What are warm leads and how to identify and convert them? - GoZen

Cold outreach is getting harder day by day. Some days it’s all bounced emails, and other days it’s ghosting after a great conversation.

Also, Google is making stringent measures, such as:

• Strict daily email sending limits
• Banning of pre-warmed inboxes
• Strict spam filtering

Cold outreach is all about volume, and now with daily email sending limit restrictions, it is nearly impossible to scale unless you’ve your own SMTP server setup and a set of 40+ domains.

So, it is clear that scaling a cold outreach campaign is hard and requires $2,000+ a month.

It doesn’t mean outreach is dead. But you need to spend a lot, and the ROI is questionable since it’s based on email deliverability and reply rate.

So, what’s the alternative solution?

Targeting the warm leads.

In this article, we’ll learn what warm leads are, the difference between cold, warm, and hot leads, and how to generate and convert warm leads.

Table of Contents

• TL; DR
• What are warm leads?
• Classification of warm leads
  • Behavior-based warm leads
  • Source-based warm leads
  • Intent-based warm leads
  • Relationship-based warm leads
• The importance of targeting warm leads
• The difference between cold, warm, and hot leads
• How to generate more warm leads?
  • Inbound warm lead attraction
    • Generate more ToFU Content
    • Offer lead magnets
    • Use a multi-channel approach
    • Establish partnerships
    • Leverage referral marketing
  • Competitor warm lead capture
    • How to attract warm leads of your competitors?
• How to convert your warm leads into customers?
  • Anonymous website visitor identification
  • Use personalized email campaigns 
  • Use personalized videos
  • Use case studies
  • Use Sale multi-threading
• FAQs

TL; DR

• Warm leads are potential customers who already know about your brand and have shown interest or engagement.
• Warm leads can be classified into four types based on their behavior, source, level of intent, and relationship.
• Warm leads are cheaper to convert and have a shorter sales cycle.
• You can generate warm leads in two main ways: Inbound warm lead attraction and competitor warm lead capture.
• To convert your warm leads, you need to first identify who exactly is visiting your website using HyperReach and then use personalized outreach campaigns and case studies for better conversion and credibility, respectively.
• You can also use sales multi-threading to increase the chance of converting your warm leads.

What are warm leads?

Warm leads are potential leads that have shown some level of interest or engagement with your product or service, but haven’t yet made a purchase.

They fall between cold leads, who didn’t even know about your product, and hot leads, who are ready to buy.

Examples of warm leads include:

• Someone who visited your website multiple times
• Someone who checked your pricing page
• Users who downloaded your lead magnet, such as an ebook
• Users who have utilized your free trial
• LinkedIn users who engaged with your posts or messages

Classification of warm leads

Not all warm leads are the same. For example, leads who have downloaded your lead magnet and leads who have been checking your pricing page multiple times are not the same.

Because leads downloaded your lead magnets require further nurturing from your marketing team, whereas leads visiting your website are ready for a sales conversation.

It’s crucial to follow up with your website visitors promptly to increase conversions.

Additionally, every marketing and sales team should understand how to classify warm leads. Without this clarity, valuable leads may slip through the cracks.

Warm leads can be classified based on their source, behavior, and level of intent:

1. Behavior-based warm leads
2. Source-based warm leads
3. Intent-based warm leads
4. Relationship-based warm leads

Behavior-based warm leads

These leads have shown measurable engagement or activity with your brand.

Examples:

• Website visitors who’ve viewed your pricing or product pages multiple times
• Email subscribers who open or click your campaigns
• Social engagers who comment, like, or share your posts
• Demo/ trial signups who haven’t converted yet

Why do they matter?

Their behavior signals curiosity and partial intent to buy.

Source-based warm leads

These leads are classified by where they came from, as different sources imply different levels of trust and intent.

Examples:

• Referral leads: who came through word of mouth, partners, or existing customers
• Inbound leads: came from organic search, blog posts, or social content
• Event leads: met you through webinars, trade shows, or workshops
• Paid ad leads: filled out a form after clicking an ad

Why do they matter?

Since each source reveals how familiar they are with your brand and how warm they might be, this classification will help your marketing and sales teams prioritize their leads.

