on sales teams to manually find sales leads and pitch them products or services. It’s a top strategy for B2B industries because the sales tactics are effective with business decision-makers, but B2C sales teams can also use it.
Outbound lead generation is more typical for B2B sales, but it does tend to be more labor-intensive. Still, it’s a tried-and-true method for gaining attention from people who otherwise would never hear of your product. And with a product that will save your customer money, you will be in a prime position to make a sale.
With outbound lead generation, you'll initiate contact with people with little to no knowledge of your company. This involves activities like:
- Cold calling
- Sales prospecting emails
- Direct mailing
- Live events
Use tools like sales dialers, contact management software, a sales CRM, sales emails, and email automation to streamline outbound sales efforts.
Inbound lead generation
Inbound lead generation involves creating content and advertising that motivates potential buyers to reach out to you. It’s more popular with B2C industries, where “salesy” tactics can sometimes seem disingenuous or pushy.
Most inbound lead generation activity is digital, meaning it tends to be more cost-effective. But inbound lead generation involves waiting for people to find you and reach out, which means they might also be reaching out to the competition.
With inbound lead generation, you’re constructing materials that organically attract leads to you. If you’re looking for software with inbound lead generation tools, keep an eye out for these features:
- Landing page building
- Web forms
- Live chatbots
- Survey forms
- Visitor tracking
- Content creation and delivery
Lead gen software FAQs
Every business is unique, so you must be selective about which software programs you integrate into your daily workflow. Before committing the time and money to learn a new platform, read our answers to some common questions to ensure lead gen software makes sense for your business.
Try Zendesk lead generation software for free
Say goodbye to manual lead prospecting. Free up your sales team’s time, so they can focus on making human connections with prospective customers, and let automated lead generation software handle the groundwork.
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