You're here because you want to locate, segment, contact, nurture, convert, and manage precious future customers. Honestly, I'm exhausted just thinking about the number of verbs involved in establishing—and maintaining—a successful lead generation funnel.

It only makes sense, then, to rely on lead generation software to help you with this hugely important, potentially distracting, and labor-intensive work. An off-the-shelf lead-generating tool like HubSpot or Salesforce is a step in the right direction, but to cover all your bases, you're going to need a lead gen software stack: a collection of tools to help you generate leads. Then you can connect them all—that way, you have a set of tools for lead generation unique to your business.

Read on to learn more about the different lead generation software available to help you find more prospects, so you can focus on converting them.

The best lead generation software and tools

• To capture leads organically 

• To capture leads with paid advertising

• To drive traffic with paid advertising

• To drive traffic organically

• To build landing pages

• To chat with leads 

• To build custom chatbots

• To host webinars and events

• To email leads

• To send cold emails using AI sales assistants

• To text leads

• To schedule meetings

• Other lead generation software and tools 

What is lead generation? 

Lead generation is the continuous process of attracting potential customers and capturing their information, all with the end goal of turning them into actual customers. 

There are two main categories of lead generation:  

• Inbound lead generation is when you generate content (e.g., blogs, newsletters, and other gated content) that encourages potential customers to reach out to you. 

• Outbound lead generation is when you actively identify and reach out to prospects—many of whom have little to no knowledge of your company—with things like cold email outreach and direct mail. 

Why is lead generation important? 

Lead generation is key to business growth as it attracts potential customers into the sales funnel, driving revenue and profitability. 

Without a lead generation strategy, businesses risk losing potential customers to competitors who actively engage them. And this loss leads to a harmful ripple effect, including, but not limited to, reduced sales, slower growth, and a diminished understanding of market trends and customer needs. 

What is lead generation software? 

As the name implies, lead generation software is a collection of tools to help you generate leads through a variety of mediums: ads, landing pages, chatbots, webinars, and so much more.

Many platforms offer a handful of these features together to simplify the process, but you may find that they excel in some areas critical to lead generation—and fall flat in others. 

To help you build lead generation software that fits your specific needs, here's a roundup of the best lead generation software and tools for the tasks you might need the most.

The best lead generation software and tools at a glance

Lead generation software to capture leads

HubSpot and Zapier Interfaces

There's no magic formula for capturing leads (though there are a few things you're definitely going to want to avoid). But if you want to make sure that you're grabbing the data that matters most to you, creating your own lead generation forms makes a lot of sense. With a custom lead gen form, you can be laser-focused on your target prospects while saving yourself the time and effort of wading through a ton of irrelevant data. And you have a lot of options for how to get the job done. 

• With Zapier Interfaces, you can create a custom form that captures, organizes, and follows up with leads—all while connecting to other apps in your lead gen tech stack. 

• It's possible your existing CRM or marketing tool (think: HubSpot) might already offer built-in form-building capabilities for you to use.

• If you're a WordPress user, you can use WPForms or Gravity Forms, or another WordPress form plugin. 

• For more flexibility, you can build surveys and forms for free and even embed forms on your website with an app like Typeform.

Lead generation software to capture leads with paid advertising

LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, and Google

Some of the most popular lead gen forms are actually on social media. It's a form of paid advertising (more on that later), but it lets leads give you relevant info without ever leaving the platform they're on—and usually, the platform fills in most of their info for them.

• LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms shows prospects a pre-filled form right in their feed, requiring just two clicks and zero typing to pass along their info. The possibilities for how to use these forms are pretty broad; you can take inspiration from these examples. 

• TikTok Lead Generation does something similar: your lead's information is auto-populated by TikTok (or the lead adds extra details), so they can show interest in what you're offering without clicking away from their For You page.

• Facebook lead ads offer the same thing but on Facebook. And there's a slew of strategies for engaging prospects and boosting your form response rates. (Instagram is owned by Meta, so Instagram lead ads work pretty similarly.)