Intent-based warm leads

These leads are actively exploring a solution like yours but are still evaluating.

Examples:

• Comparison-stage leads: checking competitor comparison pages or requesting demos
• Problem-aware leads: searching for how to solve a pain point your product addresses
• Returning visitors: repeatedly engaging with content or pricing pages

Why is it essential to know these leads?

It is important to classify your warm leads and identify the intent-based warm leads for your sales team, as they’re closest to becoming hot leads with minimal nurturing.

Relationship-based warm leads

These are leads who already have a relationship or personal touchpoint with your team.

Examples:

• Existing contacts from previous sales interactions
• Past customers considering a new plan or product
• Community members or LinkedIn connections interacting with your brand regularly

Why do they matter?

Familiarity builds trust, so they convert faster with a personalized approach.

Apart from these four classifications, you can rank your warm leads using lead scoring based on your custom requirements, such as:

• Frequency of engagement
• Type of activity (e.g., demo > blog read)
• Recency of interaction 
• Source credibility 

The importance of targeting warm leads

For any company, it is easier to convert a warm lead into a customer than a cold lead.

• Warm leads already trust your brand more than cold leads.
• They are cheaper to convert since awareness and interest are already built.
• Sales cycles are shorter and more efficient.
• Personalization and nurturing can easily turn them into paying customers.

The difference between cold, warm, and hot leads

For any business, it is essential to understand the types of leads and their differences to succeed.

Understanding the difference helps your marketing and sales teams segment leads effectively and build the right strategy for each group.

Based on awareness level and engagement, you can easily differentiate leads as cold, warm, or hot.

Cold leads are those with little to no awareness of your brand and zero prior engagement.

Warm leads have some familiarity with your brand and show moderate engagement through actions like visiting your website or interacting with your content.

Hot leads are highly aware of your brand, actively engaged, and ready to make a purchase or book a demo.

Lead Type	Awareness Level	Engagement	Buying Intent	Main Goal	Strategy
Cold	Low	None	Very Low	Build Awareness	Educate and attract
Warm	Medium	Moderate	Medium	Nurture Interest/ Give credibility	Personalize follow-up
Hot	High	Strong	High	Close sale	Convert now

The above table clearly tells the difference between cold, warm, and hot leads based on awareness, engagement, and buying intent.

It also tells what strategies your marketing and sales team should use based on the lead type.

If you’re dealing with cold leads, your main goal is to build awareness. To do so, you need to educate them with the necessary information that addresses their pain points.

I.e., you need to create blogs, social media posts with visuals, or conduct webinars around the pain points of your leads that your product/ service is solving.

If you’re dealing with warm leads, your main goal is to nurture their interest with some credibility. To do so, you need to target them with a personalized follow-up at the right time with some credible factors, such as adding reviews and accolades as part of your email. For example, if a lead visits your pricing page multiple times, send an email saying: “Can I help you find the right plan or offer a quick walkthrough?”

In case you’re dealing with hot leads, you need to focus on closing the deal. At this stage, emphasize urgency and value; offer limited-time discounts, or direct demo calls to convert their strong intent into action.

How to generate more warm leads?

There are several traditional methods to generate warm leads for your business. But in this guide, I’ll also reveal some innovative strategies, like how to leverage intent data and behavioral signals to identify and capture warm leads.

Broadly, there are two main ways to generate warm leads:

• Inbound warm lead attraction
• Competitor warm lead capture

Let’s take a look at these two ways deeply.

Inbound warm lead attraction

This approach focuses on pulling potential customers toward your brand through valuable and educational content and meaningful partnerships.

By using channels like SEO, blogs, webinars, and targeted ads, you can attract prospects who are already interested in solving a problem your product addresses.

These leads have higher intent and are more likely to convert since they’ve engaged with your brand voluntarily.

There are many ways in which you can attract warm leads:

• Generate more ToFU content
• Offer Lead magnets
• Use a multi-channel approach
• Establish partnerships 
• Leverage referral marketing

Generate more ToFU Content

Top-of-the-funnel (ToFU) content helps you attract potential buyers who are in the early awareness stage.

