Leadpile’s Blog

With the popularity of Twitter growing everyday, many people will be looking at ways to improve the experience.  One of the early entrants in the field is Tinker.  Tinker will attempt to make it much easier to follow specific events and happenings on Twitter.  Twitter Search and other services have attempted to track some events, but have not been efficient, nor user friendly.

Tinker steps into this space and makes it very easy to follow events, and even breaking news.  Tinker will also be tracking topics on Facebook.  There are bound to be many players jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, but in the meantime, be one of the first to Tinker with Twitter.

I have to share a great website that I was recently introduced to.  Mint.com is a great site for anyone looking to manage their bills & finances all in ONE place.

According to the website, “We download, categorize and graph all of your finances automatically every day, so you know where you’re spending, without spending any effort.”  With consumers going through trying to manage their credit cards and really seeing where they are spending their money, this site will allow people to do that without the high cost of hiring someone.  I went through the process myself just to see how long it took, and I have to say it took only minutes and it is a secure site.  Making sure you are entering your account information on a secure website (HTTPS) is very important when working with personal information on the internet.  I have to say I am a little nervous of entering my personal information online, however I did proceed forward with it. Working at Leadpile Lead Exchange has helped to educate me on knowing what to pay attention to when surfing the net, and this website appears to be a great trusted site for EVERYONE to look into.  The other question I was wondering was, “how does this website make money, because this service is FREE?” After searching more and more, I found lead generation is what this company is doing.  They are offering “pertinent” financial services to consumers throughout the process.  Check it out… you might learn something about your own financial portfolio.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Jeff Bezos arrived unannounced in Lexington to work this week at the Amazon fulfillment center.  According to the Herald-Leader, Local Amazon employees say Bezos is working in the warehouse with the company’s hourly employees to see what they do and hear their comments about their work.

This is brilliant on two fronts.

1.   It is brilliant for a Leader to roll up their sleeves, and talk to the people who make the Company work.

2.   It would be more brilliant if Bezos came in “under secret” knowing people would talk about it, thus creating a buzz.

Since it would be impossible to keep the fact that  Jeff Bezos arrived in Lexington a secret, one can only assume that this is another feather in the cap of Jeff as a PR genius.

Either way, Bezos shows his brilliance here. 

In recent conversations with many of my affiliates, the conversations about the economy and the housing market have been very popular. The housing market as we all know has impacted those around us in a very dramatic way. There are short sales, foreclosures, and home sale conversations going on with those on the internet, and with those in our every day lives. If you are one that is in the market to buy a house, this is certainly the time to do that. However, knowing what a short sale , foreclosure and FSBO (for sale by owner) are is very important. To help with finding homes to purchase AND becoming educated on these terms, there is a list of websites that Hitwise.com considers the highest ranked real estate websites ending the week of 3/21/2009:

1. Realtor.com
2. Yahoo! Real Estate
3. Zillow
4. ZipRealty
5. RE/MAX Real Estate
6. US Department of Housing and Urban Development
7. Rent.com
8. Homegain
9. Trulia.com
10. ServiceMagic
11. Homes.com
12. Apartments.com
13. Century 21 Real Estate
14. Foreclosure Store
15. Foreclosure.com
16. Reply!
17. RealtyTrac
18. Coldwell Banker Real Estate
19. RealEstate.com
20. MyNewPlace

Leadpile Lead Exchange is always looking for new partnerships with websites such as these, and any other websites that are looking to be monetized. However, we are also looking for those sites that are great resources for consumers to learn information from, such as the ones listed above. Being educated on a large transaction, such as buying a home, is key to making that transaction that much more successful. These listed websites can certainly help with accomplishing that, so you might want to take a look!

Calling all college basketball fans…… March Madness is going on now!   
Did you know you can follow everything on the internet?
The tournament started back in 1939, however the availability of it at your finger tips was not present back then. 
Nowadays, websites such as NCAA.com and directtv.com offer up to the minute stats and videos on the tournament.
The internet is the wave of the future, and it is certainly something all of us can not live without…….even when it comes to basketball!

The social networking site Twitter has become very popular, and sometimes obsessive, way of life for a lot of people. Businesses are also utilizing Twitter as a way of getting their names out there, and selling promotional ideas and products.  These business are trying to cash in on the free advertising they get using Twitter.  However, knowing this is happening, one of Twitter’s co-founders is in the midst of creating a “twitter-like” fee-based service. This service will be potentially be an account a business could create which will have more features geared toward a business. There is no estimated time that this “new” Twitter will roll out, however I know a lot of businesses will want to be a part of it.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “Twitter will get a cut of one outside business that sprang up this week, a Web site called ExecTweets. The site, launched by online advertising network Federated Media, displays tweets from business executives.” Those that don’t know what a “tweet” is, it is a 140 character message stating your status.  You can have people follow you or you can follow others to know their current status.
Join the Revolution…. Follow Leadpile Lead Exchange on Twitter!

Having so much negativeness about the auto finance industry, I thought I would shed some light on it.  In recent news, there was a car manufactured by Ratan Tata, which costs $2000!  Tata Motors is the largest automaker in India, and has finally rolled out the much anticipated Nano.
Business Week states that Tata Motors is going to be doing a lottery to determine who will be able to buy the first Nano cars. Experts are keeping an eye on Tata Motors (parent company is Tata Group) and if this is really going to be bringing in some additional revenue for the company. Because of the low low price, experts don’t plan on this initial roll out to produce high profits for the auto maker. Tata Motors recently payed just over $2.3 billion for Jaguar and Land Rover. Let’s see if this car price and size sparks an interest with the US auto makers, who seem to already have an eye on creating their own version.
The auto finance industry is an industry Leadpile Lead Exchange is always keeping an eye on, and possibly something like this can spark some interest in consumers going out to purchase cars again… that is if you think you can fit in a little car like this? ummmmmmmm?

