Activation rate

Not every lead is worth a salesperson's time. Sending all of them straight to sales burns hours on people who were never going to buy. Activation rate filters the list to those showing interest, which protects sales time and improves everything below it, because fewer, better leads convert at a higher rate than a large unfiltered pile. A low rate is also a diagnosis. It usually means the wrong audience is arriving, not that the funnel below is broken.

• Define activation in one sentence, and base it on behaviour that has predicted a real customer in the past.
• Calculate it weekly, not only at the end of a quarter.
• Split it by source. One channel can bring far better leads than another at similar volume.
• Fix targeting first when the rate is low. A narrower, better-aimed audience usually changes more than a new form.
• Build the rule into the CRM so a lead is tagged automatically.

A new lead is not yet a prospect. Activation is the first sign that a lead cares. The business decides what that sign is: a visit to the pricing page, a booked call, a run of opened emails or a first use of the product. Activation rate is the number who did it, divided by the number who arrived in the same period. If 200 people join a list in a week and 50 take the chosen step, the activation rate is 25 per cent.

• Choosing a step that is easy to reach but says nothing, such as opening one email.
• Changing the definition mid-quarter and comparing the new rate with the old one.