What's in the Leads tab
Plus a Pipeline Summary tab that counts leads by status and totals pipeline value with formulas (no manual updating) and a How to use tab with quick instructions.
A spreadsheet is the right tool, until it isn't
Fine for a handful of leads a month
One person, a low volume of enquiries, and the discipline to update it: a spreadsheet handles that without any fuss.
Manual entry is what breaks first
Every lead has to be typed in by hand. Miss one from a form or a missed call and it just never exists in the sheet.
Phone leads are the ones that go missing
Across 3,146 real enquiries we've analysed, 44.3% came in as a phone tap, not a form. Nobody stops mid-call to open a spreadsheet, so that's the lead type most likely to just never make it into the sheet.
The Next Follow-up column exists for a reason backed by actual research, not just good practice: a 2007 study by InsideSales.com and MIT Sloan's Dr James Oldroyd found that contacting a lead within 5 minutes rather than 30 makes a business roughly 100x more likely to reach them. A later Harvard Business Review audit of 2,241 US companies (Oldroyd, McElheran & Elkington, 2011) found the average company still took 42 hours to respond. A spreadsheet won't speed that up on its own, but a follow-up date you actually look at gets you most of the way there.
Read the full guide: what is lead tracking? → · See the full 3,146-lead dataset →
Template, explained
Does this work in Google Sheets, or only Excel?
Both. It's a single .xlsx file, and Excel and Numbers open it natively; Google Sheets opens .xlsx files directly too (File → Open, or just drag it into Google Drive) without any conversion step or lost formatting.
What's actually in it?
Three tabs: a Leads tab with dropdowns for Source and Status and a few sample rows to show the format, a Pipeline Summary tab that counts leads by status and totals pipeline value with formulas that update automatically, and a How to use tab with quick instructions.
Is this gated behind an email address?
No. It's a direct download, same as the rest of our free tools: no sign-up, no email capture.
Will this track where my leads came from?
No. The Source column is something you fill in yourself, based on what the lead tells you or where you think they came from. It won't catch a phone call your team forgot to log, or attribute a form fill back to the ad that actually drove it. This template assumes you already know the source; Lead Recorder is what fills that column in automatically.
How is this different from a CRM?
It isn't one, it's a spreadsheet. There's no automatic capture (you type every lead in by hand), no reminders, and no history of what happened on a call. It works fine for one or two people handling a handful of leads a month. Past that, the manual entry is usually what breaks first.
Can I add my own columns?
Yes, it's a normal spreadsheet, not a locked template. Add, remove or rename columns freely; just keep the Source and Status dropdown columns intact if you want the Pipeline Summary formulas to keep working.
More free tools
See all tools →Chrome Extension: Tracking Checker
Click the extension on any site to see if its phone numbers are tracked: tel: links, call tracking, Lead Recorder, GA4 and GTM.
Click-to-Call Scanner
Scan any URL to find every phone number and enquiry path on the site, and see whether each one is actually being tracked.
UTM Builder & Cleaner
Build clean, error-free UTM tracking links in seconds, with auto-lowercase formatting and quick-fill presets for Google Ads, Meta and email.
Script & Pixel Checker
Scan any URL to check whether Google Tag Manager, GA4, Meta Pixel and Lead Recorder are actually installed in the page head.
Attribution Health Check Calculator
Estimate how much lead value and ad spend GA4 misattribution might be hiding in your "direct" traffic.
Lead Report Generator
Paste a messy GA4 or Meta Ads CSV export and get a clean, client-ready summary with top channels and cost per lead.
GA4 Attribution Model Checker
Check whether your GA4 property has the volume to actually run data-driven attribution, or is silently falling back to last-click.
Booked vs. Billed Gap Calculator
Enter your monthly ad or agency spend, the leads reported to you, and the leads you can actually verify, and see what percentage of your spend is going toward leads nobody can account for.
Marketing Channel Mix Reality Check
Compare what you spend on each marketing channel against the share of leads you assume it brings in, and see where a guess is furthest from your budget.
Phantom Lead Budget Calculator
Enter your monthly ad spend, the leads your channels report, and your actual lead count to see how many leads have no source attached and what they'd cost at your average cost-per-lead.
Lead Source Blind Spot Calculator
Enter your monthly leads, how many you can currently trace to a channel, and your average lead value to see how much revenue is sitting behind leads marked "unknown source."
Untagged Lead Cost Calculator
Enter your monthly marketing spend, total leads, and the share you can't confidently attribute to a channel to see the dollar amount you're spending blind.
Outgrown the spreadsheet?
Lead Recorder logs every form fill and phone call automatically, with the source already attached: nothing to type in, nothing to forget.
No credit card required
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