Guider had a reasonably solid organic lead generation engine, with roughly 70% of their inbound leads coming from organic traffic and brand awareness. The quality of these leads was mixed; many had a poor demo show up rate or struggled to progress through the sales funnel. Whilst paid channels didn’t generate many leads, the ones that came in were often not an ICP fit.

In a nutshell, the problem was that we didn’t have a reliable and predictable lead to opportunity conversion rate. This meant that forecasting was tricky, budgeting was even harder, and targets became abstract. When you don’t know if your leads will be accepted by sales, or show up to demos, the focus needs to shift from more leads to less, more engaged leads. The bulk of my work was focused on diversifying lead sources to improve quality and volume, improving the quality of lead magnets and experimenting with the lead funnel itself. And, of course, I had to focus making lead capture conversion friendly.

Built and launched an ROI calculator, driving a 10% increase in MQLs QoQ

Website pricing experiments generated a conversion uplift of 12%

Built out resource section on website, increasing conversion rate for lead magnets from 8.6% to 14.02%.

Increased inbound opportunities by 26% QoQ

After digging into the funnel, it became clear that while Guider had good top-of-funnel traffic, the conversion path wasn’t optimised for intent or quality. Most leads were coming through a ‘Book a call’ CTA, but many weren’t sales-ready and bounced after asking about pricing or specific features.

I started by analysing closed-lost reasons, and a pattern emerged: a lack of understanding of Guider’s value. The combination of limited pricing transparency and unclear feature differentiation was leading to friction early in the buyer journey. Additionally, speaking to the Customer Success team brought up insights from existing clients that in their initial purchase experience, the value of the platform in financial benefits for the business could have been communicated better.

Finally, for ‘softer’ leads from eBooks and whitepapers, there was a low conversion rate, despite solid traffic and interest in the content.

My approach to fix this was two-fold:

Diversify lead entry points based on user intent

Surface value early to improve qualification and conversion for higher-intent leads

This meant rethinking not just copy or CTAs, but how and where leads were being captured, and with what intention.

I created an ROI calculator to quantify Guider’s impact, helping leads understand the potential return and benefit before booking a call. This was focused on staff retention costs, as the product’s value was two-fold in upskilling and retaining employees.

Rather than commit an actual financial result, I allowed users to try inputs with ranges including their investment in the product, their employee retention rate, and their average employee salary. After selecting their inputs, prospects could enter their email to get their result, some brief advice and subsequently book a consultation.

This was built from scratch, initially as an MVP by myself using Javascript and basic styling, and eventually transforming into something much more reliable with an API to Hubspot for creating leads and an email nurture flow.

For the experiment, I initially tested it on retargeted and highly-engaged LinkedIn Ad audiences to ensure a steady flow of qualified traffic.

Pricing pages in SaaS are always a bone of contention. While we weren’t able to display our pricing at the time, I still felt we should give prospects an idea of what to expect if their company joined Guider. Even a reference to price point can help users create value. Showing tiers and plans of the platform paired with messaging that aligns with common feature objections can really illustrate this to prospects.

Initially, I built the ‘pricing’ tables with the company’s existing tiers and features - with ‘Request pricing’ CTAs, leading to our discovery call page

This then evolved to a custom ‘Request pricing’ meeting booking page, where we further addressed objections, with customer quotes focused on the value to boost motivation

After an initial period, I reviewed the heatmap and session recordings of the page, and we brainstormed new ways to position the tiers and features based on this real user activity

Eventually, we settled on a Lite, Pro and Enterprise structure, with pricing anchored by a real figure for the Lite plan, and a clear upgrade in features for each plan

This then led to an overall restructure of packages across commercial units, further benefitting the business

Guider’s resource section had strong SEO presence, due to a solid informational content strategy, but the experience was inconsistent and not conversion-focused. Pages were individually built with no standard format, making the user journey fragmented and difficult to optimise. The benefits of overhauling website sections like this are as much a benefit for conversion rate as user experience and brand trust.

I partnered with a WordPress developer to create new post types, rebuild the section using a flexible template and create consistency across download experiences for whitepapers, guides, and toolkits.

Each page was structured with a clear intro, a breakdown of what’s inside, and visual previews to boost clarity and perceived value

The new template also allowed us to integrate dynamic CTAs, which we deployed based on new vs. returning visitor status, from low-friction template downloads to value-focused content types like webinars or product feature videos. We also rolled this out to the blog after seeing early success.

We prioritised mobile usability and used scroll tracking and session data to fine-tune the layout post-launch

This overhaul helped improve download conversion rates, and the increase allowed us to understand with real precision what kind of long-form content our audience valued, what to focus on in nurture and from there, which topics generated pipeline.

This shift led to more qualified leads entering the funnel. While overall volume didn’t skyrocket, the conversion rate to opportunity improved, especially for leads engaging with the ROI tool and updated resources. Quarter-on-quarter, this program increased inbound opportunities by 25%. What it did create was better pipeline value, as the estimated deal size for inbound leads as a result of these changes increased massively. Prior to this, our inbound leads were lower-value, but quicker to close vs. outbound.

My key takeaway: instead of endlessly testing small tweaks on the same funnel entry points, zoom out and think about what objections or questions a user needs to resolve before converting. Then think about what funnel entry points you can create from these. Not everyone has the desire to demo software - I know I don’t when I’m evaluating tools. Some want to understand pricing, others need to see value through knowledge and some just need a low-barrier way to engage.