Losing $2.1M Annually? Generate Leads with Odoo 18 (6 Methods)

Sales team complains: "Not enough leads." Marketing spent $47,000 last quarter on Google Ads. Traffic looks good: 8,400 visitors to website. Problem: Only 23 filled out contact form. That's 0.27% conversion. Rest of visitors? Gone. No email, no phone, no follow-up possible. Lost: 8,377 potential customers who visited your site but left no trace.

Your lead generation chaos: Website contact form exists but nobody fills it out (0.27% conversion = terrible). No live chat = visitors with questions leave instead of asking. Email alias not configured = leads emailing info@company.com go nowhere. Website visitor tracking disabled = can't see who's browsing, what they're interested in. Sales reps manually creating leads from random emails = inconsistent data, missing info. No lead enrichment = "John Doe" with gmail address, no company name, no revenue data, impossible to qualify.

Cost: $47,000 ad spend ÷ 23 leads = $2,043 per lead (insane cost). Lost opportunities from 8,377 un-captured visitors at 2% close rate × $12,400 average deal = $2,077,448 annual revenue missed. Sales reps spend 11.7 hours weekly manually creating/enriching leads = $27,144/year wasted. Poor lead data = 47% of leads unqualified or duplicate = sales time wasted chasing bad prospects. No live chat = 847 visitors with buying intent leave (competitor has chat, you don't).

Odoo 18 Lead Generation fixes this: Email alias auto-creates leads, website contact forms feed directly to CRM, live chat captures real-time conversations as leads, visitor tracking converts anonymous traffic to leads, lead mining finds companies matching your ideal customer profile, lead enrichment auto-fills company data from email domains. Here's how to configure all 6 lead generation methods so you stop losing $2.1M annually to un-captured prospects.

Six Ways to Generate Leads in Odoo 18

Method 1: Generate Leads by Email Alias

Auto-create leads from emails sent to specific addresses (e.g., info@, sales@, contact@).

Enable Leads Feature

1. Go to CRM → Configuration → Settings
2. Find CRM section
3. Enable Leads checkbox
4. Click Save

Configure Email Alias

1. Go to CRM → Configuration → Sales Teams
2. Select your sales team (or create new)
3. Enable Leads checkbox for this team
4. In Email Alias field, enter: info or sales or contact
5. Set Accept Emails From:
   • Everyone: Any email creates lead (risky: spam!)
   • Authenticated Partners: Only existing contacts
   • Followers Only: Most restrictive
6. Click Save

Sales Team: Direct Sales
Email Alias: info@yourdomain.com
Accept From: Everyone (or Authenticated Partners)

What Happens:
1. Customer emails: info@yourdomain.com
2. Subject: "Need pricing for 100 units"
3. Odoo automatically creates lead:
   - Title: "Need pricing for 100 units"
   - Contact Email: customer@email.com
   - Assigned To: Sales Team
   - Message: Full email in chatter
   
No manual data entry needed!

Fetch Incoming Emails

1. Go to Settings → Technical → Incoming Mail Servers
2. Find your configured mail server
3. Click Fetch Now to manually retrieve emails
4. Or wait for automatic fetch (every 5 minutes by default)
5. Check CRM → Leads for new entries

Method 2: Generate Leads from Website Contact Form

Turn website visitors into leads/opportunities with contact forms.

Configure Contact Form

1. Go to Website app
2. Navigate to Contact Us page (or create one)
3. Click Edit to open page editor
4. Select the Form Block
5. In right sidebar, find Action dropdown
6. Set to: Create an Opportunity
   • If Leads enabled: Creates Lead first
   • If Leads disabled: Creates Opportunity directly
7. Customize form fields:
   • Name: Text Input (Required)
   • Email: Email Input (Required)
   • Phone: Tel Input (Optional)
   • Company: Text Input (Optional)
   • Subject: Text Input (Required)
   • Message: Textarea (Optional)
8. Set Success Action:
   • Show message: "Thank you! We'll contact you soon"
   • Or redirect to: /thank-you page
9. Click Save

Visitor fills form:
  Name: John Smith
  Email: john@acmecorp.com
  Company: Acme Corp
  Subject: Need 100 office chairs
  Message: Looking for bulk pricing

Submits → Odoo creates:

Lead/Opportunity Record:
  - Title: "Need 100 office chairs"
  - Contact Name: John Smith
  - Email: john@acmecorp.com
  - Company: Acme Corp
  - Source: Website Contact Form
  - Notes: "Looking for bulk pricing"
  - Assigned To: Sales Team (auto)
  
Visitor sees: "Thank you! We'll contact you soon"

Method 3: Generate Leads from Live Chat

Capture leads from real-time conversations with website visitors.

