Lead Progression Best Practices

[Anonymous]

When we fasttrack a lead to sales because a visitor fills out the form to speak to a sales representative the lead moves straight to MQL and skips over earlier stages (such as known and engaged). But, that tends to skew the conversion rates from one stage of the lead funnel to another because not every lead passes through every stage. Is there a best practice around this? Do others have leads skip earlier stages when fasttracked, or is the best practice to have them at least touch on every stage rapidly so that the funnel represents the full progression? 

Thanks,
Michael

[Anonymous]

I've certainly seen both. Most folks seem to just skip intermediate steps, but if you have a strong reporting desire for a lead to hit every stage, that should be relatively easy to build into a campaign for fast-tracking the lead.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

In our revenue model, we still have the lead go through the intermediate stages on the way to MQL.  However our filters and triggers in our Transitions between revenue stage are such that they will flow from one revenue stage to the other instantaneously.  We do this for consistency in the metrics in between revenue stages.  In theory, you could do it either way and still have a historical conversion ratio model that will let you predict the number of new inquries that it will take to result in the desired number of wins as long as the bluebirds remain relatively constant. over time.