I'd like to track number of inbound leads via our website per month.
Do you recommend to set up a Smart List with Filter for form fill outs?
Should a trigger be used or a filter? Is it best to set up multiple lists for each month or one smart list and then filter per dates (to be able to report per month)?
Typically customers will track this either through Program Channel or Lead Source:
Program Channel tags can include "inbound": you would set up smart campaigns on form fillouts to acquire members into each Program, and the Channel reporting will roll up all inbound leads
Lead source can be added to each form as a hidden field, and modified using a parameter in the URL. For example, if your landing page is websiteleads.com/landing.html you would change it to websiteleads.com/landing.html?source=inbound.
Setting either of these up will take a bit more work upfront, but long term reporting will be far easier and more reliable.
I'm with Steven on this. We have just a standard report, Leads by Source. I have 3 versions of this, of all time, in past quarter, & past month. Then each month I can see, how many leads came from my website, vs webinars vs advertising.
We use Lead Source and Form Fillouts (we have forms specifically for website leads). We also track who hits our website from Google AdWords as a separate Lead Source and Form.