Install Live Chat

1. Go to Apps
2. Search: Live Chat
3. Click Install
4. Wait for installation

Create Live Chat Channel

1. Go to Live Chat app
2. Click New to create channel
3. Name it: "Website Support" or "Sales Chat"
4. Configure tabs:
   • Operators: Add team members who will respond to chats
   • Options: Set button color, welcome message ("Hi! How can we help?")
   • Channel Rules: When to show chat (e.g., All pages, After 10 seconds, Specific countries)
   • Widget: Copy embed code for external sites
5. Click Save

Create Lead from Chat

Chat Conversation:

Visitor: Hi, I need office furniture for new office
Operator: Great! What are you looking for?
Visitor: 50 desks, 50 chairs, filing cabinets
Operator: Perfect! Can I get your name and email?
Visitor: Sarah Johnson, sarah@techstartup.com
Operator: /lead
[System creates lead automatically]
Operator: Thanks Sarah! I've created a quote request. 
          Our sales team will email you within 2 hours.

Created Lead:
  - Title: "Office furniture for new office"
  - Contact: Sarah Johnson (sarah@techstartup.com)
  - Notes: Full chat transcript
  - Source: Live Chat
  - Priority: High (real-time conversation = hot lead!)

Method 4: Lead Mining (Find Companies Automatically)

Discover companies matching your ideal customer profile. B2B focus.

Enable Lead Mining

1. Go to CRM → Configuration → Settings
2. Find Lead Generation section
3. Enable Lead Mining
4. Click Generate Leads button

Configure Mining Criteria

1. In Lead Mining wizard, set filters:
   • Data Type: Companies only OR Companies + Contacts
   • Countries: USA, UK, Canada, etc.
   • States: California, Texas, New York (if applicable)
   • Industries: Technology, Manufacturing, Retail
   • Company Size: 50-200 employees, 200-1000, etc.
   • Assign To: Sales Team
   • Salesperson: Specific rep or auto-distribute
   • Tags: "Mined Lead", "Cold Outreach"
2. Review credit cost estimate
3. Click Generate Leads
4. Wait for processing (can take minutes for large batches)

Mining Criteria:
  Data Type: Companies + Contacts
  Countries: USA, Canada
  Industries: Technology, SaaS
  Company Size: 100-500 employees
  Assign To: Enterprise Sales Team
  Tags: "Mined - Tech 100-500"

Results (Example):
  - 247 companies found
  - Cost: 247 credits (companies) + 247 credits (contacts) = 494 credits
  
Generated Leads Include:
  - Company Name: TechFlow Solutions
  - Industry: SaaS
  - Employees: 287
  - Location: San Francisco, CA
  - Revenue Estimate: $25M - $50M
  - Technologies: AWS, React, Python
  - Contact: John Doe (CEO)
  - Email: john@techflow.com
  
Perfect for outbound sales campaigns!

Method 5: Lead Enrichment (Auto-Fill Company Data)

Have email address? Odoo finds company name, revenue, employee count automatically.

Enable Lead Enrichment

1. Go to CRM → Configuration → Settings
2. Find Lead Generation section
3. Enable Lead Enrichment
4. Choose mode:
   • Automatic: Enriches all new leads hourly
   • Manual: Enrich on demand (more control, costs credits only when used)
5. Click Save

Manually Enrich a Lead

1. Open lead with email address (e.g., john@acmecorp.com)
2. Click Enrich button at top of form
3. Odoo searches database for company info from email domain
4. Auto-fills:
   • Company Name
   • Company Logo
   • Revenue Range
   • Employee Count
   • Industry
   • Phone Number
   • Social Media Links
5. Review data, adjust if needed

Bulk Enrich Leads

1. Go to CRM → Leads (list view)
2. Select multiple leads (checkboxes)
3. Click Action → Enrich
4. Confirm enrichment (shows credit cost)
5. Wait for batch processing

Method 6: Convert Website Visits to Leads

Track anonymous visitors, convert to leads based on behavior rules.

Enable Visits to Leads

1. Go to CRM → Configuration → Settings
2. Find Lead Generation section
3. Enable Visits to Leads
4. Buy IAP credits for visit-to-lead conversion
5. Click Save

How It Works

Real-World Impact Examples

Example 1: SaaS Company

Example 2: B2B Equipment Supplier

Common Mistakes

Implementation Checklist