The Future of AI Lead Generation [+ Best AI Lead Generation Platforms]

“There’s improved lead generation that machine learning can do better than humans.” – Michael Chiu, partner, McKinsey Global Institute (MGI).

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The use of AI for lead generation is a rare case when the actual technology lives up to the hype. Whether B2B or B2C, thousands of leads have already been generated, nurtured, and converted by AI independently of human marketers – and millions more to come.

Everyone acknowledges AI is the future, but how far will AI-driven lead generation go? More importantly, how do you navigate the ever-expanding AI lead gen tech stack to stay ahead of the competition? And what specific software is there to up your lead generation game?

via GIPHYI’ve got all the answers.

Without any further ado, let’s jump right into the crux of the matter.

“Reaping rewards will be among the most important trends over the next 10 years. I believe companies will be rewarded for their efforts moving from models either in pilots or MVPs to full deployment at a large scale.“ – Nir Kaldero.

How AI Is Changing Lead Generation

In a nutshell, AI allows marketers to capture more leads in less time and almost no effort. Artificial intelligence lead generation is data-driven, incomparably quicker, and produces higher results if paired with human effort as long as such synergy is required (for example, call leads).

The most widespread technology is generative AI. With language models like ChatGPT, you can create content in the blink of an eye, brainstorm, and even code while never hitting writer’s block.

Here are the most popular use cases for AI in marketing:

Source: Statista

However, AI lead generation isn’t limited to content creation only. With AI, you can zero in on your ideal buyers, personalize marketing strategies, collect previously unavailable data, automate marketing and sales, and even simulate your campaigns in seconds without risk.

“Much of what we do with machine learning happens beneath the surface. Machine learning drives our algorithms for demand forecasting, product search ranking, product and deals recommendations, merchandising placements, fraud detection, translations, and much more. Though less visible, much of the impact of machine learning will be of this type — quietly but meaningfully improving core operations.” – Jeff Bezos

How To Use AI For Lead Generation

First of all, it’s worth noting that with the progress of AI, the needs and wants of consumers haven’t changed much besides maybe the willingness to make sure that they’re consuming authentic content or having real experience with a real person.

Hence, the most successful B2B lead generation strategies are still the same:

Source: Statista

It’s no secret that online marketing shifts towards personalization and the ability to prove your authenticity and expertise. The good news is that AI can help you with both if used as a complementary tool.

#1. Zeroing in On Your Ideal Leads

To generate leads effectively, you have to know your ideal buyers and how they move down the sales funnel. Surprisingly, less than 50% of B2B companies use both buyer personas and customer journey maps to understand customers.

Here are some of the insights you can get with AI software for lead generation:

Seamless.AI	Identifying ideal leads based on industries, job titles, and other personal data
Customers.AI	Enriching consumer data with demographic and behavioral insights
CoPilot.AI	Analyzing the consumer intent and predicting replies

With Phonexa, you can do even more.

You can record all inbound calls with Call Logic – or calls that match certain criteria: duration, caller’s profile, keywords, etc. – to analyze these calls manually or automatically. Then you can refine your lead generation strategies to target leads who are more likely to convert.

Quote on AI: “Predicting the future isn’t magic, it’s artificial intelligence.” – Dave Waters

#2. Tailoring Content to Heterogeneous Audiences

Customer data is the backbone of marketing decisions, but extracting such data isn’t simple when you deal with heterogeneous audiences. The more different products and services you promote, the more resource-consuming it is to hit the nail on the head with each one.

With the best AI lead generation tools, however, you can create tailored marketing funnels for any number of target consumer groups. For instance, you can use Jasper or Albert to personalize content across marketing channels, Surfer – to add the SEO component to the equation, and Kartra to automate your email sequences for different audiences.

