Overall Top Lead Generation Tools for Small Business in 2025:
Zoom or WebinarJam for hosting Live Classes. In 2025 people want connection, and that is why live training is the top lead generation strategy in 2025. Small business owners are promoting their classes with Facebook ads or through organic posts and using a Manychat automation for people to sign up.
Interact for lead generation quizzes. Audiences want to connect with a real person. Quizzes allow you to create conversations that help your audience find answers they want, by “speaking” with you in an automated way through the quiz. This one works in tandem with the live classes for the rest of the time when you can’t be running a live training.
Kit or Flodesk for Guides, PDFs, and Newsletter Signups. The top small business owners mix these strategies in for small wins throughout the days, they compliment their live trainings and quizzes with a combination of free guides, PDFs, and newsletter signup offers.
The way most small businesses drive leads in 2025 is by sending traffic from social media (organic and ads) to a webinar registration, a lead generation quiz, or a download-able lead magnet. They also have a website and link in bio where they will link those same lead magnets, which is how they generate leads from search engine traffic and ChatGPT traffic.
Full List of Lead Generation Tools for Small Businesses
This data was gathered through an empirical study of 30 business owners who are winning at lead generation. I spoke with each business owner for an average of 45 minutes, and we discussed everything that is working in 2025 for driving new leads into their businesses. This is an ordered list, with the most commonly used lead generation tools appearing at the top.
Zoom or WebinarJam for Live Classes
Live is back, in a big way. Consistently throughout my interviews, I hear that live classes are the best way to generate leads in 2025. People want to connect, they want to know you’re a real person, they want to learn from you and not from an AI. That’s why live classes are working so well. Of course, you cannot be live all the time, which is where the next method of using quizzes to automate conversations comes in.
How does this work? Classes are promoted through ads or posts, Manychat is used to set up an automation where people can comment a certain word to get the link to the class registration page, which then links to the Zoom or WebinarJam registration page.
Interact for lead generation quizzes
Throughout my interviews with small business owners, Interact quizzes were consistently mentioned as the best performing lead magnet. Salary Transparent Street, Shannon Mcinstrie, Lily Jones, Advice With Erin, The Habit Ayurveda, all listed quizzes as their best source of new leads. Advice With Erin has generated over 140,000 new leads with their Career Type Quiz and The Habit Ayurveda has generated over 170,000.
The reason why quizzes are working so well for lead generation in 2025 is authenticity. Within a quiz, the quiz taker can have a conversation with the quiz creator (which is you, the small business owner), and get to know your style, how you communicate, and get introspective with you. All of that is automated through the question and answering of the quiz. Then, when the opt-in form comes up at the end of the quiz, people are already feeling connected with you, and it makes sense to subscribe.
I shared this recently, but the quizzes of 2025 are not the quizzes of old. These new quizzes are leaner, more focused, and more helpful. The quizzes that are truly effective for lead generation are answering key audience questions, in a way that you only could through a quiz (or by talking to everyone, but you don’t have enough time for that). So in summary, small business owners are using quizzes to automate common conversations they have with customers, and collecting leads through their quizzes using Interact.
How does this work? Quizzes are promoted through social posts or ads, with a Manychat automation to send people the quiz link if they comment a certain word. Quizzes also generate leads from website traffic, by being embedded on a page on your website, and linking to that page from your link-in-bio, website header, and sidebar. Quizzes also get SEO and AI traffic because there is a lot of search traffic for quizzes.
Free Guides, PDFs, Newsletter Signups, through Kit, Flodesk, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, or HubSpot
Download-able lead magnets are the in between lead magnets that people use when they aren’t running a live webinar or quiz. They tend to be the simple things that are often tied to current events or trending topics. Throwing together a quiz PDF in Canva and sending people to it through a landing page built on Kit or Flodesk is an easy way to pick up leads during times when you’re not running a larger campaign.
How it works. Set up a download-able PDF using Canva, set up a Kit or Flodesk page for people to opt-in, and then send them the PDF after they opt-in using an automation through whichever platform you are using (Kit or Flodesk).
Websites Built on Squarespace, Showit, WordPress or Shopify
Your website is a lead generation tool. I know this because back in the day when I would build websites for people, the only metric anyone cared about was how many new email subscribers they were getting from their website. That was offensive to me because the site my co-founders and I built were gorgeous. But nonetheless, lead generation is what people care about on websites.
When set up correctly, a website can be a great source of leads. Squarespace, Showit, WordPress, and Shopify have all gotten much better over the years at giving you built-in options for driving to lead generation forms, quizzes, and classes. Similarly to how the first three options on this list were using social media to drive to live classes, quizzes, and guides, you can do the same through your website traffic. I know it’s 2025, and for a lot of people, website traffic is on the decline. So it’s tempting to just skip it and throw in the towel on your website presence. But, website traffic is not gone completely, there are still people who are searching on Google, probably people who skew older, and therefore have more money to spend. So don’t sleep on keeping your website optimized and up to date, so when that traffic does roll in, you’ve got something to show people that makes them want to become a lead.
How this works. Using the built-in buttons, popups, and announcement bars on your website, point people to your live webinar registration page (#1 on this list of top lead generation tools), your quiz embed page (#2 on this list) or your free downloads/newsletter signups (#3 on this list).
Link-in-Bio using LinkTree, Stan, Komi, Milkshake, Pillar, Beacons
Similarly to how a website can direct people to your top three lead magnets (live classes, quizzes, and downloads), your link in bio can do the same for people who click to learn more about you from social media.
There are so many tools in this space now. Most people use LinkTree still, Stan is popular amongst creators, I see Komi a lot. The largest concentration is with Linktree, so if you want an easy one to start with I’d go there, and then explore the others if you have time.
How this works. Your link in bio is like your website, but a lite version for social media. Include a few key links in big button style format so it’s easy for people to get acquainted with the most important offers you have. Often people will link their quizzes, webinars, and download-ables from their link in bio.