BtoB lead generation agency

L'article

B2B lead generation is a complex process that requires a robust tech stack, specialized expertise, and dedicated resources.

Companies generally have two options: build an in-house lead generation team of 2 to 3 people (an annual investment of €150–200K) or outsource the function to a specialized lead generation agency (starting at around €3K per month).

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the second option, how it works, the services agencies offer, the benefits, common techniques, and key criteria for selecting the right partner.

What Is a Lead Generation Agency?

Definition and Role of a Lead Generation Specialist Agency

A lead generation agency is a B2B service provider specialized in acquiring and qualifying prospects on behalf of its client companies.

Its primary role is to feed the client’s sales pipeline with leads that are (to varying degrees) qualified and meet specific criteria—either provided by the client or defined collaboratively with them.

Company profile;
Decision-making level;
Available budget;
Project timeline;
Geographic location, etc.

To generate these qualified leads, the agency deploys acquisition strategies across the most relevant channels (SEA, LinkedIn, Display, etc.) and implements qualification mechanisms (scoring, nurturing, phone qualification). It manages the entire process—from initial targeting to handing over leads to the client’s sales teams.

In most cases, companies turn to a lead generation agency to outsource a function that requires specific expertise and significant investment in tools. But the agency also brings two additional key benefits:

Because it pools its resources across many clients, its pricing can be more cost-effective than internalizing the lead generation process (especially for large accounts);
It provides industry benchmarks for its clients: it can set realistic goals and evaluate results based on the performance standards of the client’s sector.

The agency is compensated either via a fixed fee (monthly budget), on a performance basis (cost per qualified lead), or a combination of both (a fixed part plus a variable part). The choice of model usually depends on the targeted volume of leads and the required level of qualification.

What services does a lead generation agency offer?

Lead generation is a complex discipline that sits at the intersection of several marketing fields.

To generate commercial opportunities for their clients, lead generation agencies typically offer a broad range of services organized around three main areas.

Lead generation itself through digital channels

Search campaigns (Google Ads) targeting B2B keywords;
LinkedIn Ads campaigns and Social Selling programs;
B2B Display retargeting via specialized platforms;
Creation and distribution of high-value Inbound content (white papers, industry studies, webinars, etc.).

Lead qualification and enrichment of incoming leads

Telephone qualification using the BANT method;
Enrichment of the client’s databases;
Lead scoring and segmentation;
Email nurturing for warm leads.

Proactive opportunity dectection

Identifying companies in the buying phase;
Detecting buying signals on LinkedIn;
Monitoring tenders and calls for bids;
Tracking transformation projects (recruitments, fundraising rounds, relocations, etc.).

Companies can typically subscribe to the full range of services or work “à la carte” with the agency depending on their internal resources, average deal size (the higher it is, the more in-depth the qualification should be), and sales cycle length (the longer it is, the more important nurturing becomes).

Why use a B2B lead generation agency?

Advantage #1: Specialized expertise and shared tools

Lead Generation agencies continuously invest in the best tools on the market (LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Marketing Automation platforms, data enrichment solutions, AI) and provide ongoing training for their teams on the latest acquisition techniques.

For a company, internalizing this level of expertise and these tools would represent a significant investment: between €50K and €150K per year for a team of 2 to 3 people.

Beyond the tools, the agency brings multi-sector expertise: they know which messages work for which targets, which KPIs are realistic in your industry, and which channels to prioritise based on average deal size.

This expertise helps avoid campaign miscalibration and usually allows you to reach the expected ROI more quickly.

💡 Good to know

Even if you have the necessary budget to build an internal Lead Generation team, opting for an external agency remains a smart choice, at least for the first year. It will serve as a testing phase to:
Verify if Lead Generation is suitable for your business (some sectors, like strategic consulting or complex IT services, may require Social Selling or referral-based approaches instead)
Establish a baseline for your KPIs: cost per qualified lead (CPL), lead-to-opportunity conversion rate, average sales cycle length
Identify the profiles you need to recruit for your future internal team
Validate the ROI before moving the function in-house.

Advantage #2: Accelerate the sales pipeline

Using a Lead Generation agency should positively impact the performance of your acquisition strategy. But, as with any sales initiative, three boxes need to be checked:

A relevant offer with a validated pricing position;
A documented qualification process (proven BANT criteria);
A sales team structured to follow up on leads promptly (a non-negotiable criterion).