“The ultimate search engine would understand everything in the world. It would understand everything that you asked it and give you back the exact right thing instantly. You could ask ‘what should I ask Larry?’ and it would tell you.” – Larry Page

#3. Insta-Connecting to the Leads that Match Your Qualification Criteria

For businesses using paid lead acquisition channels, it’s important to be able to connect to high-intent leads quickly, ensure the acquisition itself is cost-effective, and ultimately convert these leads or nurture them to conversion if necessary.

Here are some AI lead generation platforms to connect to high-intent leads:

Seamless.AI	Direct connection to qualified leads
Customers.AI	Over 10,000 data points for your leads to find matching ones
CoPilot AI	Identifying high-intent leads and creating tailored content for them

#4. Analyzing Lead Generation Campaigns

The deeper and the more accurately you track your prospects, leads, and customers, the more data-driven your lead generation can be.

Here are some AI platforms to analyze lead generation campaigns:

Phonexa	Advanced call and web lead tracking, distribution, and analytics
Albert	Real-time campaign performance analysis
Salesloft	Engagement tracking and reporting

In my opinion, Phonexa is the best call and web lead tracking software suite. Eight proprietary lead management solutions leave no stone unturned when it comes to lead tracking, distribution, and analytics, delivering profound consumer insights directly to your marketing and sales teams.

Take a product tour to experience Phonexa’s eight-in-one operating solution for partner and performance marketing.

#5. Simulating Future Scenarios

Before launching your lead generation campaigns, you’d like to take the trial and error out of them. In other words, you’d like to at least have an educated guess at how these campaigns will perform and whether it’s financially safe to launch them.

Phonexa’s predictive modeling software allows you to do just that. By pairing historical data with analytical algorithms, this tool can predict future outcomes based on the past performance of your lead generation campaigns.

Predictive modeling works extremely well for paid lead acquisition campaigns. You can adjust campaign type, time, place, age, and income to identify what brings the best results. Then, you can run these campaigns without wasting time on underperformers.

 

Want to know more about predictive modeling? Book a demo with Phonexa.

Your 11 Best AI Lead Generation Software Solutions

Phonexa – an Eight-in-One Lead Generation and Performance Marketing Ecosystem

Uniting eight performance marketing solutions into one comprehensive software suite, Phonexa allows businesses to manage heterogeneous marketing campaigns from a single place.

Whether organic or paid lead generation, Phonexa guarantees you know who your consumers are, where they come from, how they interact across marketing channels and touchpoints, and whether their journey ends with a purchase, request for further assistance, bounce, or else.

 

Here are the eight AI-driven performance marketing solutions with Phonexa:

LMS Sync and Call Logic are the core products you need to generate leads:

• LMS Sync: Integrated with Phonexa’s ping tree, a lead distribution technology, LMS Sync helps you primarily with two things: first, it paves the optimal path to conversion for the acquired leads; second, it identifies new revenue streams. As a result, you know where to focus your energy and resources to drive more sales with less effort.
• Call Logic: Whether pay-per-call campaigns, social media, or even offline marketing, Call Logic makes it clear what marketing initiatives drive what calls, who the callers are, and what your sales reps can do better to convert more of them. As a result, you know what specific calls you need to buy and how to drive these calls to conversion.

Build your plan now, or book a demo to explore how Phonexa can help you generate more leads.

Seamless.AI – Sales Prospecting Software to Connect with Your Ideal Customers

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
380,789	5	370	0.45	56.38%	38.11%	0.28%	3.87%	0.12%	1.24%

Seamless.AI is a gigantic sales intelligence platform that connects 121 million businesses with 1.3 billion potential customers. With their huge database and customer lead generation AI tools, you can fill your pipeline to the brim with high-intent, read-to-convert leads.

Here are some of the features you get with Seamless.AI:

• Direct connection to ideal buyers
• Real-time customer data verification
• In-depth analytics of leads and sales prospects

The unique AI lead generation toolkit allows you to get 10 times more meetings with sales prospects, increase close rates by 5 times, and save at least 3 hours a day per sales rep – all by automating sales prospecting.

