The 5 Biggest Problems with Inbound Marketing Leads (and How to Fix Them)
Alex Thompson
|
Mar 28, 2025
Inbound marketing leads—they’re the lifeblood of growing businesses, the least resource-intensive type of lead (they come to you!), and the main KPI of most marketing agencies. But despite the clear benefits, inbound marketing leads aren’t all sunshine and roses. In fact, these leads can bring with them some serious ROI-busting challenges to the untrained marketer.
This article will dissect the seven biggest problems plaguing inbound lead generation, backed by data and real-world examples, and offer actionable fixes you can implement today. Plus, we’ll look at how tools like lead tracking platforms can be instrumental in overcoming these challenges.
Problem #1 – Attracting the Wrong Audience
Why It Happens
Inbound campaigns can sometimes cast too wide a net, pulling in visitors who simply aren’t ideal customers. So what? Well, unqualified leads can bloat your success metrics, waste your time and budget, and lead to serious trust issues—“why are we paying you for spam?”
In fact, 40% of marketers cite “too many unqualified leads” as a primary pain point in their funnel.
Imagine you’re running marketing for a local HVAC company. Your generic blog post is getting tons of traffic and inquiries, but they’re leads looking for a service your client doesn’t even offer. As a result, their team is spending hours every month turning away bad leads. 44% of sales reps complain about lead quality (the top complaint about inbound leads).
The takeaway: poor audience targeting is a recipe for aggravated clients and, eventually, high churn.
How to Fix It
The solution starts with refining your targeting strategy:
Develop Detailed Buyer Personas
Use data to define who your ideal customers are – their demographics, pain points, and search intent. By mapping content to specific personas, you ensure messaging speaks to the right people. This improves lead quality by filtering out those who don’t match your product or service.
Align Content and SEO with Intent
Perform keyword research focused on high-intent terms your ideal buyers use. For example, instead of broad terms like “marketing help,” target “marketing agency for [specific industry]” if that’s your niche.
High-intent content (case studies, detailed how-to guides for specific problems, etc.) will naturally repel irrelevant traffic and attract those more likely to convert. Notably, 63% of leads who inquire won’t convert for at least 3 months – meaning many are early in their journey – so attracting truly relevant prospects from the start is vital.
Leverage Analytics & Lead Tracking
How do you know which leads are actually qualified and which are just a waste of budget? That’s where lead tracking comes in.
Use tools like WhatConverts to track exactly which channels, ads, or keywords are bringing in leads – and analyze their quality. For instance, a quick Leads by Keyword report shows which search queries are bringing in leads and which aren’t.
Continuously refine your targeting by excluding irrelevant audiences. In ad platforms, use negative keywords and demographic filters. In content, be clear about who your services are for (and even who they are not for). This preventative step saves you from sorting through piles of bad leads later.
By focusing on quality over quantity at the top of the funnel, agencies can ensure their inbound efforts attract prospects who are a genuinely good fit.
Problem #2 – Low Conversion Rates on Lead Capture Pages
Why It Happens
It’s not enough to drive the right traffic – you also need that traffic to convert into leads. Many agencies suffer from leads slipping through the cracks due to low conversion rates on landing pages and forms. Common causes include weak calls-to-action, overly long or intrusive forms, slow page loads, or unclear value propositions.
The average landing page conversion rate across industries is only about 4%. Even in the marketing agency space, the average conversion hovers around 8.8% for agency landing pages – indicating there’s ample room for improvement.
How to Fix It
To boost conversions on lead capture pages, consider these strategies:
Optimize and Simplify Forms
Only ask for information on web forms that you truly need at the first touch. Generally, 5 fields or fewer is recommended for higher conversion.
Test multi-step forms which feel less intimidating – those who use them report an 86% higher conversion rate than with single-step forms. Ensure the form is mobile-friendly.
Strengthen Your CTA and Offer
Your inbound visitors are already interested – now you just need to give them a clear next step to act on that interest. Here are a few tips on how:
Make sure your value proposition is crystal clear and front-and-center.