The goal is to educate, not sell. So focus on solving your audience’s initial challenges.

Create blogs, explainer videos, and webinars that highlight the problems your product solves and the outcomes it enables.

This builds trust and establishes your brand authority long before a lead enters the buying stage.

Example:

We offer warm lead identification software. That’s why we have created this article, “What are warm leads and how to identify them?”

This topic will attract readers like you who are likely in need of website visitor identification software like GoZen HyperReach.

Offer lead magnets

Lead magnets convert curious visitors into warm leads by offering valuable resources in exchange for their contact details.

Choose assets that deliver instant value and relate directly to your product, like checklists, calculators, toolkits, or mini-courses.

This filters out low-intent users and captures leads genuinely interested in your niche.

Example:

A marketing automation platform could offer a free “Email Campaign Planner Template” or an ROI Calculator for Lead Generation Campaigns.

Users who download these are signaling interest in improving their outreach, making them ideal warm leads.

Use a multi-channel approach

Your audience doesn’t live on one channel, so your marketing shouldn’t either.

Combine channels like SEO, GEO, and social media to reach prospects at different touchpoints.

The goal is to maintain consistent messaging across all platforms to stay top-of-mind.

When it comes to B2B marketing, LinkedIn is a go-to platform for inbound marketing and attracting warm leads.

In April and May 2025, we leveraged LinkedIn and booked over 300+ demos. You can see the engagement metrics for our LinkedIn posts: Post 1, Post 2, and Post 3.

LinkedIn users tend to trust insights shared by real people over branded promotions. When you share original opinions, frameworks, or lessons learned from experience, it positions you (and your brand) as a credible authority in your industry.

Thought leadership on LinkedIn isn’t just about posting insights. It’s a long-term demand generation strategy. It helps you build trust before the pitch, attract warm leads organically, and differentiate your brand in a crowded feed.

If you feel like it’s difficult to post consistently on LinkedIn, you can try using software like GoZen Inbound 360. 

Inbound 360 turns your content into a pipeline. It identifies trending topics that align with your expertise and displays who’s posting about your chosen topics.

Establish partnerships

Collaborating with complementary businesses or influencers allows you to tap into new, relevant audiences. Partner for co-marketing campaigns, guest blogs, joint webinars, or newsletter swaps. This shared exposure builds credibility and expands your reach without extra ad spend.

Also, empower partners worldwide to promote your product. Partners already have local networks and trusted relationships, which can help you reach new audiences and generate warm, high-intent leads.

At GoZen, we run a partnership program that attracts potential partners around the world.

Leverage referral marketing

Referral programs bring in more warm leads because they combine trust, relevance, and intent. When someone is referred by a friend, colleague, or existing customer, they come with pre-established trust.

Referral marketing is nothing but turning your happy customers into brand ambassadors.

When a trusted customer recommends your product, their network perceives it as a strong endorsement.

Incentivize referrals with exclusive discounts, free months, or feature upgrades to encourage sharing.

Dropbox famously grew its user base through referrals by offering extra storage for every successful invite. Similarly, a SaaS product could offer “Get 20% off your next billing cycle when your friend subscribes.”

At GoZen, we also run affiliate programs for existing customers, marketing agencies, and individual contributors. 

Competitor warm lead capture

This strategy involves identifying and targeting prospects who are actively engaging with your competitors.

By using intent data, or social signal tracking, you can spot potential buyers in the research or comparison stage.

Once identified, you can reach out with personalized messaging, better offers, or stronger value propositions to win them over.

How to attract warm leads of your competitors?

• Make a list of your competitors
• Find out which employee of them actively posting on LinkedIn
• Select the posts with high engagement
• See who the commenters are and contact them with your pitch

Because people who engage with your competitors’ LinkedIn posts are likely already exploring similar solutions, making them high-intent warm leads.

How to convert your warm leads into customers?

There are several effective ways to convert warm leads into paying customers. The most impactful methods include personalized follow-ups, case studies, email nurturing, and timely offers.

Before you can do that, you need to identify who your warm leads are. As mentioned earlier, one approach is to analyze engagement on your competitors’ LinkedIn posts to find potential prospects.

