Leadpile’s Blog

In today’s world there are many things that have changed in a advertising sense. One of the largest changes that has happened is in the way in which advertisers advertise towards women. There are more women in the career role, running a business and buying high priced items for their home. I found this article on Phoenix Business Journal very interesting. For instance, they stated:

*Women business owners spend $1.5 trillion on business purchases.
*In today’s world, age is less important than life stage, e.g., 60-year-old women are dating, 50-year-olds are starting new careers and 40-year-olds are having children.
*Women purchase (or influence the purchase of) 85 percent of all consumer goods including automobiles, investments and computers, which were traditionally viewed as male-domain items.
*Advertising that makes a woman feel uncomfortable about her looks or health will have a hard time reaching an audience willing to purchase its product.

More businesses are realizing these facts and starting to adjust how they market their products online, through television, and print media. In previous years, selling your product or service was something you had to appeal to a man, however as we can see things are changing.
With the Leadpile Lead Exchange we deal with all sorts of lead types and all sorts of demographics of consumers and advertisers. The key for our marketplace to be effective is not only diversify what lead types we are working with, but also understand that publishers doing effective marketing to generate the leads is really important. To do effective lead generation, you must know details about the product and service you are generating leads for, AND you must understand who are the potential people you need to attract in this market.

In light of what is going on the economy, direct mail credit card offers have continued to see a decline. According to DMNews, direct mail production has been continuing to fall since the 3rd quarter of 2007. Now things are probably getting worse for those issuing the credit cards, because of the tighter belt on lending guidelines. With costs high to do direct mail campaigns, and the inability to lend to as many people as they want, credit card issuers are having to face the idea of either cutting back, or looking at other options to generate business.
Leadpile Lead Exchange works with a lot of lead types relating to the financial industry, however generating credit card leads is not something we have had a recent demand for. Is this maybe something that will now change, as advertisers look for more cost effective ways to generate business? We certainly can look at generating this lead type if we have a high enough demand. However, maybe consumers overall will shy away from even applying for a credit card. I believe the payday loan industry will continue to strive to be the go-to lender consumers lean towards. Trying to get qualified for a “standard” credit card or loan, is going to be harder and harder these days to get.

Now might be the time to go out and get your new GM auto. According to MSNBC, the employee discount promotion will not be extended past the end of this month. If you are wanting any type of GM, now would be the time to go out and get it and save some money! The discount was saving some consumers anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars on that new car. This promotion has been going on since mid August, however sales are still down from the year before. Fortunately, it has allowed GM to have less of a “slump” compared to Ford and Chrysler.
If you are a consumer who is wanting to get that new auto NOW.. Let Leadpile connect you with dealerships in your area. Go to my loan and debt website to get matched up with an auto dealer.
If you are a publisher or advertiser, we would love to work with you here at Leadpile Auto Lead Exchange to connect consumers with dealership near them!

A large portion of online advertising is done through search engines. However, getting ranked HIGH on the search engines is every company’s goal. Unfortunately, it is easier said than done to get ranked well.
According to onlineadvertisting.net, there are some facts regarding search engine ranking:

1. 80% of consumers click on the first 3 listing in the search engine listings.
2. 54% of consumers will only look at the first page of results.
3. 19% of consumers actually click through to the 2nd page of results.
4. 10% of consumers got to the third page of search results.

To really be effective you have to be listed well on the major search engines. However, businesses sometimes do not have the resources or money to get there. The key is to do your research. Search engine optimization companies are out there to help businesses understand how to get ranked higher. Unfortunately, like what makes up a credit score….. EVERYTHING that makes up your search engine ranking, is an unknown.
Search engine rankings are a key factor when dealing with lead generation and Leadpile Lead Exchange. The advertisers often times don’t want to deal with SEO (search engine optimization) or PPC (pay per click campaigns), so they turn to a more effective source for potential customers. They turn to Leadpile’s lead sellers. Many of our sellers are experts on getting ranked well on the search engines and other forms of online advertising. We are a common place for both sides to come together.