Use action-oriented, specific CTA text (e.g., “Get My Free 30-Minute Consultation”) instead of generic “Submit”.
Use design to make the CTA button prominent.
Place your CTA (or a lead form) high on the page.
A/B Test Continuously
Try different headlines, imagery, form lengths, and CTA placements to see what resonates. Use conversion rate data to pick winners.
There are a lot of different conversion rate optimization tools out there. Be sure to choose the one that matches your business needs. For example, Crazy Egg, Optimizely, and VWO are great for A/B testing, but if you want to understand lead quality, you’ll likely need a conversion tracking tool.
Not all prospects fill out forms – some prefer calling. Make sure you provide phone numbers as a prominent, clickable option and track them. This is where Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) from WhatConverts comes in. By using DNI, you’ll know exactly which campaign/page led to that call. Inbound phone calls are often 10-15 times more likely to convert to customers than web form leads. WhatConverts can log call leads alongside form fills, so your true lead count is reflected.
By making these improvements and capturing all lead interactions, you can raise your conversion rates significantly. WhatConverts' insights into how leads behave on landing pages can help uncover changes that improve conversion.
Problem #3 – Too Many Low-Value Leads
Why It Happens
You might be getting plenty of conversions, but they’re not quality conversions. Many marketing agencies (and their clients) struggle with an overflow of leads that are “low-value”.
For example, maybe you’re getting small roof patching jobs (~$200) when you’d rather be getting full roof replacement inquiries ($40k). It’s still a job. But it’s definitely not your ideal customer.
The problems here are broad “catch-all” campaigns, no lead qualification step, and a disconnect between lead and lead value. Left unaddressed, you risk wasting your team’s time on loads of low-value leads for only a marginal ROI.
How to Fix It
The solution is to target higher-value leads with your marketing. Here’s how.
Align on an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Clearly define with your sales team (or client) what a “good lead” looks like. This ICP should guide your inbound tactics. Many agencies use a lead triage approach to quickly research new leads.
You should also determine what type of lead is most valuable. If we stick with our roofing example, a full roof replacement lead would obviously be more valuable than a roof patching lead.
Tweak Messaging to Target Most Valuable Leads
Generic messaging attracts generic leads. If you want higher-value inquiries, your messaging needs to speak directly to your ideal customer’s needs, pain points, and intent. For example, instead of saying “We offer roofing services,” say “We specialize in full roof replacements for storm-damaged homes.” That specificity helps filter out low-value prospects before they ever convert.
Use WhatConverts to identify which campaigns and landing pages are driving your highest-value leads. The Lead Value Report shows exactly what’s working—so you can double down on the messaging that converts $10K+ leads, and cut what attracts budget shoppers. You can even see sales value by lead to help you guage where high-value leads are coming from.
Want to take it further? Add strategic friction. Phrases like “Ideal for businesses spending $5K+ monthly” qualify your offer upfront, helping sales teams focus only on leads that match your revenue goals.
Clear, targeted messaging isn’t just about clicks—it’s how you attract leads that actually grow your business.
Implement Lead Qualification, Categorizing, and Valuing
Next, put a process in place for qualifying, categorizing, and valuing your leads. Decide on a clear lead qualification criteria (e.g., interested in your service and in your service area). Then, determine what service they’re interested in (roof replacement, roof repair, etc.) and put a value on that service ($40k, $200, etc.).
With WhatConverts, you can get all the information you need to qualify, categorize and value leads right inside the platform, including:
Who a lead is
Where they came from
What they’re interested in
Once you’ve determined the value of a lead, you can then zoom out to see which marketing channels were best at generating real, hard revenue.
Lead tracking tools like WhatConverts often have AI features that can automatically handle qualifying, categorizing, and valuing your leads. For example, Lead Analysis transcribes and analyzes calls to pick out intent and key details. Combine these instant insights with automation features (like Lead Intelligence) and you can qualify and value your leads without lifting a finger.
