Leadpile’s Blog

Many in the affiliate marketing world are getting ready to reunite with those in the industry, or see some NEW faces at the Affiliate Summit Boston. The Affiliate Summit is a great place to get to see what others are doing in the industry, hear some new concepts, and get some nice FREE goodlies from all the booths.
The mission of the Affiliate Summit is to be the leading global source of learning and networking opportunities surrounding the affiliate marketing industry, according to Webmasterradio.com.

Leadpile Lead Exchange will not be having a full booth set up, however we will be apart of the “Meet Market” gathering. We will also be visiting all the booths to say hi!
We looking forward to seeing all of our wonderful affiliates that attend the conference!

Tracking your Payday campaign could never be easier.  Let’s talk about the LeadPile lead exchange and some unique tools provided inside your campaign to better assist you.  

LeadPile, Payday/Cash Advance vertical has launch above expectations.  We are the Source for Payday/Cash Advance leads.  For uniqueness the placement in our marketplace is powerful.  You see inside your campaign you will see your current bid price, your rank, and the top bid.  Yes, our top payday buyer is currently paying $68.50.  Our quality can stand in front of our price.  

The rank is significant as it will elaborate how many more campaigns are currently active, funded and have priority to accept a lead first.  Our lead exchange is Market Driven.  Rank 1 will have the opportunity to purchase the lead first.  Be aware that you will be receiving higher quality.  Not so much due to the cost, but consider this, you are coming across new consumers that are in some serious need of a loan that might only fill out one application online, hence was our application.  

I always suggest to get a good placement in our PING tree.  If you are an aggregator and you are working with extended amount of buyers you want to take a good placement.  Offer them the best quality lead that they have not seen within the acceptable time frame.  

I provided this screen shot so that you can view and understand how it works.  At any time a buyer can go through the “main settings” inside there campaign and increase the price so that they can jump over a few affiliates.  That’s the nature of a lead exchange.  You have total control over your price and you are notified of your placement. This way you can make some logical financial evaluations and define where you need to be at that makes sense for your company.

With a Lead Exchange such as LeadPile we make it user friendly so that you can at all time have the information you need right in front of you!  No wonder, we are the Largest Online TOP Rank Lead Marketplace!

Is the Exit Traffic considered a good or bad approach when it comes to Lead Generation and Affiliate Marketing? Well, that it all depends on how it’s used.

Just so we are all on the same page, exit traffic IT IS NOT a baby on a bike , but it represents a way to capture the visitor when they close the browser, or the first visited site. The way to do it, is by providing a popup window with a different offer. It can be a related service, or can be totally a different offer, but targeted to the consumer’s profile. The key of converting traffic is to offer something relevant to the visitors  you have. Learn about their needs and learn about your traffic. That will give you an advantage against your competition. 

After spending thousands of dollars on PPC (pay per click), each visitor represent a great deal to you, and by using the exit traffic in your advantage will help you increase your spent and not reduce it. Of course, Google Adwords division will be really happy about this!

There are many popup blockers out there, but there is still a good percentage of visitors that don’t use them. Learn about your traffic, create targeted pop-up and you will succeed in a market where many struggle. 

Everything is possible with the right mind set! 

One of the main issues when it comes to affiliates, lead generation and traffic is the fraud. The better you become in tracking your leads, affiliates and methods they use to generate leads, the better your program will work. 

Leadpile’s Lead Exchange  has been working into improving the MicroClick Form (previously known as the I-SaveNow Form) application process, storing as much data as possible, so that we identify the source and also the validity of the lead. 

Some lead verticals are easier to fake than others, and the more fields, checks and restrictions for the data, the better is to control what goes through the Exchange. 

Paid Search (Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing) are facing 20% or more fraud. The Lead Exchanges are not an exception, but the percentage is way lower. 

A click is very easy to fake and it can happen way faster and with a lot more volume than within the lead process. Also, each lead can be refunded in case of invalidity, where the traffic takes more time and sometimes is going untracked. Thinking that in certain industries we are seeing bids that are ranging between $6.00 to $50.00 per click, that can be a substantial loss for the advertisers. 

Let’s take a look at the following Click Fraud Index:

Leadpile has been producing it’s own leads in addition to the leads generated by its own publishers (partners) and that helped the Lead Exchange (Marketplace) becoming one of the top Lead-Gen companies out there. We actually are getting the hit from the PPC and take away the burden of this cost from our Lead Buyer (Advertisers). One of the most successful campaigns are still from PPC, where our Buyers are enjoying top lead quality. Of course, that comes for a price, but our service is going to make up for it, no matter how big or small your company is. 