• Google lead form extensions let advertisers add a lead generation form directly to a search ad. Like other extensions (think: sitelinks), they appear just below search ads.

Automate your lead gen forms

Once you've chosen your lead generation software to capture leads, use automation to help you stay on top of your prospects while delivering valuable insights. Learn how to automatically keep track of your leads and how to use automation to analyze lead gen efforts and drive conversions. Automation can also help you be responsive and follow up quickly. 

With Zapier, you can integrate your entire tech stack with LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Google lead ads, so you can get your lead details where they need to be and follow up on them without the manual data management chores. Here are a few automated workflows to get you started. 

Lead generation software to drive traffic with paid advertising

Google Ads and Facebook ads

Lead forms solve just one of your problems. You still need to drive traffic to those nimble, tailored, and conveniently automated lead gen forms. Sign spinning on a street corner is one option, and probably a great workout to boot. But to scale that appeal, you'll need to go with slightly larger advertisers.

• Google Ads puts you basically everywhere, and it offers additional flexibility with its Customer Match targeting feature and offline conversion tracking. 

• Facebook ads are another great option. They give you an opportunity to deliver compelling content to your followers on an individual basis, as well as think big picture in crafting and deploying a comprehensive marketing strategy.

If you're unsure which advertiser is right for your business, here's how Google Ads and Facebook ads compare. Still can't decide? You have more options than just the Big Two, including YouTube, Reddit, and a host of other platforms just waiting to help you spread the word.

Automate your ad tools

Once you've picked the perfect advertiser, there's still the work of making sure your message is timely and directed at the right prospects. Automation can help you send lead information to your ad tools, streamline your PPC campaigns, and grow your ROI, giving you the freedom to focus on your company's core mission. Here are a few pre-made workflows to get you started. 

Lead generation software to drive traffic organically with SEO

seoClarity and Semrush

Driving traffic to your website doesn't have to come at the expense of your entire marketing budget. There are plenty of ways to drive traffic organically. SEO software, for example, can help you determine how effective your websites and content are at reaching audiences through specific search terms, allowing you to home in on what's working and fix what isn't. 

Check out Zapier's list of the best SEO tools. 

seoClarity and Semrush offer robust SEO analysis features, including rank monitoring, search trend insights, and performance scoring, page error and inefficiency detection, competitor analysis, topic exploration, and a whole lot more. 

Automate your SEO tools 

Whichever app you choose, you'll want to automate your most time-consuming SEO-related tasks, like building reports and re-crawling sites. Here are a few pre-made workflows to get you started.  

Lead generation software to build landing pages

Carrd

So, you've reached your prospect and gotten their attention. Now it's worth thinking about where you're asking them to go. They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and a good landing page—a lead generation website—is the digital version of a winning smile and a firm handshake.

Just like lead gen forms and advertising, landing page lead generation isn't a one-size-fits-all proposition. Are you focused on mobile traffic? Selling products? Looking to grow your subscriber base? Maybe it's a combination of all three. Whatever your needs, you don't have to build from scratch. 

Take a look at Zapier's roundup of the best landing page builders. 

Each of those apps comes at it from a different angle. If you're looking for affordable lead generation software, for example, Carrd offers its product for free and is focused on simplicity. Other tools are focused specifically on mobile-first lead-generation landing pages or sales pages. 

Automate your landing page builder

Once your leads have arrived, your follow-up workflows don't have to dominate your time and attention. Link your landing pages to your other apps with automation, so all your business-critical tasks run in the background. 

Lead generation software to chat with leads

Intercom

Engaging prospects is another key piece of the online lead generation puzzle. If a lead has to craft and send a query, then sit around and wait for your reply, odds are that they'll be as cold as ice by the time you reach them—if you ever do.

Live chat apps give you the power to interact with your leads in real time. You can go fully automated with chatbots, or choose a more personalized approach. Opt for built-in lead nurturing and lead scoring features, or pick and choose your favorite features a la carte.