AI Saves Agency 52 Hours/mo by Qualifying 700+ Leads InstantlyRead Case Study
Problem #4 – You Can’t Improve What You Can’t Track
Why It Happens
Many marketers struggle to prove what’s actually working. Why? Because:
Leads aren’t properly tracked across the customer journey.
Tools aren’t integrated, so data stays siloed.
Success is measured with vanity metrics—traffic, impressions, form fills—rather than revenue-driving actions.
If you can’t see where your best leads come from, you can’t double down on what works. And if you’re not tracking metrics that tie to ROI, you’ll keep optimizing for surface-level wins.
How to Fix It
Get Serious About Attribution
Use a tool like WhatConverts to track every lead back to its source—from Google Ads to offline campaigns. Set up Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) to track calls, and use UTMs to monitor campaigns across platforms.
Plus, you can also unlock every lead’s full customer journey using WhatConverts. With it, you can see each page, conversion, and piece of marketing they’ve touched. This can unlock insights that help you better understand how prospects move from visitor→lead→customer.
Focus on Revenue, Not Vanity Metrics
Shift from measuring impressions or clicks to tracking the metrics that matter, like:
Sales-qualified leads (SQLs)
Quoted value and actual sales revenue
ROI by channel or campaign
These KPIs are the ones that move the bottom line because they’re connected with actual revenue. And while there’s a place for measuring those vanity metrics, they aren’t ideal for making serious marketing decisions.
That’s why WhatConverts shows which landing pages, keywords, and campaigns produce real revenue—not just raw leads.
Tie It All Together With Dashboards
Build reporting dashboards that highlight lead quality and ROI. Skip the fluff. Share metrics that matter: cost per SQL, MQL-to-customer conversion rate, total revenue attributed to marketing. With tools like WhatConverts, you can provide real-time visibility to clients or your internal team.
Most marketers say they’re data-driven. But if you’re not tracking revenue, you’re guessing.
Problem #5 – Sales and Marketing Misalignment
Why It Happens
Even with perfect tracking in place, you can still lose revenue if sales and marketing aren’t working from the same playbook. Misalignment shows up when:
Marketing hands off leads with little context—and sales doesn’t act on them quickly enough.
This disconnect costs real money: Businesses with misaligned sales and marketing functions lose an estimated 10% or more of annual revenue.
How to Fix It
Create a Shared Lead Definition
Start with a joint agreement on what makes a lead “sales qualified” (SQL).
Define key attributes:
Industry
Budget
Service interest
Location
Formalize it in a sales/marketing SLA (Service-Level Agreement) and revisit it quarterly.
If you’re having a hard time determining what characteristics a qualified lead has, work backwards.
First, filter your lead manager to only show leads that have turned into real revenue.
Then, start looking for common details among these leads, like:
Using a common keyword on the call
Being from the same zip code
Showing interest in a particular service
Build a Two-Way Feedback Loop
Sales should rate leads after contact and share insight into why they converted—or didn’t. Marketing can use this feedback to refine targeting and messaging. With WhatConverts, both teams can view the same lead records, notes, and lead sources, enabling faster iteration.
Move beyond siloed metrics. Instead of marketing optimizing for form fills and sales for closed deals, track metrics that reflect shared success—like MQL-to-SQL conversion rate, average lead value, and revenue sourced from marketing.
Inbound leads go cold quickly. Leads contacted within 5 minutes are 21x more likely to convert. Use automation to alert sales instantly when a high-value lead comes in.
Sales and marketing alignment isn’t just about good vibes—it’s a revenue multiplier. When both teams speak the same language, lead quality improves, conversions rise, and everyone wins.
Wrapping Up
Avoiding these common inbound lead generation pitfalls leads to better marketing ROI. Prioritize lead quality, ensure every lead is tracked, and maintain tight collaboration with sales. Leverage technology – especially an all-in-one lead capture and analysis platform like WhatConverts – to gain “marketing clarity”.
Alex Thompson