Our team is geared up everyday to provide the top notch customer experience you (as a Lead Buyer/Advertiser) deserve! No matter what your challenge is, let us know so we can work better for you!

Market Watch released this afternoon that Coca Cola shares went down .18 cents, that’s 18% down this year so far. But they are not the only ones affected by the Nationwide struggle that’s affecting Millions of consumers and businesses.  

Market Watch also reported J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. second quarter net income fell 53%, the company took over $500 million in costs for its Bear Stearn’s acquisition. Microsoft shares dropped 5.7%.  IBM shares are down .06%. Investment bank Merrill Lynch shares drop 7.1%.  Capital One Financial Corp registered a 4.9% decline. The list goes on and on.

Businesses are also being affected and loosing money.  What’s happening with the market?  These well known companies that were once making millions are now losing millions.  Gas pricing is going up at ridiculous cost. The cost of food has climb.  Unemployment rates are over the hill tremendously.  Debt is at the highest peak.  More Americans are filling for Bankruptcy.  Airline fairs are rising.  Less people are taking vacations.  Student’s are falling behind on their student loan payments.  More families are being affected by bank foreclosures.

Is this truly healthy for America?

I have talked about the consumers battle against the dead end they are facing.  Although its not just consumers its also major firms and corporations, for years investors were glorified to subsidize in these companies but now are selling shares and stocks.   

Everyone in society has somehow been affected.  Its lead exchanges such as LeadPile that are here to assist and help in each way we can.  LeadPile is partnered with some of the best affiliates in the market to provide quality leads.  Within our partnerships we are targeting consumers and businesses that need your help to clear their debt, to help with bankruptcy, to assist with business loan or business cash advance, to aid with credit restoration or a payday loan, to help them get finance to buy a house or a new car! 

LeadPile focuses on targeted traffic and provides applications or contacts to companies that can help consumers or business in the services they are in desperate need of! 

Let’s go into Dynamic Pricing and its advantage.  Let’s say you have a network of advertisers but they all pay different pricing on leads.  How do you integrate this in a dynamic pricing tier for the auto and payday vertical?  Everyone wants first look. In a lead marketplace top bidder will get first look.  Segregate your advertisers by pricing.  

Here’s an example.  You have 5 companies buying from you.  Comp.1 can pay $6, Comp.2 can pay $29, Comp.3 can pay $40, Comp.4 can pay $10, and company 5 can pay $23.  Set up 3 campaigns in our lead exchange.  Campaign 1 set it at $6 Campaign 2 set it at $23 and Campaign 3 set it at $40.  Set up different affiliate IDs and put Comp 1 and 4 on campaign 1, company 2 and 5 on campaign 2 and company 3 on campaign 3.  This way you, we PING leads for your advertisers within the price they can afford to pay and you PING back a response with the price you accepted the lead and sold at.

Dynamic pricing works in different ways.  We can set up a unique tier that we will PING a lead at and you can POST back the price the lead was sold at. In addition, you can set up various parameters as filters, such as if you have zip codes that will pay a higher amount than others we can set up campaigns for higher paying zips and a different campaign for lower paying zips. We can also set it up by states, or even customers.  Whatever works best for you we can do.

The technology within our marketplace is so extreme that our integration and the variation of methods that we can assemble is quite intense.

With Tier Pricing, you set up the tier that you feel comfortable paying, we PING you at that price and you POST a reject or accept response letting us know if you will buy the lead or not.  You will pay the price the Tier is set for that we receive accepts on.  The lead exchange works fantastic, you can up your bid to subscribe you in a higher placement or you can go lower if you need too.  

Take into consideration that you are also taking advantage of the redirect feature that is available when we are doing the POST. 

If you need ideas or suggestions on how to set up your dynamic pricing or tier structure give our friendly experienced staff a call.  We will work with you to make this the best experience in the history of lead gen and find the solution that will best fit your companies platform.  And, finding the best way to set up your campaigns for your network of buyers!

I was on the EcomXpo online trade show this week and WOW, pretty amazing people.  So I’m at the lounge to interact and market, yet you see a few attendees craving attention.  Being mean, to put their name out there.  Yes, being indecent, vulgar  and obnoxious.  But for the most, part it was a phenomenal show and the interactions with some more serious players were beyond concrete.  Of course I got a good laugh in the lounge. 

I must say trade shows are hard work, even online.  Great experience it is but next week follow ups will be constant dialing to reach out and indulge in making new partners.  

Trade shows respect has moved into different directions.  

