Topic · Growth
Lead generation: quality over vanity volume.
What actually generates leads worth having — and why chasing volume without brand is a trap.
Lead generation is the work of attracting and capturing potential customers’ interest. The common mistake is optimising for volume — lots of cheap, low-intent leads that never convert. The better approach focuses on quality and intent, and recognises that lead gen gets steadily more expensive without brand doing the work upstream to make people already warm.
Volume is a vanity trap
It’s easy to generate lots of leads and feel productive — and useless if they don’t convert. Cost-per-lead is a seductive but misleading metric; cost-per-qualified-customer is what matters. Optimise for the leads worth having, not the count.
Intent beats interruption
The best leads come from people already looking or already warm — which is where brand and content do their work. Interruptive lead gen to cold audiences is expensive and low-quality. Building demand and trust upstream makes lead gen cheaper and better.
Match the mechanism to the buyer
Lead gen should fit how your customer actually buys — a considered B2B purchase needs different mechanisms than an impulse consumer one. Copying tactics that worked for a different business model is a common, costly error.
Related questions
What’s the best lead generation strategy?
The one that fits your buyer — but quality and intent beat volume in almost every case. Brand upstream makes all of it cheaper.
Why are my leads not converting?
Often a quality problem — high volume, low intent. Optimising for cheap leads rather than good ones is the usual culprit.
Is lead generation the same as demand generation?
Related but different — demand gen creates interest; lead gen captures it. You need both, and demand gen (brand) makes lead gen work better.
Related: growth strategies · brand vs performance · acquisition.