The impact of the LeadGen agency’s work is measured on three fronts:

Salesforce productivity: Salespeople are a rare and costly resource, especially in France. Partnering with a lead generation agency allows them to spend more time in client meetings (rather than prospecting);
Lead quality: The conversion rate from leads to opportunities should increase because leads are pre-qualified according to your criteria;
Customer conversion rate: The sales cycle speeds up because you’re addressing needs that have already been identified and qualified.

⚠️ Attention

Plan a test budget for at least 6 months. The first 3 months are generally used to calibrate campaigns and refine targeting. Don’t expect significant results at M+1. The best way to make a dead loss is to withdraw from the partnership too soon.

Advantage #3: Budgetary (and operational) flexibility

By outsourcing to a lead generation agency, companies can adjust their investments with agility. From a budget perspective, these providers generally offer three compensation models:

Fixed monthly fee: usually starting at €3,000, depending on the targeted lead volume;
Performance-based commission: €80 to €500 per qualified lead, depending on the sector and level of qualification;
Hybrid model: a fixed base fee (e.g., €2,000) plus a commission of €50 to €200 per lead.

Outsourcing also allows for near real-time ROI optimisation: increasing budgets on the best-performing channels, reallocating resources if the cost per lead (CPL) exceeds targets, testing new approaches without long-term commitments, and more. This flexibility enables rapid scaling (launching a campaign in 2-3 weeks versus at least 3 months internally), resource adjustments for seasonality, and the ability to quickly pivot strategy in case of significant underperformance.

💡 Outsourcing to Manage Financial Risk

Like any outsourcing project, working with a lead generation agency allows a company to better control its financial risk compared to internalizing the function, which requires recruiting 2 to 3 people (around €150K per year), investing in tools, workspace, ongoing training, and more. This approach enables the company to scale its lead acquisition efforts lead-by-lead while maintaining the agility needed for continuous performance optimisation.

How does a lead generation agency optimise your sales funnel?

#1 Targeting optimization using aggregated industry data

A lead generation agency has access to conversion data gathered from its numerous clients within the same industry.

For example, consider a mid-sized company—say, a software publisher with a successful product for real estate agencies—that targets 100 to 200 leads per year at most. A specialized lead generation agency, however, analyzes thousands of annual conversions on average in the real estate sector.

The benefits for your funnel are clear:

The agency identifies the specific characteristics of real estate agencies most likely to buy (number of listings, location, company age, revenue growth);
It has a solid understanding of average performance metrics by channel (click-through rates, conversion rates for landing pages, etc.);
It can compare campaign performance against its benchmarks.

In practice, this sector expertise shortens the learning curve by several months compared to a newly formed internal team.

💡 Good to know

This data-driven approach based on sector-specific insights is especially valuable for companies generating fewer than 50 qualified leads per month, as this volume is insufficient to reliably identify trends and optimize targeting in-house.

#2 Accelerating the qualification process through shared resources

The lead generation agency pools its human and software resources to qualify B2B prospects. A typical qualification team usually includes experienced teleprospectors, a Data Analyst to monitor KPIs, and an Account Manager dedicated to managing your client account.

The operational impact is clear:

Qualification of 100% of leads within 24 business hours versus over 72 hours in-house (at best);
Processing capacity: 30-40 leads per day per teleprospector;
Clean and thorough documentation of interactions in the client’s CRM.

This resource sharing notably allows for coverage during absences without service interruption, absorption of activity spikes without additional hiring, maintenance of a consistent qualification level, and the benefit of an already well-established qualification process.

This helps companies avoid the typical qualification bottleneck that can slow down the entire sales process when handled in-house with limited resources.

💡 Le chiffre à connaître

According to Forbes, the average response time to a B2B lead is 47 hours. Even worse, 27% of generated leads are never contacted. And according to Zendesk, about half of sales go to the first company that responds to a lead’s inquiry.

#3 Deployment of nurturing workflows tailored to your Industry

Lead generation agencies typically have preconfigured nurturing scenarios that have been validated through several years of data specific to your industry.

Here’s a concrete example for a B2B software provider. A typical nurturing workflow might look like this:

Day 1: Confirmation email of the expressed need + premium content;
Day 3: First qualifying follow-up call;
Day 7: Sending a client case study from the same industry;
Day 10: Second follow-up call + demo offer;
Day 15: Summary email + scheduling a meeting.

Let’s now look at the measurables vs internalisation:

Analysis of benchmarks and tactical decisions based on data;
Deployment of nurturing campaigns within 48 hours versus 3 to 4 weeks needed to create content internally;
A/B testing on email subject lines and sending times;
Continuous adjustment based on open and click-through rates;
CRM integration within 24 hours.

