# What is b2b lead generation? · Leadraft

URL: https://leadraft.co/glossary/b2b-lead-generation
Summary: B2B lead generation is finding businesses that might buy your product or service, and starting conversations with the people who decide.

Glossary · Lead generation · Last updated October 31, 2026

# B2B lead generation

B2B lead generation is finding businesses that might buy your product or service, and starting conversations with the people who decide.

**Also called:** Business-to-business lead generation.

B2B lead generation has two halves: finding the right businesses (list building, enrichment, qualification) and getting their attention (cold email, calls, ads, content, referrals). Most problems start in the first half.

The data sources differ by market. For larger companies, sellers use databases of employees and job titles. For local businesses, which rarely appear in those databases with useful contacts, the better source is Google Maps and each business's own website: almost every local business has a listing, and many publish an email.

Local B2B has its own traits. Decision-makers are often owners who read the shared inbox. Markets are geographically bounded, so you can count them and know when you've covered one. And the same offer usually works across towns in the same trade, which makes repeatable playbooks possible.

Whatever the channel, the law applies to B2B outreach too: CAN-SPAM in the US covers business email, and the UK, EU, Canada and Australia all have rules of their own.

## Example

A payments company targets restaurants in three Texas metros. It builds a list from Google Maps, filters to independents with a website, verifies emails, and runs cold email plus field visits.

## Sources

1.  1.[FTC, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business)

## Related terms

-   [Local lead generationLocal lead generation is finding and contacting businesses in a specific place, such as every dentist in a county, usually starting from Google Maps.](https://leadraft.co/glossary/local-lead-generation)
-   [Cold emailCold email is a one-to-one business email to someone you have no prior relationship with, sent to start a conversation about a specific offer.](https://leadraft.co/glossary/cold-email)
-   [Lead listA lead list is a set of businesses or people you plan to contact, with the fields needed to qualify them and reach them, such as email and phone.](https://leadraft.co/glossary/lead-list)
-   [Ideal customer profileAn ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the kind of business that gets the most value from your offer and is most likely to buy it.](https://leadraft.co/glossary/ideal-customer-profile)
-   [Lead scoringLead scoring is ranking leads by how likely they are to buy, using points for fit and behavior, so you contact the best ones first.](https://leadraft.co/glossary/lead-scoring)

## Further reading

-   [Google Maps lead generation](https://leadraft.co/blog/google-maps-lead-generation)
-   [Leadraft for local sales](https://leadraft.co/solutions/local-sales)
-   [Cold email laws for B2B](https://leadraft.co/blog/cold-email-laws)

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Last built: 2026-11-09