Lead Generation Software: 8 Kinds and What Each Returns
The eight kinds of lead generation software, what each one returns and what it leaves for you to do.
Robbert Veer, Founder
8 min read
Lead generation software is any tool that finds potential customers, captures their details or contacts them for you. It comes in eight kinds, and each kind hands you something different. A database returns a record. A form returns a visitor's details. An outreach tool returns replies. The kind you buy matters more than the brand on it.
This guide sorts the category by what each kind returns and what it leaves on your desk. It is written for web design, SEO and marketing agencies that sell to local businesses.
What is lead generation software?
Lead generation software is software that helps a business find people or companies who might buy from it. The label covers two families.
Inbound tools catch people who already came to you. Forms, landing pages, pop-ups and chat widgets belong here. They need traffic to work.
Outbound tools find businesses that have never heard of you and help you reach them. Databases, scrapers, email finders and outreach tools belong here. They need a list and a reason to write.
A lead is only a name until somebody decides it is worth a message. Most lists of tools skip that step.
What are the kinds of lead generation software?
There are eight kinds. The table shows what each kind returns, one to three well-known products of that kind, and what is still yours to do afterward. The products are examples. They are in no order, and this page makes no claim about their quality, price or data. The last column describes the kind, and a named product may cover part of it.
| # | Kind | What it returns | Examples | What it leaves to you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Contact and company database | A record per company or person, with name, role, email, phone and size | ZoomInfo, Apollo | Deciding which records are worth a message |
| 2 | Scraper | Rows copied from public pages such as map listings and directories | Apify, PhantomBuster, Outscraper | The owner's name, a checked email and any view of fit |
| 3 | Email finder and verifier | An address for a name and a domain, and a verdict on whether it will bounce | Hunter, NeverBounce | Everything about the business behind the address |
| 4 | Form, landing page and pop-up builder | The details a visitor typed in | Unbounce, OptinMonster, Typeform | Traffic. No visitors means no leads |
| 5 | Website visitor identification | The companies behind anonymous visits to your site | Leadfeeder, Lead Forensics | Finding the right person at that company |
| 6 | Chat and callback widget | A conversation or a call with a visitor | Intercom, CallPage | Traffic, and a person to answer |
| 7 | Scoring tool | A rank order for a list you already have | The lead scoring inside HubSpot | The list itself, and rules that fit your buyers |
| 8 | Outreach and sequencing tool | Messages sent on a schedule, and the replies | Lemlist, Instantly, Mailshake | The list and the reason to write |
Many products span two kinds, such as a database with a sequence tool built in. Two kinds have their own guides here. One explains what is inside a B2B database, and the other covers what lead scrapers return and what they miss.
Which kinds count as B2B lead generation software?
All eight can serve a company that sells to other companies. Four are built for it. The database, the scraper, the email finder and the outreach tool start from a list of companies. The form, the visitor tracker and the chat widget start from a stream of visitors, and a scoring tool works on either.
That difference matters for a small agency. Inbound tools multiply the traffic you already have. An agency site with a few hundred visits a month gives a form or a chat widget little to work with. Outbound tools work from the first day, because the list comes from outside your own site.
One caution. B2B lead generation software built for enterprise sales thinks in job titles. A four-person plumbing firm has an owner and a phone number. Check that a tool covers the small local businesses you sell to before you pay for it.
Which kinds does an agency selling to local businesses need?
An agency needs software for three jobs. It has to find businesses, choose among them and contact the ones it chose.
- Find. A database or a scraper gives you every dentist, roofer or law firm in an area.
- Choose. A scoring tool, or your own eyes, decides which of those businesses has a reason to hear from you.
- Contact. An outreach tool sends the messages in order and stops when someone replies.
The second job is the one that gets skipped. Of the eight kinds of tool, only the scoring tool helps you choose who to contact.
That gap is costly. In our own test, who we emailed changed the reply rate more than what we wrote. We scored 20,000 Dutch company websites and sent 3,570 cold emails to three groups. A random sample from the stronger 80% of websites replied positively 0.50% of the time. The weakest 20% replied positively 1.60% of the time to a generic email, about 3.2 times as often. Naming the website's problem in the email brought 2.35%, and that last gap was not statistically significant (p = 0.238). The test covered Dutch companies and email only. The method is in our write-up of the test.
For an agency that sells websites, SEO or marketing, the score that counts is the state of the prospect's own website. Reading sites by hand is slow. The same write-up describes an earlier campaign where reviewing 1,382 sites by hand would have taken about 184 hours, at about 8 minutes a site. Our guide to lead scoring with the website as the score explains how to do it faster.
Where does Leadodo fit?
Leadodo is lead generation software for web design and marketing agencies. It is an outbound tool that joins four of the eight kinds, the database, the scraper, the scoring tool and the outreach tool.
- Find. Leadodo finds businesses with a Google Maps scraper and a database of 460M+ contacts. You search by industry, area and company size, plus 20+ more filters. Of those contacts, 100M+ are in the US, and the data is refreshed every 30 days.
- Choose. Twip, its AI, scores every website in a search out of 100 across 10 domains. Lower means a weaker website and a better lead. Sites that score below 40 form the shortlist, and you can see how the score works.
- Contact. Your Outbound Machine runs six steps over 19 working days. A posted letter arrives on day 1, emails follow on days 4, 7 and 11, and LinkedIn steps on days 15 and 19. The sequence stops for a business the moment it replies.
It never contacts anyone itself. You send, under your own name.
How do you choose lead generation software?
Start from the job that is slowest for you today. Then put five questions to any tool you look at.
- Which job does it do? Find, choose or contact. Name the job before you read the feature list.
- What does one row hold? Ask for 50 sample rows in your own trade and area. Count how many carry an owner's name and a direct email.
- How old is the data? Ask when each record was last checked, and how.
- Who sends, and under whose name? Messages should leave from your own domain and your own address.
- What is left to do by hand? Every kind leaves work behind. Write down what that work is and who will do it.
Look at price last. A low price per record says nothing about the hours that follow. At 8 minutes a site, reading 500 websites by hand is about 67 hours.
What will software for lead generation not do?
Software for lead generation speeds up finding, choosing and contacting. It does none of the thinking behind them.
It will not pick your market. It will not write an offer a dentist cares about, and it will not hold the sales call. Those stay with you. Our guide to agency lead generation as a full system covers them, and our guide to cold email covers the writing.
It will also not rescue a weak list. More messages to businesses with no reason to buy bring more silence.
Questions
What does lead generation software do?
It finds potential customers, captures their details or contacts them, depending on the kind. A database returns company and contact records. A form returns what a visitor typed. An outreach tool sends your messages in order and collects the replies.
Is a CRM lead generation software?
Roundups often list CRMs such as HubSpot, Pipedrive and Salesforce under this label. A CRM stores leads and tracks deals. It does not find new businesses for you, so it sits one step after lead generation.
What is the difference between inbound and outbound tools?
Inbound tools capture people who came to your site, through forms, pop-ups and chat. Outbound tools find businesses that do not know you and help you reach them. Inbound needs traffic. Outbound needs a list and a reason to write.
Do I need more than one tool?
Usually, yes. Finding, choosing and contacting are three jobs, and most kinds of tool do one of them. One workable stack is a database, a verifier and an outreach tool, with the choosing done by hand. Some products join the jobs in one place.
Can an outreach tool send emails for me?
An outreach tool sends on the schedule you set, from your own address. You stay the sender, and the rules apply to you. In the US, the CAN-SPAM Act has no exception for B2B email (FTC). This is not legal advice.
Next step. Run one search by trade and area, and see every website in it scored. See Lead Discovery.