Working with advertisers and publishers, many might think its a waste of time to attend the trade shows. What matters is what works, not what its “thought”.  The facts count.  The facts are that they work, get a feel for the networking inside trade shows and how it will bring in business and strategic partners.  

I remember going to ad-tech, sure the interaction is there.  Nothing like talking face to face and meeting the person on the other side of the phone.  But one thing that bothers me is some of these attendees are just their for the booze!  Each time I talk to them, they are with a new company, they talk a big game but talk is cheap and when it comes down to business they are shady.  Its ridiculous that one person has been with 5 different companies within the industry in a short period of time.  

I scratch my head and ask myself “who hires them?”.  Now, now, I’m being honest not offensive, but realistically why would you hire someone that has been with a multitude of lead exchanges in such a short time and doesn’t fit in.  

Ad-Tech, Affiliate Summit, EcomXpo and all other trade shows believe it or not is a perfect place to network and create new partners.  Over 10,000 exhibitors and attendees go to these social networks so that’s a lot of business.  

When you do get a chance visit some of the conferences and discussions that are offered. You will learn valuable information that all in all will be beneficial to your business.  

In the lead exchange open doors for new opportunities, there is a need for leads in almost every industry, you just have to know how to approach it! 

MicroClick Ads Turning Affiliate Marketing Upside Down, Reports LeadPile

Phoenix, Arizona -July 8th, 2008 — Within three weeks of announcing the introduction of their new “MicroClick Ads”, LeadPile has created quite a buzz in Affiliate Marketing Circles throughout the United States, Canada, and the UK. Leadpile, The World’s Largest Online Exclusive Lead Marketplace, or Lead Exchange, has reported that the MicroClick Ads have contributed to a 17% increase in production for selected Lead Publishers, and have helped LeadPile to continue its position as the leader in the Lead Exchange Revolution.

What are MicroClicks? Simply put, MicroClick Ads are very small single page mini sites that open a new window enabling Affiliate Publishers to have much more control over their own sites than with “Old Fashioned Affiliate Programs”. The MicroClick ads are a tremendous innovation for Publishers desiring to monetize their traffic. To see what everyone in Affiliate Marketing is talking about, please visit http://www.leadpile.com/microsites.html

The MicroClick Ads give Publishers total control over their own site giving them more compelling monetization opportunities for their content.  For the first time ever, Leadpile’s MicroClick Ads place Publishers in total control of their own sites, and their own income because MicroClick ads are located their own Websites, and secured on Leadpile’s Secured Servers. MicroClick Ads have been designed for those Publishers knowledgeable with HTML and JavaScript, and those who are not. Inserting the MicroClick ads into a website is fast, simple, and easy.

Andy Jacob, Founder of Leadpile, says “There is absolutely no limit to the number of MicroClick Ads a Publisher can place on a site. All they need to do with their site is to target each keyword that they want, add the simple code automatically provided by the LeadPile System, and the LeadPile Lead Exchange does the rest. Jacob says, “This could be a game changer for Affiliate Marketing as we know it.”

About LeadPile:

Leadpile, the World’s Largest Exclusive Online Lead Marketplace/Lead Exchange, offers the Lead-Gen “Space” the Largest, centralized location for Buyers and Sellers of Exclusive Leads to engage in an exclusive  Lead Exchange, or Lead Marketplace. The Leadpile Marketplace allows the Originators of Leads, and the Lead Buyers themselves, to decide what price they are each willing to sell, and buy, their leads at, and the way in which the lead delivery will take place. Visit LeadPile at http:///www.leadpile.com , or visit the Lead Exchange Blog at http://www.leadpile.com/lead-exchange-blog.

How much are your keywords worth? Being involved in the PPC or SEO, you will be constantly challenged to find the right keywords to use. One way to track which keywords are giving you conversions  is to place a tracking pixel in your confirmation pages. Leadpile has made this process easier than ever before.  For those using the MicroClick Form, Leadpile provides a detailed report that will display the Search Engine and the “Keyword” used by the visitor to find the website. Only the visits that resulted in a transaction are displayed. This report is based on the “referrer” and for that reason, you don’t need to add anything in the tracking URL. Once you take the MicroClick Form and you add it to you page you are done. All the stats are being gathered and displayed for you in the account. A snapshot of one of our Publishers’ report is provided below.

It’s the only time when such tools are made available to the publishers. We believe that the affiliate marketing is changing, and the current publishers are looking for more than just ways of sending traffic to “offers”, they are looking for ways to become part of the lead-gen space.