Prospector	Over 100 custom filters to find relevant contacts and companies
Pitch Intelligence	Personalizing marketing messages based on collected customer data
Data Enrichment	Extracting accurate customer data from an uploaded B2B database
Autopilot	Building marketing pipeline to grow conversion rates and ROI
Buyer Intent Data	Identifying prospects in less than 20 seconds

Seamless.AI might be the best tool for lead generation when it comes to collecting the lead’s email addresses or phone numbers. The platform’s database unites over 414 million phone numbers and 1.8 billion verified business emails, so you can reach your ideal buyers without wasting time on research and data collection.

Customers.ai – Converting Anonymous Shoppers into Leads

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
109,491	2	39	0.48	33.33%	56.95%	0.47%	6.25%	0.10%	2.89%

Customers.ai is a lead generation AI platform that helps identify and engage customers. The suite includes solutions for paid advertising, email marketing, direct mail, and more, coordinating the most important marketing avenues into a single coherent strategy.

When generating leads with Customers.ai, you can access over 10,000 data points on your leads, including their demographics, motivations, behavior, history of purchases, and every other interaction across touchpoints. Then, you can segment your leads based on this data and approach consumers with a tailored acquisition strategy.

Surfer – AI Content Generator to Boost Organic Traffic

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
1,119,091	4	272	0.45	52.47%	41.30%	0.19%	5.01%	0.09%	0.94%

Surfer is an AI platform for creating SEO-optimized content that hits the top of SERPs. Unlike Seamless.AI, Surfer doesn’t connect you to leads directly but helps generate organic traffic that you can then nurture and convert.

Here are the 7 tools with Surfer:

Topical Maps	Creating a comprehensive content strategy with relevant keywords at the core
Contend Editor	Scoring and editing content so it resonates with your customers and performs well in SERPs
Content Audit	Uncovering content inaccuracies, gaps, and improvements
Surfer AI	Generating industry-specific SEO-friendly articles in one click
Free AI Outline Generator	Generating an article outline based on your topic and keywords
Free AI Detector	Checking texts for AI-generated content
Free AI Humanizer	Transforming AI-generated content into human-like written content

With SEO-optimized content being at the core of organic lead generation, Surfer might be your best tool to create content that your customers and – no less importantly – Google love while minimizing the risk of being hit with one of the next Google updates.

Salesloft – AI-Based Lead Generation and Sales Software to Close More Deals

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
2,209,813	15	1348	0.27	66.84%	19.18%	0.19%	13.13%	0.09%	0.56%

Salesloft is an AI-driven sales improvement platform that can help maximize your revenues by sending buyer signals. With Salesloft, you know what marketing instruments to use at what moment so that you can bring a specific lead to conversion.

Here are some of the tools you get with Salesloft:

Conductor AI	Prioritizing actions that impact sales and revenue growth
Conversations	Insights from processed marketing and sales conversations
Deals	Using CRM updates to make the right marketing decisions

The platform has it all to drive your leads to conversion while maximizing customer lifetime value.

Outreach.io – Performance Software for Sales Reps

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
1,871,020	28	1624	0.17	68.53%	21.57%	0.12%	8.83%	0.10%	0.86%

Just like Salesloft, Outreach.io helps you sell the right product to the right people. The platform mostly focuses on the performance of sales employees, enabling tools for coaching, uncovering skill gaps, and tailoring the message to a specific buyer.

Here are some of the tools you get with Outreach.io:

Pipeline Management	Pipeline quality, quantity, and maturity assessment and built-in pipeline modeling
Sales Forecasting	Automated roll-ups and built-in scenario modeling
Deal Insights	Identifying and prioritizing profitable marketing scenarios
Sales Engagement	Improving prospecting and follow-up effectiveness
Dead Management	Revealing sales aspects and opportunities to focus on
Conversation Intelligence	Conversational insights from meetings and sales calls
Sales Rep Coaching	Identifying coaching opportunities and marketing best practices

Outreach.io is a great asset for improving your BoFu performance, especially when it comes to deal closure and conversions. With this all-encompassing sales toolkit, every rep can sell like your best rep, getting the most out of every conversation while making customers happy.

