Exchanges, marketplace, networks, lead providers, lead generators or all the above are places any advertiser/lead buyer can purchase leads.  How ever or where ever you get your leads, there are going to be variations in the conversions you have as a advertiser.  Why is this?  One large factor is the end user- the person/company that purchases the lead has a major affect on how well purchased leads convert.

A recent article on Lead Market Watch brought up some good points about lead buyers providing performance data to the lead provider. As a lead buyer, you want to get the most amount of leads at the least amount of cost to your company. Also, having the highest conversions to sales with the least amount of money invested in these leads is very important. Therefore, would you be cutting off your own feet if you provided how the leads are specifically performing to the company that provided them to you? When things aren’t going so well, the natural thing to do is always complain and express that. However, should you tell the lead company what the results of these leads was, in order to provide them with specific information on the lead providers bringing in the leads? Would providing this information eventually promote the exhange/network etc to increase the cost per lead if they are seeing the specific success you are having? These are a lot of tough questions that I am sure have a lot of different opinions on.
Here are Leadpile Lead Exhange we welcome lead buyers to provide conversions to us and also any potential issues with the leads. The more information we have on the leads the more we can help the next guy that is wanting to buy leads from us.
On a side note, each buyer of leads is going to have different ways of working leads they purchase. Knowing that, it is hard to actually compare apples to apples with leads. Knowing overall specifics of the leads and the companies buying them, will also help us to see any sort of consistancy on that lead type.
Some other questions lead providers might be curious to know are:
1. How long is your sales cycle?
2. How quickly do you call the leads you purchase?
3. How many times to you call the leads?
4. How many leads does it take for your company to get an application?
5. How many applications does it take for you to get a sale?
6. Approximately what kind of cost/fees does the customer absord for your service?
This information can be very helpful to any company that is providing leads, however there could be some information that is just not something that the lead buyers want to provide.