What to plan in day one
Pick one repeatable lead type you get regularly (an enquiry form, a paid campaign or a trade‑show list). Keep it local and simple — for Fareham or wider Hampshire teams this might be webform leads or a Google Ads cohort. Define the single metric you’ll measure: median lead‑to‑first‑contact time or % of leads contacted within your SLA.
Decide the test design. For small teams two safe options work: a short control week then a test week, or parallel matched groups (alternate incoming leads into control/test). Use a simple flag field in your CRM like `lead_test_group = control|test` so both groups are visible and exports are clean. If you want help wiring this into your workflow see marketing automation support in Hampshire.
Run the two‑week experiment and capture timestamps
Week A (control): don’t run the proposed automation for leads flagged control — use your usual manual process. Week B (test): enable the automation only for leads flagged test. If volume is low, run parallel assignment for two weeks instead (alternating leads into control/test) so time‑of‑week effects cancel out. Keep other variables stable: same sales rota, same email templates and no extra promotions.
Capture the same timestamps for every lead: lead_received, sales_assigned, first_outbound_attempt (email or call), and first_reply or meeting_booked. Most CRMs (HubSpot, Salesforce) will already log these; where they don’t, add simple custom fields and a short note activity. Export to a spreadsheet daily or build a simple CRM report; you’ll want a per‑lead row with the test flag and timestamps so you can compare medians and hit‑rates at the end of two weeks.
Three quick checks to keep results valid and safe
- Data gating: only include leads that pass basic quality checks (valid email or phone, required fields present). Add a short validation rule so the automation only runs when the record has these fields — this prevents false positives from spam or bad imports.
- Exception queue (dead‑letter): route failed or partial runs into an exception list the team can review. If an automation can’t send an email or assign a rep, don’t let it silently fail — put the lead into a named queue so someone can fix the data and retry.
- Human review sample: each day sample 3–6 test and control leads and check the CRM notes. Confirm the automation didn’t change routing, templates, or cause duplicate assignments. If something looks off, use your kill‑switch to pause the test and fix the cause.
Run the comparisons at the end of two weeks: look at median lead‑to‑first‑contact, % within SLA and any quality outcomes (meetings booked or qualified leads). For small teams this gives a clear, operational signal you can act on. If you prefer practical help wiring reports, flags and safe gates into your CRM, Optira can set this up and hand it back to your team.