LeadIQ – B2B Pipeline Generation Accelerating Toolkit

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
724,703	3	323	0.41	57.52%	34.62%	0.22%	5.41%	0.12%	2.11%

LeadIQ is an AI B2B lead generation and sales prospecting ecosystem. From organic lead generation to nurturing to sales, you can get insightful customer data to boost your performance while always staying on the legal side of the fence.

Here are some of the tools you get with LeadIQ:

Prospecting Hub	Capturing and synchronizing contact data that matches your buyer profile
Contact Tracking	Tracking B2B buyers and your (former) employees
Scribe	Creating personalized emails for prospecting
Data Hub	Enriching your CRM data
Signal Tracking	Monitoring important buyer signals in real-time

Lead IQ is a great choice for B2B businesses that want to improve their prospecting and also get the most out of their internal team and former employees and customers. You can forge lasting relationships with everyone involved in your business, regardless of their role and position.

Jasper – Generative AI Toolkit for Creating Content that Sells

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
1,489,493	4	188	0.41	52.74%	39.85%	0.18%	6.14%	0.07%	1.01%

Jasper is a generative AI software suite for creating and promoting brand-on, personalized content. It does everything ChatGPT does, allowing you to tailor your message to a specific audience and ensure it’s up to the highest writing standards.

However, as with any AI content generator, I would recommend using Jasper as an additional tool so you don’t lose the juice of your writing. It might work best for brainstorming, editing, or checking others’ writing for plagiarism and AI-generated content.

Kartra – Comprehensive Lead Management Software Suite

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
90,731	1	12	0.64	30.61%	58.21%	0.37%	7.57%	0.14%	3.10%

Kartra is a complete lead management platform that unites tools for lead prospecting, nurturing, conversion, and retention. Their lead management system includes tracking, routing, and scoring software to address leads at every step of their journey.

Likewise, you can use their pre-built marketing management campaigns and AI content generator to kick things off much quicker and with less effort. From traditional to affiliate marketing, Kartra might be a good choice to get the omnichannel marketing coverage you need.

CoPilot AI – B2B Sales Software for LinkedIn

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
182,807	2	34	0.47	31.20%	60.72%	0.47%	5.33%	0.09%	2.19%

CoPilot AI is an AI sales software for the B2B sector designed to help you identify, engage, and convert leads. The platform mostly focuses on LinkedIn lead generation, but you can successfully use it for other social media as well.

AI Prospecting	Identifying and targeting purchase-prone leads
AI Sales Engagement	Connecting with sales prospects and nurturing them to conversion
AI Sales Conversion	Helping you convert most of your leads
AI Sales Optimization	Optimizing the sales process and the consumer flow

CoPilot might be the best tool for tapping into B2B leads on LinkedIn, especially for discovering first-contact opportunities.

Albert – AI Lead Generation with Digital Advertising Campaigns

Monthly Visits	Page Per Visit	Time On Site	Bounce Rate	Direct Traffic	Search Traffic	Paid Referral Traffic	Referral Traffic	Mail Traffic	Social Traffic
12,007	2	42	0.45	35.23%	49.80%	0.49%	10.88%	0.09%	3.50%

Albert is an AI software for optimizing free and paid advertising campaigns across various acquisition channels, including social media, paid search, and programmatic advertising. With 360-degree campaign guidance and full automation, you can develop a holistic marketing strategy tailored to the needs and wants of your sales prospects and leads.

“Harnessing machine learning can be transformational, but for it to be successful, enterprises need leadership from the top. This means understanding that when machine learning changes one part of the business — the product mix, for example — then other parts must also change. This can include everything from marketing and production to supply chain, and even hiring and incentive systems.” – Erik Brynjolfsson

Potential Hurdles When Using AI for Lead Generation

One major reservation to using AI in lead generation is the need to obtain prior express written consent before you contact a consumer, as per the updated TCPA guidelines. In other words, you have to get the lead’s permission to contact them with specific marketing methods.