There is generation “X” and baby boomers that we all hear about, however have you ever heard of Generation “V”? Generation V is the generation of the future… the generation that is dealing with online EVERYTHING. Unlike the other generations, Generation V is not defined by an age, gender, social class or where they live. However, this generation is based on what they can and have achieved, accomplishments, and an increasing desire for the use of digital media channels to discover information and build knowledge. If you are a company that is not online… you better be soon!
According to marketingcharts.com, 80% of generation V will be “lurkers”. These are people that will reap the rewards of the online world. Others are trying to be apart of the online world by participating in the activites such as blog posts, forums, and YouTube. Those is previous years did not do such things to keep an online presence, however this is something that companies need to take a look at when dealing with how they market their company online. Defined demographics of consumers are a way of the past, because it is getting harder and harder to determine those that are online and buying the product.
Companies must change around how their online presence is represented, because so many people are using the internet as their only source for information and other key aspects to their daily lives. Why is it though that many create accounts in places such as dating sites, email providers and blogs, that is not themselves (anonymous)? Are they trying to protect themselves from people knowing who they really are? Not sure on why Generation V does this, but we will see how much more the online world really affects various things such as retail, dating, lead generation and other up and coming industries.
I have to say the publishers I work with in the Leadpile Lead Exchange are mostly going to be considered Genration V. These are people that live, breath and do everything around the internet.
We welcome all generations to our marketplace, but I have a feeling there will be much more Generation V making up the Leadpile Lead Exchange!

“Customer Service is a function of how well an organization is able to constantly and consistently exceed the needs of the customer.”    

I had to go shopping for a new car this week and went to 2 different known dealerships in town. One I had never been to before and one I had been to many times.

We started out at a Chevy dealership because of an ad that I saw in the paper that read “Employee Pricing on all new cars.” I thought I could look at the new cars, see what I qualify for and then if I needed to get a used car. I told them the model that I wanted to see then proceeded to look at 4 different makes and models of car that I really did not want and they were all used. The salesman had decided to show us all used cars even though I told them about the ad and what I wanted. We left that lot and went down the road to a Dodge dealer.

At the Dodge dealer I told the salesman exaclty which model I wanted and we went straight for the ones that were on the lot. They were the new 2009 models and I liked them all except the color. They had 1 used car in the color I liked, decent miles and was in excelent condition so I ended up getting that one.

If the salesman at the Chevy dealer would have just shown me what I wanted I may have ended up getting one of the used cars, who knows. He made a decision to show me what he wanted to show me and not what I wanted to see. He called a couple days later and I informed him that I bought another car that same night down the street. He wished me luck and I did the same. Now I know that I should just stick with who gives me great service everytime we go there and don’t try using someone else because they advertise a good looking deal.

We here at Leadpile strive to make your experiences with us easy and enjoyable and do what we can to keep you coming back again and again.  I believe that we at Leadpile have the Best Customer Service you can find!

Who is still picking up the Sunday Paper?  It has some fascinating stuff like clip off coupons, find an automobile, or look for a job.  Sunday mornings, while I go for breakfast, I see the older generation reading the newspaper. Not so much the younger ones, they choose to have their laptops next to them or their iPhones. 

I was reading an article today on www.investopedia.com regarding the yard-sales.  They were explaining how to set up a yard-sale and make some cash. I’m familiar with the advertisements inside a lead exchange, but this was somewhat out of the box thinking.  The article is called “In A Cash Crush? Hold A Yard Sale” by Lisa Smith.  Lisa is explaining how to advertise and how to have a successful Yard Sale by making it unique using Craigslist, or putting colorful bulletins or advertising in the newspaper.  

It all comes down to: targeting the audience.  The older generation are not computer savvy, and they are not sitting on their computers as long as the younger generation, so they are better of reading the paper. Than you have some other people that are traveling a lot, they are more targeted by the bulletins. The ones hanging out in the Starbucks, with their computers, or with their web enabled phones, are going to see your ads on the web. The internet is the highest growing method of advertising, and it’s also the most targeted one. Not only that you are able to target exactly the demographics you are looking for, but you are able to track the efficiency of your campaign as never been possible before. You care see where the consumer came from, what ad they clicked on, how long they’ve been reading your page and even how long it took them to finish an online application. 