The tools used by a high-performing lead generation agency

#1 A CRM tailored for B2B lead generation

The difference from your internal CRM isn’t so much the choice of platform (often Salesforce or HubSpot), but rather how it’s configured: 8–12 BANT criteria, 15–20 secondary scoring criteria, 3–5 levels of sales maturity, standardized documentation of interactions, and, importantly, a long historical dataset to perform predictive analyses, comparisons, and identify the best combinations by target and sector.

Leads passed on to your sales teams are qualified according to a precise, documented framework, with a BANT criteria compliance rate often exceeding 80%. This reduces the time needed for internal requalification to just a few minutes per batch of 10 leads.

#2 Marketing automation: managing qualification sequences

A lead generation agency will use Marketing Automation solutions (typically HubSpot Enterprise or Marketo) to manage the qualification sequences for incoming leads. These tools enable the agency to:

Trigger qualification sequences based on entry signals (whitepaper downloads, demo requests, contact form submissions);
Automatically enrich profiles using third-party connectors (such as Dropcontact, Clearbit);
Schedule follow-up calls based on lead scoring;
Pass qualified leads to the sales team once the criteria are met.

Your teams receive leads with a fully documented buyer journey: number of interactions, content viewed, detected interest signals, and more.

#3 Data enrichment platforms and B2B data validation

A lead generation agency will combine several data enrichment solutions to maximize the reliability of the information provided to your sales team:

Core tools: Dropcontact and Clearbit for company data (with 80% coverage across the EU);
LinkedIn enrichment using Sales Navigator (providing data on 5–8 decision-makers per account);
Phone validation via platforms like Lusha (with over 95% accuracy on mobile numbers);
Email cross-checking through tools such as Neverbounce (with over 98% accuracy).

This significantly reduces the time spent searching for and verifying decision-makers’ contact details. Your sales reps receive complete prospect profiles, including decision-making org charts, verified financial data, technologies in use, ongoing projects, and more.

Criteria for choosing the right lead generation agency for your business

#1 Proven industry expertise backed by KPIs

Focus on three key indicators to assess an agency’s expertise in your specific industry:

Volume of leads generated in your sector over the past 12 months (minimum of 500 qualified leads);
3–5 client references with similar challenges (same average deal size, similar sales cycle);
Ability to define sector-specific BANT criteria within 48 hours (with your input).

The agency should be able to share relevant benchmarks during your first meeting: average cost per lead, qualification timeframes, and conversion rates per channel.

⚠️ Warning: If an agency can’t back up its expertise in your sector with data, it’s likely trying to break into a new market. The risk? You’ll be footing the bill for their learning curve.

#2 Structured and “Auditable” qualification process

When evaluating a lead generation agency, make sure to ask for the following:

Their scoring grid (at least 8–12 BANT criteria tailored to your industry);
Their contractual SLAs for lead processing (e.g., qualification within 24 business hours);
Their process for transferring leads into your CRM.

Ask to see a sample of a qualified lead from your industry. The agency should be able to show you a complete prospect profile, including enriched data, a documented history of interactions (dates, content shared, responses), and the validated BANT criteria with supporting evidence.

💡 Practical advice

Negotiate a 3-month trial period with adjustable qualification criteria. This will allow you to fine-tune the criteria according to feedback from the field, without committing to an inappropriate grid for the long term.

#3 Transparency and Flexibility in the agency’s pricing

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, lead generation agencies typically offer three billing models: a monthly retainer with a guaranteed volume, a pay-per-qualified-lead model with a pricing scale based on lead quality, and a hybrid model that combines a reduced fixed fee with a variable per-lead component.

Here are the key elements you should contractually clarify with your LeadGen agency

A clear definition of a qualified lead, including terms for refusal or replacement;
A mechanism for adjusting rates based on performance (±15–20% after 6 months);
Early termination terms (30–60 days’ notice without penalty).

💡 Our advice

Compare the total cost per lead (monthly budget ÷ number of leads) to the current acquisition cost of your most qualified leads: a 30% increase is acceptable if the lead quality is significantly higher.

#4 Other criteria to consider

From an operational standpoint, make sure the agency assigns an experienced Account Manager to your project. Also, ensure that the ramp-up process is well-structured (for example, over a two-month period).

In terms of project governance, set up standardized weekly reporting along with a monthly performance review, including optimization measures if needed.