Choosing the right affiliate to work with in a lead marketplace is crucial!  Not only publishers but advertisers as well.  Every market has companies on the “Good List” and companies on the “Black list”.  You might be asking yourself, “why is she writing about this?” Well, its important, and yes we are on the Good list!

You have to know who you can issue a line of credit for example, or who is going to produce real quality leads and not name’s and numbers gathered from the yellow pages.  Are you laughing? No really, its time for the truth, unfortunately you will have them knuckle heads that want to make easy money and just start POSTING junk! Or you are going to come across advertisers that want their cake and eat it too, they want leads on a credit line and then disappear into thin air.

Just be careful who you choose as affiliates.  There are sharks in the water!  There are many great affiliates to work with so take this as good advice.  Just be careful who you affiliate with and ask lots of professional questions. 

Who doesn’t? Well, we love them and we hate them at the same time. They are sweet, but if we have too much of them will be unhealthy. Well, it’s the same with the cookies we use for tracking.

The HTTP cookies (or the tracking cookies), are parcels of text sent by a server to a web client (usually a browser) and then sent back unchanged by the client each time it accesses that server. HTTP cookies are used for authenticating, session tracking (state maintenance), and maintaining specific information about users, such as site preferences or the contents of their electronic shopping carts. (Wikipedia:cookies)

The reason we hate them is because we can’t count on them. In the affiliate marketing, a cookie is storing the affiliate ID and the offer we use on our site, so if something happens with the cookie, we (the affiliates/publishers) are not going to get paid for the transaction. A cookie can be blocked by the browser settings, it can be deleted or it just expires. Every time something like this would occur, we are loosing the tracking, so we are loosing money.
For this reason, and not only, we have developed the MicroClick Form (previously known as the I-SaveNow Form), which was released to small groups of webmasters in 2001. The main advantage of using the Form, instead of a regular banner or text ad, was the embedded “producer ID” (affiliate ID) in the form, which would be consistent, no matter what the browser settings were, or if the visitor would delete (destroy) later on the cookies. Also, instead of having 30 days expiration time (as the cookies have), the producer ID would be available for tracking for as long as you are keeping the form online.

The response from the affiliates (publishers) or Lead Sellers (in Leadpile’s Marketplace) has been fantastic. Over the years we have grown our Marketplace to thousands of publishers that are using our forms for their websites, generating millions of impressions daily.

Unfortunately, the ones that don’t have a website in place or they have something that isn’t specific to a certain industry, they will still have to redirect the consumer to a website with specific content related to the advertised product/service. To fill in this need, Leadpile has developed the offers and the new MicroClick Ads, which are more like Microsites, used to host the Form and capture the visitor data. In order to keep the traffic focused on the publisher website and increase their monetization capabilities, we have developed the Microsites to open in new small windows. Same as we did with the Form, the MicroClick Ads and sites are hosted by secured servers, so the transactions can be processed through a secure socket layer (SSL) connection. Unfortunately, we will have to use the cookies for this process.  I guess we will have to love the cookies, with their good and bad consequences. The good news is that, if you choose to go on a “diet”, you have that option with Leadpile. 

Good things!

Working in affiliate marketing you always want to figure out creative ways to get your name out there on the net.  Here are some places that I found to be helpful in building the partners I am working with.

LinkedIn- great place to join various groups and have access to companies in your line of work.  I found that some people I come across in my network are companies/websites that I would not have necessarily located with one of the search engines.  LinkedIn is also great to get some professional advice from all the people in your network.   You create a profile and the website does the work for you!  Great site to get your name out there! 

http://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_home

Glam Interactive Group- womens on-line networking site.  This site allows you to get in touch with women who are always looking for new partnerships and new ventures.  You have a profile on this site and the website does the work of connecting you with other women in the industry.

http://glaminteractivenetwork.ning.com

Ecomexpo- a virtual tradeshow for the on-line marketing industry.  If your company can’t necessarily get out to the tradeshows around the US, then this is a great way to network and meet new potential partners. You can have a booth set up or just be a visitor.  Nice way to get a lot of new contacts in companies that you might already be working in or have wanted to work with.  All the work can be done from your desk.

http://www.ecomxpo.com/

youtube- great place to see some off the wall videos, but I also found it to be a place that you could locate some partners.  There are a lot of affiliate marketers doing videos and talking about various aspects of the industry.  Maybe they are a great candidate to become a partner or they have connections to those that might be interested.

http://www.youtube.com/

Trying to come up with unique ways to get new partners is something I feel that you have to do in order to grow your business.  Using these sites has helped me to come into contact with new people that I might not have ever ran into.