Here are Zapier's picks for the best live chat apps for sales.

Take Intercom, for example. You can create custom chat widgets and bots targeted at website visitors that are designed to start conversations. From there, connect Intercom to Zapier and use automation to take your custom service to the next level. Learn more about how to automate Intercom, or take inspiration from these examples.

Lead generation software to build custom chatbots

Manychat, Chatfuel, and Zapier Chatbots

Sometimes it makes the most sense to customize your very own bot. That's the best strategy for keeping your business responsive in ways tailored to your specific needs. And if you're thinking that this kind of customization is out of your price and skill range, think again. 

Here are the best chatbot builders that anyone can use, regardless of your skill level.

Manychat and Chatfuel are the frontrunners, but there are lots of options ready and waiting to engage your leads in a way that makes the most sense for your business. Before choosing, you'll have to consider the amount of set-up work you're willing to put in, as well as the number of bots you'll be deploying and the kind of lead generation (email capture, segmentation, subscriber creation, etc.) you might want to ask your app to do. 

You can also check out Zapier Chatbots, a free AI chatbot builder that lets you build your own bot in minutes. You can connect your chatbot to your own knowledge sources to tailor the responses for your business or project, restrict your bot from using outside data sources and set custom responses when information doesn't exist, and combine your own data with the power of OpenAI models to generate on-brand responses. Then, make it visually match your brand, and embed it on your website.

Automate your custom chatbot tools

Once you've picked your chatbot builder, use automation to make your brand more responsive to leads who want to know more about your services or what you sell. With Zapier, you can connect apps like Manychat and Chatfuel to your other apps, making it easy to answer frequently asked questions, offer instant customer feedback, or steer curious leads toward your sales page. Here are a few pre-made workflows to get you started.

Lead generation software to host webinars and events

Demio and BigMarker

Of course, when it comes to engaging prospects, even the most sophisticated chatbots can only take you so far down the yellow brick funnel. You're most in control of your messaging when you're delivering it yourself, and webinars and other promotional events offer a human touch to that messaging.

Here are Zapier's picks for the best webinar software for marketers.

Whether you're automating a built-in option for your single platform, streaming to multiple services, or pre-recording your presentation, you can take advantage of a variety of different apps, like Demio or BigMarker, to help you deliver your personalized presentation to your audience. (And once you're done, don't forget to repurpose your webinar content.)

Automate your webinar software

Once the Q&A has come to an end, the follow-up work begins. Automate your webinar follow-up, so you can manage registrant data, follow up with attendees, and add guests to your marketing funnel without slowing down the rest of your processes.

Lead generation software to email leads

Benchmark and Mailchimp

Once you've built your email list, email marketing can help you turn cold leads back into warm ones. Email is one of the best tools for lead generation because it follows your prospects down the funnel.

• Email newsletter software, like Benchmark, include dynamic templates, tailored segmentation, as well as analytics and reporting to give you detailed insights into just what's moving the needle for your prospects. You can even try some free email marketing apps, like MailerLite, if you're just starting out.

• Drip email apps, like Mailchimp, give you the power to trigger customized messaging at a predetermined time to a segmented audience. Drip campaigns give you a surprisingly affordable way to reach leads at the best possible time with a relevant, engaging message.  

Automate your email marketing

Automation can help you re-engage cold leads—and then continue to nurture them—from within your email marketing software. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• 4 ways to automate your email marketing for better communication

• Take your drip email app to the next level with automation

Or you can get started with one of these workflows. 

Lead generation software to send cold emails using AI sales assistants

FastOutreach.ai and Regie.ai

Cold emails can be awkward—it's like approaching a stranger at a networking event. But also like networking, they work. Plus, there are some relationships you can build only by sending a cold email. It's time-consuming work, though, to send highly personalized outreach emails to potential customers. That's where AI sales assistants come in. 

Check out Zapier's roundup of the best AI sales assistants.