But this doesn’t mean AI lead generation isn’t a thing – it still is, but you have to implement the right technologies for your lead acquisition campaigns. For example, you can use Phonexa’s Consent Branches to provide the required disclosures to potential customers.

How Consent Branches Ensure Compliance in AI Lead Generation

Whether buying or selling leads, Consent Branches ensure the trade is FCC-compliant, which also helps generate high-intent consumers who are genuinely interested in the business in question and, therefore, are more likely to convert. Moreover, if you’re using custom consent language, you might be the only chosen brand – an exclusive purchase-ready lead.

Here’s how Consent Branches work:

Step 1. Lead Sellers Share Non-Personal-Identifiable Lead Data with Phonexa

When a lead seller generates a lead, they send the so-called non-PII ping to Phonexa – for example, the consumer’s location and device type – so the businesses on the other end can identify whether they want to bid for this consumer.

Step 2. The Advertisers Bid for the Lead

When the lead is offered to one or several businesses, they either make their bid or decline the offer. The companies that accept the lead are then put on a lead generation form – generic or custom language – and the consumer can give consent to one, all, or none of these companies.

Step 3. The Winning Buyer(s) Receives the Lead’s Contacts

Finally, the companies that won the bidding receive the full consumer data so they can email, message, or call the bought lead.

Compliance-wise, an important aspect is the consent language used on a lead generation form.

Phonexa offers two options: custom consent language and generic consent language, both FCC-compliant, but used in different scenarios.

• Custom consent language is used when a lead generation form includes heterogeneous brands that request consent for different types of marketing communications. For example, if brand A requests permission for ATDS calls only, while brand B also requests permission for marketing emails, these brands require custom consent language.
• Generic consent language is used when a lead generation form includes homogeneous brands that request consent for the same types of communications. For example, if brands A, B, and C request permission for ATDS calls and emails, these brands can be united under generic consent language.

 

Here’s a custom consent language lead generation form:

Here’s a generic consent language lead generation form:

Book a demo to learn more about Phonexa’s FCC-compatible Consent Branches.

Take Your Lead Management to the Next Level with Phonexa

I’ve already mentioned the core lead generation, distribution, and analytics products with Phonexa – LMS Sync for web leads and Call Logic for call leads – but there’s more to Phonexa’s lead management software suite than these two.

 

With Phonexa, you get eight proprietary performance marketing software products to manage your lead acquisition campaigns from top to bottom:

With E-Delivery, you can set automated email and SMS campaigns; Opt-Intel ensures you only reach out to relevant leads while staying FCC-compliant; HitMetrix unlocks actionable on-site behavior insights, and so on. Every tool in the mix synergizes with the other seven.

Want to know more? Book a free demo to explore Phonexa’s software suite in real-world scenarios, or build your plan to start using Phonexa right away.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does AI help in lead generation?

AI has improved lead generation in almost every aspect, from targeting to nurturing to sales. For example, AI chatbots can lead a real-time conversation with potential clients, qualifying them on the fly or even completing some requests independently of live operators.

Likewise, AI can simulate lead generation campaigns based on the collected consumer data and input variables. This costs you nothing – data collection occurs naturally while you process customers – and then you can double down on the winners.

What are the best free AI tools for lead generation?

There are not many AI lead generation tools that you can get for free, except for content creation tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Jasper. As for more complex lead management software solutions, you’ll likely have to buy a paid subscription plan to get the needed features.

The good news is that Phonexa offers an eight-in-one AI lead generation software suite, so you can get all the features you need at one price, covering all types of lead generation campaigns.

Can AI lead generation software fully replace human marketers?

AI lead generation software cannot fully replace human marketers because AI is not there yet, consumers value human interactions, and many requests require human assistance. However, AI speeds up lead generation and allows you to process more customers in less time.