Predictive lead generation marketing is the professional practice of extracting key information from customer data sets to decipher a logical pattern and predict future outcomes of user behavior. This information is essential for both earned and paid search marketing. In digital marketing, lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or conducting a search inquiry to locate products or services of a business. Leads can be created for purposes such as providing value, list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for sales leads. The methods for generating leads most often fall under the sphere of advertising, but may also include non-paid sources such as organic search engine results or referrals from existing customers.