After reading this article, I came to think about advertising to the leads that did not sell in our marketplace. These are mostly aged leads that were left behind because the advertisers met their caps.  They might not be of any interest to the current buyers buying real time leads, but they are a treasure to the companies interested in cherry picking their leads.  LeadPile Lead exchange has an increasing network of publishers and active verticals that is doing business in.  As the Largest Online Lead Marketplace, LeadPile Lead exchange has a good number of valuable leads that can work out for the advertisers that have small budgets, or they want to complement their current inventory of leads. 

Testing out different venues of advertising or using aged leads and filtering them by the consumer initial interest, can bring some value to your current business. 

Leadpile is working closely with the buyers to increase their ROI, and we are committed to your, the Advertiser, success.

According to DMNews last week, recent correspondence sent out by some lawmakers, internet and broadband companies will be taking a look at the advertising they are doing. For example, internet companies track what websites and other details of what their customers are doing online. This information is then used by the internet companies to provide some targeted advertising. Depending on what websites the customer goes to, the internet companies will send out target ads that they think the consumers will be interested in.
Should internet service providers be able to capture all the websites you visit on a daily basis, and use that information to then target specific advertising? Is this considered going too far in order for them to do their advertising?
Yahoo is now allowing you to make that decision and choose to opt-out of them doing this sort of “information gathering”. Maybe other internet service providers will follow in their foot steps. There has to at some point some guidelines that should be followed in order to have some level or privacy, in this BIG BIG internet world.

Publishers are spending a lot of money on PPC campaigns through Google AdWords.  Have you ever researched the cost of producing a real time quality lead? Depending on the vertical, it can get really expensive, especially if you are looking for quality and genuine interest.

Capturing a name, number, email, address, best time to call, can get really expensive. If you want to target geographically, by zip or state, it will increase your price and lower the amount of traffic you are getting. A lead can be really inexpensive, if you are just capturing email address, and you incentivize it, but if you are looking to attract customers that are genuinely interested in your service, its not going to be .20 cents or .50 cents, it will be way more expensive. You can expect prices as these if you are looking for lists, but why would you do that when you have the Yellow Pages and costs you nothing. You can definitely get leads for such a price, but those will be leads that are generated from the yellow pages, or aged data (lists) of consumers that showed an interest in your service years ago.  So what is the price for a good, real time, exclusive leads? It depends, it can be very expensive, depending how competitive is your vertical.  You will get what you are paying for. In other words, you are going to be happy with the return on your investment (ROI).

Advertisers have to consider that publishers or lead exchanges are eating the cost of any leads that are invalid.  Paying anywhere between .25 to $1.50 per click, or even $15, does not guarantee a conversion. Even if we get a conversion, it will not necessarily mean that you, as a buyer, will accept the lead. If you are a Debt Settlement buyer, you might want only want $15,000 and above in Unsecured Debt, which will significantly increase the price to produce that lead. 

Lead exchanges welcome advertisers to join the marketplace to HOST their offers. Paying the right price for the lead, working with the lead exchange to optimize your campaign and filter the lead sources, will ensure a successful campaign for you, as a buyer, and for the Lead Exchange and its publishers. 

Think of it this way, lets say you need to travel to a different state.  Would you rather rent a bike or a car? By renting a bike, you will save money on gas and get in a better shape If you are concerned about the time you need to get to your destination, this will not work too well for you, and renting a car might be more suited for you. Time is money, and we all know it very well.

Make great choices and you will see more money coming into your business! Buy quality, real time exclusive leads, and you can be assured that Leadpile will be on your side from start to end! Pay the price that they are worth and you will get the satisfaction that you are searching for!

Leadpile’s Motto: “Good is the Enemy of Great!” – Jim Collins, Good to Great

You need god quality leads… Leadpile has them! I think most people do not realize the different types of leads that we do generate, and the benefits of a lead exchange.
We are currently generating more than 20 lead types.
Some lead types we are generating:
Payday loan
Auto finance
Debt settlement
Debt consolidation
Credit repair
Refinance
Home purchase
Foreclosure
Security Systems
Bankruptcy
Business Cash Advance
Equipment Leasing
Business Loan
Web Design
Credit Card Processing/merchant account
Health, auto, life and home insurance
Car warranty
Student loan loan/student loan consolidation
Credit Card
Home Based Business