The IKEA Effect – When Labor Leads to Love – a great article from February 2009 number of “Harvard Business Review” by Michael Norton. The point he is making in this article got me to think throughly about Leadpile Exchange and our approach towards our clients.
The IKEA Effect is the phenomenon where people construct things themselves, and they come to overvalue their creations. It is the same principle that operating systems play in our lives. The more we learn a product and use it, the more attached we become to it.
In one of the studies people were asked to fold origami and than to bid on their own creations. It appears that, everyone was constantly willing to pay more for their own creations.
There is one limitation – the IKEA effect works as long as the labor is fruitful. If the participants failed to accomplish the tasks, the IKEA effect disappeared.
How many of you are using Google AdWords – as you probably know, there is not a lot of support out there to tell exactly what you should be doing, and even if you call the Support center, you will spend at least an hour to get only few ideas on how to manage your account. The idea behind it is the same, the more time you spend in handling your account, and assuming that your are getting an accomplishment out of it, that will motivate you to spend even more time and money.
One major downside of the IKEA effect is when managers are spending an overwhelming amount of time on projects that are not bringing revenue, or are even destined to fail. Of course their attachment to the project is determined by the time they spent in creating it. No matter if the company or their customers values it, they are determined to keep the project.
Leadpile is determined to listen to our clients, and create value in the Affiliate Marketing and lead-gen world – fortunately we have amazing people working here (strong too), so no one will spend too much time doing useless stuff.

Thanks to “Harvard Business Review” and Michael Norton for the great article

Craigslist took over the top spot for the most searched term that Internet users clicked through to in the United States, during the week ending March 14. Myspace had held the top spot as the most popular term since March 2006.    According to Hitwise, “U.S. searches on the term “craigslist” have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared with the same week last year.”  Why is this?  Could this increase in searching “craigslist” be a result of the economic position many consumers are in?  Either way, this is positive for Craigslist!  

So, who will be the next king of the hill?

Publishers in The Leadpile Lead Exchange certainly look at Craigslist as a place to promote their websites and the Leadpile offers. Those that are not, should maybe look into this site as a potential source of traffic.

Leadpile has released a new update for the Form tracking, specifically designed for those using Google Adwords to generate traffic. This is great news, as now you can manage your keywords and get accurate reports on the fly.

Those publishers approved for the Advanced Tracking, are now able to automatically send their keywords directly from the Leadpile Account interface to Google AdWords.

Compared to the last version, where the publisher had to download the unique landing URLs and upload them to AdWords, now you can click the “Submit to AdWords” button, and your keywords will be sent to your AdWords account. Each Keyword will have a unique URL assigned with the tracking information, which will be coded for privacy reasons:
Example: http://www.mysite.com/index.html?source=trac235223525

The “trac235223525″ has all the information about your AdWords Client, Campaign, AdGroup and Keyword. The reports will show in your Leadpile account daily, displaying your Keyword performance under each Client, Campaign and Adgroup.

This enables you to track how much you are spending and the revenue generated on each keyword, allowing you to optimize your bids efficiently.

How To:
1. Login into your Leadpile Account
2. Click on Offers
3. Click on “Create Tracking IDs”
4. Fill out the information required: Client, URL (your website), Source (ex. Google), Campaign (the exact Campaign Name you have in AdWords), Ad Group (the exact name you have in AdWords under your Campaign), Keywords
5. Download or Submit to Adwords – clicking on Submit, all the information is sent to AdWords. By Downloading it, you will receive a .csv file with your information.

We are really excited to offer our publishers tools that will make them successful in their online advertising, and if you have questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Got Gold?????

Unless you have been in a cave, you would know that the price of gold is on the rise.  Right now, the price per ounce of gold is pushing above $1000!  The price of gold has appreciated greatly during this economic downturn.  According to Time.com, “The supply of gold is also a factor in pricing. Many investors holding gold reserves have faced losses in their other assets, which would have led them to sell their gold. Ordinary people, too, have motive to sell their gold jewelry during a recession, which should increase the supply of gold on the open market and impede a price hike.”
Leadpile Lead Exchange has certainly recognized this increased demand in gold. Getting cash for your gold is hot in the affiliate marketing world, and on our televisions. I don’t think I can go an hour or two without seeing some sort of cash for gold commercial on t.v. Knowing this, Leadpile has created an offer, and is always looking for traffic to it (nationalgoldcenter.com). We have advertisers wanting more and more leads in this arena, and if you have a desire to jump on this band wagon, let us know.

The longer the internet has been around, the more people become “internet savvy” with finding exactly what it is they are looking for.  According to DMNews, generally consumers would conduct searches with one, two or three words. However, queries with four to eight words are becoming more and more popular. Consumers are getting smarter on knowing they would want a more specific search result, therefore entering in more words is providing them more specific results to choose from. In previous years, consumers would enter in a brand they were looking for and then have to navigate through the site for the information they were looking for. Because of this, experts state that brands need to have some sort of way to extract that traffic by having things such as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page and blogs. This would allow that brand’s site still to come up in the consumer’s search results. Leadpile Lead Exchange also understands this, therefore we are always looking for ways to optimize the traffic of those that are looking to purchase or sell internet leads. How is your site? Are you optimizing it effectively to get the most out of the search engines traffic?