Take FastOutreach.ai, for example. After you feed it your own email copy to train it to sound like you, tell it what you want to accomplish—for example, "Convince people to sign up for my free webinar, 'Puppy obedience 101'." From there, you can link with Gmail or Outlook clients to send FastOureach's message directly. 

Most AI emailers like FastOutreach start and end with outbound. For an AI sales assistant that can handle campaigns from top to bottom, including inbound emails, check out Regie.ai. 

Automate your AI sales assistant 

There are virtually infinite general AI products out there that can be useful for building your lead gen funnel, even if they aren't expressly designed for that. For example, you can use AI writing generators to draft click-worthy sales emails. Or AI chatbots that respond to leads at any hour of the day.

Once you've picked your AI sales assistants, use Zapier to connect apps like ChatGPT and Copy.ai to your other apps. This way, you can automatically move your leads through the funnel. Here are a few workflows to get you started. 

Lead generation software to text leads

TextMagic and SimpleTexting

If you need to hit a moving target, there's no better choice than SMS marketing. Mobile messaging reaches leads where they live: on their phones. SMS apps like TextMagic and SimpleTexting also offer unique functionality that conventional email marketing doesn't have—namely, high open rates. And you can still engage in seamless, two-way conversations with prospects, with your choice of automated or personal responses. 

For more SMS marketing options, check out Zapier's list of the best SMS apps for businesses.

Automate your SMS messaging

With an SMS messaging app, you won't be sacrificing any of the automation options you get in a more conventional marketing approach. Stay alert to upcoming events, loop in your team with status updates, and automate replies to offer 24/7/365 responsiveness. Here's how to get the most out of SMS messaging with automation.

Lead generation software to schedule meetings

Calendly and Calendar

Once you've had success with your outreach, you'll be ready to close the deal with a good old-fashioned face-to-face. Got time for an endless back and forth to find a mutually convenient time to meet? I didn't think so.

Software can simplify your scheduling workflows, too. Apps like Calendly and Calendar offer you simplified schedule management in a variety of platforms and across venues. Beyond just managing your calendar, these apps give you the power to set up video calls, send follow-up emails, and add reminders so that you're never caught unprepared.   

Here are Zapier's picks for the best meeting schedulers.

Automate your meeting scheduling

Meeting schedulers play nice with other tools, integrating with your productivity apps of choice and simplifying your workflows. Connect your meeting scheduler with your CRM for automatic contact management, confirm meetings and email conference links, and nurture leads with click-free follow-up messaging. Here are a few scheduling automation workflows to make meetings easy.

Other helpful lead generation software and tools

You'll need a combination of the lead gen platforms above to make your funnel run smoothly, but that's nowhere near an exhaustive list of possibilities. You never know where you'll find the best lead gen tool for your business, so be sure to think outside the box.

• Take video hosting, for example. You'll need somewhere to organize and track all of that video content you've worked so hard to produce. YouTube is a great way to get in front of millions of viewers, but it's not your only option. Look for apps that offer features to simplify your life, like analytics, SEO tools, team collaboration, and more.

• You can also easily scale your email outreach without getting overwhelmed. For example, SimilarWeb's Chrome extension can supercharge your inbox: research and qualify prospects, manage your email lists, and personalize your follow-up outreach to boost your email campaign's ROI.  

• Sometimes, the best lead generation tool isn't even digital. Small-scale marketing strategies, like farmer's markets or sending snail mail, don't require a massive digital footprint to help get more leads in the door.

How to find the best lead generation software

The best tool for lead generation software is going to depend on your business's needs, so review all the categories above to identify which apps you're missing from your tech stack. Then click through Zapier's lists of the best apps in each category to decide which one makes the most sense for you.

Once you have the apps you want, connect all your lead generation software together to automate your entire lead funnel.

Related reading:

• The best digital marketing tools

• The best sales tools for sales managers and B2B sales teams

• Fatal mistakes in lead generation strategies

• Grow your business with marketing automation

This article was originally published in February 2023. The most recent update, with contributions from Jessica Lau, was in February 2024.