Every business needs customers to sell their products and services to, and the process of finding potential buyers is referred to as “lead generation.”
It’s an essential first step in any sales funnel, but it can be a frustratingly slow and inefficient process. That’s where lead-finding tools come in. They’re designed to speed up the process and increase the success rate, so you don’t feel like you’re wasting valuable time and money on leads that just won’t convert.
There’s a big market for SaaS-focused lead generation tools, which means there are a lot of options to choose from. Here are some of the best picks.
How Lead Generation Tools Work
It’s not easy to find people who might be interested in your products and collect their contact information. That’s why lead generation tools do the work for you. They provide large sets of customer information collected from various places and include information about their needs and preferences.
This eliminates the first few stages of the normal lead generation process since you don’t need to attract visitors to your site and convince them to provide their email addresses.
Top 7 Lead Generation Tools for SaaS Startups
Here are seven of the top lead-generation tools on the market right now. Some focus on specific features, and others are bundled with other marketing tools, so there’s a lot to consider before choosing.
1. Instantly
Instantly gives you everything you need to source and reach millions of verified leads, all with one tool. Its Supersearch tool taps into over 450 million contacts and provides you with specially designed AI prompts so you can generate personalized emails at scale.
The entire platform is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, so your team can jump right in without spending hours onboarding. This, plus the flexible plans that allow you to pay for exactly what you need, puts Instantly at the top of this list.
2. Snov.io
Snov.io is a sales CRM with multiple lead generation features, including:
- Email Finder
- Cold Email Outreach
- Email Verifier
- LinkedIn Automation
- Deliverability toolkit
The platform is available in five languages and includes a free trial for new customers. Its lead generation processes are GDPR-compliant, which is important if you’re doing business in Europe.
3. Hunter.io
Hunter specializes in cold email outreach, helping you find email addresses, verify them, generate emails, and get them delivered to your leads’ primary inboxes. It focuses on helping you find the right contacts based on your specific needs. For example, you type in a company name or website you want to reach out to, and it will find the email addresses of the best people to contact.
The tool uses AI to generate personalized emails at scale, and it integrates with various CRM platforms, so you can integrate it into your workflow.
4. Leadfeeder
Leadfeeder focuses on identifying visitors to your website, even if they don’t fill out a form or provide their contact information. It specifically targets other businesses and companies that visit your site and lets you know how they behaved during their visit. From there, it helps you qualify the leads and identify the right employees to contact.
Each contact has an email address, phone number, and LinkedIn profile, so you can reach out however you want to. According to the Leadfeeder website, it works with big names like Amazon and Siemens.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator has been around for a long time, helping businesses reach more people specifically through LinkedIn. It still integrates with other CRM platforms and works similarly to other lead-generation tools, but the goal is to send out LinkedIn messages rather than emails.
It’s currently adding some newer AI features, allowing you to automate the prospecting process with an AI assistant or generate personalized copy for your messages. A lot of sales CRM platforms include LinkedIn profiles in their lead packets anyway, so using a specific tool for LinkedIn isn’t necessary for a lot of businesses. If you focus heavily on LinkedIn outreach, however, it can still be useful.
6. HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot is one of the most well-known CRM platforms out there, and if you’ve been in the business for a while, the chances are that you’ve already used it. If it’s been a while, you may assume a lot of things are getting outdated. And while HubSpot may no longer be the best choice for new tech and innovation, it has made sure to keep up with global trends.
For example, it offers AI agents for automating processes within the CRM and converting website traffic into leads. It also remains very scalable, with plans aimed specifically at startups as well as big enterprise customers.
7. Cognism
If you’re based in Europe, Cognism is a good Europe-centric lead generation tool. It takes extra care to stay compliant with European data laws and cross-references its contact data with Do Not Call lists. Culture plays a big role in how likely a lead is to be open to cold calls or emails, so if you’re targeting European businesses specifically, a Europe-centric tool can help you do things the right way.
It integrates with all the big CRM platforms and is used by big names like Notion and Hootsuite.
Final Thoughts
The best lead generation tool for you depends on where you are, what your goals are, and what tools you already work with. If you’re new to the scene and want to try out the best all-rounder with ultra-easy onboarding and intuitive design, we think Instantly is the standout option.
Remember that many of these tools offer demos and free trials, so make sure to shop around if you really want to get some hands-on experience before signing up.