But what about the inbound warm leads you’ve generated through the attraction strategies discussed in this article?

For instance, let’s say your inbound efforts have driven 1,000 new website visitors this month. How do you deanonymize your website visitors?

Anonymous website visitor identification

You can identify your website visitors with website visitor identification software, GoZen HyperReach.

GoZen HyperReach uncovers 70% of your website visitors. While many of its competitors, like Clearbit, reveal only company-level website visitor data, HyperReach reveals personal-level identity.

Then, it pushes those leads via Slack in real-time.

It can even give page-level visitors data, which you can use for personalization.

Use personalized email campaigns 

Marketers often say that outreach is all about sending the right message at the right time.

With HyperReach, you can do both effortlessly.

Once you’ve identified your warm leads using HyperReach, you can also automate personalization to engage them at the perfect moment.

Yes, HyperReach uses LinkedIn social signals for personalization. 

Upload a list of 1000 warm leads, and you’ll get your personalized message tailored for each lead within a few minutes.

Here’s a sample of a personalized message generated by HyperReach for a lead who visited the page /solutions/abm/:

Look how well-structured this email is. The opening line addresses the lead’s current situation simply by analyzing the page URL they visited.

The second line speaks directly to the key decision-maker, and the next paragraph builds credibility through social proof.

Unlike other tools that only personalize the first name and company name, HyperReach goes further. It personalizes the entire email based on each lead’s real-time context.

This level of timely, situation-based personalization can surely boost your sales conversions.

Use personalized videos

Creating personalized videos takes time, but when you already know who your warm leads are, every second you invest counts.

Since HyperReach helps you precisely identify website visitors showing real buying intent, you can focus your efforts on crafting targeted, high-impact video messages.

In sales, these video pitches are known as Video Sales Letters (VSLs), and they come in two forms: standard and personalized.

While standard VSLs deliver a general message, personalized VSLs speak directly to each lead’s context and needs, making them one of the most effective tools for converting warm prospects who know your brand but haven’t yet taken action.

In fact, you can automate this entirely. Let me tell you how.

1. Go to Pitchlane
2. Record a single video for one of your prospects explaining the pain points you help to solve. Don’t mention their company name here in this step.
3. Now, in the background, the Pitchlane bot will be visiting all your leads’ websites one by one
4. Eventually, you have your personalized video for all your prospects

This is one of the ways to personalize your video sales letters. You can even use Hyperise, SendSpark, or Vidyard to automate creating personalized videos at scale.

Use case studies

Publishing case studies on your website is one of the most effective ways to convert warm leads because it bridges the gap between interest and trust.

Warm leads already know about your product. They just need reassurance that it works.

Case studies act as real-world proof that your solution delivers measurable results for companies similar to theirs.

This removes uncertainty and builds confidence to take the next step.

Publishing case studies on your website also supports sales conversations. 

Your sales team can use case studies as social proof during follow-ups. When a lead hesitates, showing “how we helped a similar company achieve X% growth” can tip the scales in your favor.

Use Sale multi-threading

Warm leads often stall when a single decision-maker goes silent.

Multi-threading means you build relationships with multiple stakeholders in the same account, from users to managers to executives.

So even if one contact disengages, others keep the conversation alive. This prevents deals from going cold.

If a marketing manager is your initial contact, connect with their head of growth or CMO on LinkedIn. You can share relevant use cases or insights showing how your solution supports company-wide goals.

So, always have multiple champions of your warm leads’ organization.

This is how you can generate, identify, and convert your warm leads. As mentioned throughout this article, the first step is to start by identifying your anonymous website visitors.

FAQs

1. How to track warm leads visiting your website?

You can track your warm leads visiting your website by using:

• UTM tracking
• Website visitor identification software

In UTM tracking, you can only see how many visitors have come to your website from your blog or social media post in Google Analytics. You can’t track who has visited your website.

However, you can still target your website visitors in the UTM tracking method. It is by installing retargeting pixels and running Meta, LinkedIn, or Google Ads. Unlike UTM tracking, the implementation of website visitor identification software on your website will uncover your website visitors at the person-level.