While your job isn't done the minute a lead is generated, you cannot have success running a lead generation campaign unless the sales department meets their end of the bargain. Before running a lead generation campaign, make sure you have clearly defined sales expectations for the leads that are generated. These expectations include:

• The number of times you expect sales to attempt a contact by phone as well as by email.
• The close rate that is expected.
• The type and amount of feedback you want to help improve the lead quality.

If a given campaign is falling short, examine not only the leads themselves, but also examine how they were worked by each salesperson. We always look at the campaign details first to see if there is a quality issue affecting the performance. If we can't find anything glaring, then we dive into the performance by salesperson. It doesn't take more than a handful of salespeople to completely tank to skew the performance of a campaign. This is important to keep in mind because you don't want to end up killing a campaign prematurely because of a couple salespeople not performing up to expectations.

Work hand-in-hand with the head of your sales department to optimize every aspect of the marketing and sales process so that you're giving every campaign its best chance to succeed.

In the end, the success of a lead generation campaign depends on the performance of marketing and sales. Keeping close tabs on the metrics from both sides will help you avoid pitfalls and generate bigger and bigger ROI.