If you’re not on track to hit your targets, the first thing you’ll be asked is: what are you planning to do to recover? But you can’t answer if you haven’t diagnosed the problem first. Is it volume, lead quality, or conversion rates? Is something going wrong with the lead handoff to the B2B sales team?
This audit will help you build a clear view of what’s working, what isn’t, and where the highest-impact quick wins are, so you can get back on track in no time.
4 Places Pipeline Stalls
Before you can run the audit, it helps to have a framework for thinking about where pipeline problems tend to originate. There are four main areas:
1. Top-of-Funnel Volume
Are enough of the right people seeing your campaigns or viewing your website?
Problems in this area tend to look like high-bouncing traffic or declining conversions. It’s often caused by issues with campaign targeting that mean the wrong audience is coming to your website.
If your team is reporting healthy clickthrough rates on campaigns, but you’re seeing flat or declining traffic and conversion rates, this might be where you’re going wrong. After all, clicks and intent aren’t the same thing.
2. Lead Quality
Are the contacts and companies entering your funnel a genuine fit for what you sell?
Challenges around lead quality can lead to inflated MQL numbers and increased friction with the sales team when they receive leads that they shouldn’t.
If you’re seeing more leads get rejected by sales, this could be an area to explore further.
3. Conversion Rate Between Stages
Where are leads stalling?
When you’ve got a healthy pipeline, leads move through it consistently. But if your leads sit in a stage for weeks without progressing, that’s a signal that something is wrong.
If you’ve noticed leads don’t move from enquiry to MQL at the usual speed, there may be some unexpected challenges in this area.
4. Post-Handoff Visibility
What happens to leads once they reach the sales team?
You’re unlikely to have much visibility of this, and even less influence over it. But understanding what happens once the sales team have received the leads can help you work out what the issue(s) might be.
If you’ve noticed fewer MQLs are turning into closed business, it might be a reflection of problems within the sales team itself.
The Quick Win Audit: 8 Things to Check
You might already have an inkling of what could be behind your current lead generation challenges, but it’s important you review all available data points to find out more.
This audit will help you diagnose where you’re falling short, so you can plan how to fix things before the end of the period.
1. Pull Conversion Rates by Channel
Find out which source is generating traffic, and which is generating leads. Break it down by channels like organic, paid, email, social, and direct. If one channel is driving significant volume but a disproportionately low conversion rate, that’s your first area to interrogate. It may be a targeting issue, a landing page mismatch, or an audience that was never a realistic fit.
2. Check ICP Alignment at the Point of Lead Qualification
Review all the leads that entered your funnel over the last few weeks and review how many match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) on company size, sector, and buying signals. If fewer than half are a strong ICP fit, you may have a targeting or qualification problem upstream, rather than a pipeline problem.
3. Audit The First 48 Hours of the Lead Journey
Speed of response matters more than most teams realize. That’s because research consistently shows that the likelihood of qualifying a lead drops sharply after the first hour. Make sure you understand how quickly new leads are being contacted and what that first outreach looks like to see if there could be any issues at the start of your leads’ journey.
4. Review High-Intent Pages Vs. Conversion Pages
Identify which pages on your website your best leads visit before converting. When you have the list, review them to see if those pages are designed in a way that moves them through the conversion journey, or if they’re informational dead ends. Then, use your analytics platform to map the journey from arrival to conversion for your last 20 closed-won deals. You’ll almost always find a pattern, and usually a page that’s underperforming relative to the interest it’s attracting.
5. Check Messaging Alignment with Current ICP Pain Points
Think about the last time you reviewed the copy on your highest-traffic landing pages, because your messaging may have shifted. If your copy was written when your buyers were worried about one thing and they’re now worried about something else, you’ll see it in your conversion rates before you hear it from the sales team. Pull your top three landing pages, read them with fresh eyes, and ask yourself: would a stressed potential client see themselves in this?
6. Map Where Leads Are Stalling
In your CRM, take a look at all open leads created this quarter and sort by time spent in current stage. Any lead sitting for more than two weeks without a next action is a warning sign that there’s an issue. If you can further segment these by source and ICP fit, you may find that one specific type of lead consistently stalls at the same point, which tells you exactly where your nurture or handoff process needs attention.
7. Review Your MQL Definition with the Sales Team
If you haven’t reviewed your MQL definition in the last six months, do it this week. After all, what the sales team actually considers a useful lead may have changed and you could be unaware. This conversation will tell you if your current MQL threshold realistic, or if you’re setting a bar that lets through too much noise. Just 30-minutes spent on this conversation can save weeks of wasted effort on both sides.
8. Check Whether Anonymous Intent Is Being Captured
Perhaps the most overlooked pipeline challenge is the one you can’t see, unless you have the right tools.
The average B2B website converts around 2 in every 100 visitors. That means 98 per cent of the companies visiting your site leave without any trace in your system. If you’re not capturing that intent with website visitor identification, you’re missing a significant slice of early-stage pipeline.
Book a demo of Lead Forensics to see how website visitor identification can help fill your pipeline with warm leads that become MQLs.
