SaaS lead generation:
which signups to chase.

Software lead generation has two front doors. 'Book a demo' gets you a conversation, and fewer, warmer leads. 'Start free' gets you volume, and a lot of people you'll never hear from again. Most companies selling to small businesses end up with a trial or free plan. Most selling to large organisations end up with demos. Many run both.

The two doors aren't as separate as they look. The 2026 Conversion Report found that 80% of free trial products have human touchpoints when an enterprise user enters the trial. So the real question isn't whether sales gets involved. It's which signups they get involved with, and when.

Lenny Rachitsky's survey of more than 1,000 products put it starkly: 44% of free-trial companies have sales reach out to more than half of sign-ups, against 24% of freemium companies. Reaching out to half your signups works when they're mostly good fits. When they're not, it burns a sales team's week.

A product-qualified lead (PQL) is a signup whose behaviour in the product suggests they'll buy. It's a better signal than a job title, because it's what they did, not who they are. The usual signals are use that only serious buyers bother with: importing real data, connecting an integration, inviting a colleague, opening the billing page, or hitting a plan limit.

Fit still matters. A sole trader on a free webmail address who imported their data is a great self-serve customer and a poor sales call. A 40-person firm on a work email that has done nothing yet needs a nudge, not a phone call. Put the two together and you get three groups: contact today, help in the product, and leave it to the onboarding.

Tick what's true of one recent signup below. Then do the same for ten customers who paid last quarter and ten who didn't. If the scores don't separate them, change the points.

Australia has a free fit check most overseas guides don't mention. ABN Lookup shows the publicly available details businesses give when they register for an ABN, and access to the ABN Lookup web services is free of charge, once you register and receive a GUID. Many CRMs and form tools can look an ABN up as the form is filled in.

An active ABN registered as a company, with a trading name that matches the email domain, is a decent sign of a real business. No ABN, or one that's been cancelled, doesn't rule someone out, but it's a reason not to spend a salesperson's afternoon on them.

Ask for the ABN only if you need it (for invoicing, or for a plan that's only for businesses). Every extra field on a signup form costs signups. If you don't need it at signup, ask when they first pay.

The Spam Act applies to emails and texts that promote your product, including to people trialling it. The ACMA's guidance is clear on the parts that trip up software companies. Express consent is when someone knowingly agrees to receive marketing. Inferred consent is usually when a person has a provable, ongoing relationship with your business, and the ACMA says it isn't as reliable as express consent.

Two details matter for SaaS. The unsubscribe must be honoured within 5 working days and must not need an account login, which rules out 'manage your email preferences in settings' as the only way out. And sender details must stay correct for at least 30 days after you send.

Former customers are a real risk area. In November 2026 SpinTel paid a $653K penalty for spamming former customers. A cancelled subscription or an expired trial is not a standing licence to market. Put a separate consent box on the signup form for product news and offers, keep the record, and stop marketing when consent ends. Our SaaS rules page covers the rest.

When someone asks for a demo or help with a migration, they've told you they're serious. The reply that tends to work best is a direct answer to the question they asked, from a named person, the same business day. A bare calendar link says 'join the queue'.

Australian time zones make this harder than it looks. A signup from Perth at 4pm their time is 7pm in Sydney during daylight saving. If your team is on the Central Coast, set alerts so the morning person sees overnight and interstate signups first.