If we don’t have the lead type you were looking for, we are always open to new ideas. JUST ASK!
I read a great statement on the Pontiflex blog, stating something about the fact that online advertising (also lead generation) is like drilling oil… either you hit the oil right away or you move on. The key is to diversify what lead types you are working with, and “hitting oil” is more likely to happen. Take risks as a company, get into new lead types, and create new ideas to change up how you work.
There are many lead companies out there that might just focus on a couple lead types, however Leadpile excels because we have so many lead types to meet so many different demands. One of the things we have learned is that making an effective lead exchange, you need to work with various lead types. Really there is just about any type of advertiser we can work with. We are also able to work with the various types of affiliates that are currently out there.
Think-outside-the-box if you are planning on working with us!
You won’t regret it.

The deal with Microsoft has been going on for months (Jan 31 to May 3), and it looks like both companies blame each other for the failure of this deal. “Right from the beginning we were open to doing a deal,” said Mr. Bostock, the Yahoo chairman. “It was simply a matter of getting the right price and getting the deal terms negotiated. They started backing off early on in the process.”

Microsoft sees it differently. “Microsoft diligently pursued a proposed acquisition from the day we made our offer on Jan. 31 to the day we withdrew it on May 3,” Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said by e-mail. But Yahoo’s management and board failed to engage in meaningful negotiations for weeks, Mr. Smith added. 

If we go back and re-evaluate Yahoo’s approach on Advertising, we might find few things that many of Yahoo’s shareholders are looking at and they should actually look closer. 

Yahoo has purchased Overture in 2003, search engine that was launched in 1998 (known as GoTo). Overture brought to the Internet Advertising the PPC (pay-per-click) model, and they key of their success was when Overture decided not to bring traffic to their site, but to offer its paid listings to other search engines. It was a very smart move, which made us all happy, as we could really bring more leads into our business, just by using one source – Overture. 

Once Overture became Yahoo Search Marketing, our PPC experience with this company took a drastic turn, and I wouldn’t say a positive one – I remember how all the campaigns were changed so it reflects the Google AdWords structure. I am sure that all of us spent days to re-organize the campaigns and get our level of production to the same level. I would have to say that now, in certain cases I prefer them against AdWords, not because they are better, they are slower, so the most patient Advertiser wins, so as the competition struggles, the prices go down. I am sure these are not good news for the shareholders. 

The Content Network has been inexistent in the beginning, and when it got started … gosh, watching it constantly wasn’t enough. It took another week to clean the mess. More updates and changes into Yahoo Search Marketing system, seemed to be like a Deja-Vu, for following Google’s steps and for another, getting again into the same struggles as before. 

Yahoo’s plan… we will wait and see, Microsoft is probably going to make a move, most likely they are going over their Search, but apparently Mr. Yang is for all or nothing. Is it going to be a $33 a share or $37? My guess is that if this comes to a deal, it will be for less than $33. They lost the boat once again, but it will come around. We’ll see if Steve Jobs’ interview to 300 vice presidents, held last September, was fruitful at all. Mr. Jobs spoke about the ingredients of his recipe for reviving Apple in 1996 – painful cuts and the reserve of “dry powder” – to be able to seize new opportunities (as Apple did with the iPod). 

The Lead Generation is going to keep an eye on their progress. The Lead Exchanges are part of Yahoo’s business – we are all connected in so many levels. 

We know that Google is pretty much out and the latest news are confirming the “no go” in Google-Yahoo deal: 

“I am writing to urge you to direct your office to take quick and decisive action by launching a formal investigation into the proposed business transaction between Google and Yahoo’s search-advertising business,” Joel Anderson, a Republican assemblyman from San Diego, said in a letter to California Attorney General Jerry Brown released this week. Google controls already  70% of search-related advertising market. This coalition could give Google even more power towards consumers browsing habits and choices. 

We all know there are some tough times going on with most Americans. Right now, Leadpile Lead Exchange is experiencing a surge with the payday loan lead type. Not only are publishers wanting to generate the leads, but the advertisers are needing those payday leads. If your not apart of the Leadpile marketplace, take a look at some of the conversions our publishers are receiving.

There are a lot of payday loan leads being generated, and WE want them to be SOLD here!
There are also a lot of payday lenders needing leads, and WE want them to BUY here!