Leadpile’s Blog

A recent study indicated that the use of at least three social media options in email marketing campaigns lead to a 55% higher click-through rate.  The interesting thing is that only about half of email marketers are adding some sort of social element to their email campaigns.

The real ROI comes in the shared messages of these type of campaigns. Messages that included a sharing option generated 30% higher click-throughs than emails without the social sharing links.  Three or more generated 55% higher click-throughs.  Twitter alone showed a 40% higher CTR than without a sharing link.  Twitter appears to be the most popular option at 67.2% of all social emails with Facebook coming in a close second at 62.7%.

Think about it, you send an email to a million users in your email list.  If 55% of the users that click through your message and share it with their 130+ friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter, imagine how much ROI you are getting on that email campaign without any additional cost!  Folks, time to start A/B testing!

Leadpile is excited to announce some great new offers we have for the Leadpile publishers to drive traffic to. If you are someone who has SEO, PPC or email traffic, we want to talk to you about some great new offers.

Bankruptcy:
Great new offer that we are looking for some direct traffic to.
bankruptcyprograms.com is the great new offer we have a text link or even banners available to generate the leads. This offer is consumers that are looking for more information about potentially filing bankruptcy.

Online education:
Another great new offer we are looking for traffic on. This offer is consumers that are looking at going back to school.
Educationplans.com is the offer we currently have available to our publishers through iframe form, banners or direct traffic to the offer.

Pre paid credit cards:
Consumers are always looking for a way to help them re-establish their credit. Leadpile has two great new credit card offers we are looking to generate leads for.

Account Now-
Great pre paid Visa for consumers looking to start establishing their credit again.

Greendot-
Great pre paid offer for consumers looking for a pre paid credit card.

If these offers are something you are interested in working with us on, please contact us to discuss further!

Leadpile is very much familiar with email marketing and works with a lot of publishers that are generating traffic through this source of marketing. Because it has become so popular with companies trying to monetize data, and publishers trying to have a less expensive way to generate traffic, reading up on any new email marketing trends is important. DMNews brought up some key points about email marketing:
1. Permission and privacy: Various states are making rulings on cases that involve consumer’s information, so keeping up with not only CAN-SPAM but other legislation involving consumers privacy, is key to keeping your nose clean with the law.

2. Video in email: The next biggest thing is utilizing video in emails. If you are not someone that is utilizing this yet, you better start reading up now.

3. Partnership of email marketing and social media: Incorporating links to social media in emails is something that marketers picked up on last year, however the future of these two is going to be big. Perfecting the use of social media in email is something that all emailers will have to learn more about, because this is going to be something that is going to continue to emerge and you will need to learn to keep up with it.

“Nineteen percent of online marketing budgets are now allocated to e-mail, according MarketingSherpa, and 54% of marketers plan to increase their e-mail budgets this year, based on research from Econsultancy and ExactTarget.” If you are not a company that is looking at increasing your email marketing budget, trends show you might want to reconsider this!

In previous years, marketing strategies involved companies utilizing direct mail as a source to reach consumers. However, it seems to be going extinct because of it’s lack of effectiveness and cost. Today, companies are using email marketing and other direct marketing sources as a way to reach new consumers. Many however are still planning on utilizing direct mail as a source to get new clients, however the other source to generate consumer is growing at a much faster pace. The bottom line is, the economy seems to be heading in the right direction, which means marketing budgets can start coming back to now generate more customers. Any other marketing methods that are seeing a downward trend from the economy? Mail can’t be the only marketing method being affected by the nation’s struggling economy? Leadpile is certainly seeing the affects of the economy and it’s traffic coming in, so maybe this is affecting all sources of marketing.

Leadpile has rolled out a new offer for the payday loan lead type, and we are looking for more traffic!
We are looking for traffic to Green-paydayloan.com through PPC, email marketing, banner or social networking. The top payout is currently at $73.60. If you are a Leadpile publisher and looking to drive traffic to the offer, you can locate the text link in your seller account under the “offers” tab. If by chance Leadpile is not already working with you, we would like to see you join our marketplace and generate payday loan leads as a Leadpile seller/publisher!
As we all know, a lot of consumers are looking for help in their temporary setbacks, so a payday loan is a lot of the time that in-between money that is going to help them in their current situation.

The days of newspaper and magazine advertising seems to be becoming more and more extinct as businesses turn to online direct response advertising. Online direct advertising incorporates lead generation, search and online directories into one category and then there is national and local digital media. Businesses seem to be turning more and more to generating clients through search and other more “targeted” media because of the better end result = more business. The costs to print newspapers and magazines has not become as profitable as in previous years because many are not turning to print to get their news, they are turning to a more instant “fix” like the internet. Knowing this, publishers and advertisers are also turning to the internet for customer’s attention. Lead generation companies, like Leadpile, have become more and more in demand as the cost to convert even things such as a television ad to a interested customer rise.
Biz report points out that, “Besides online search, the forecast predicts that online direct response marketing, a new category in 2009, will increase by 2.9%.” Other reports show that by 2014 this sort of advertising is set to increase by 10%. This is great news for lead generation companies and our search engines. However, the picture does not seem as good for national digital media (rich media, online video, email, display and mobile) which is set to decrease by 11%, and local digital media (ie: television, radio and newspapers) to decrease by 5%. The good news is the report also points out that both are set to rebound in future years.
My question is how are other advertising sources, besides online media, going to adapt to increase their revenue? This has to be something that is very challenging for many companies who have built empires by using these non-online media companies (ie- newspapers and magazines). I can’t imagine how people survived in earlier years without the internet, and the capabilities it has to reach so many people in such a little place (computer). This reminds me of growing up and parents stating they did not have televisions or things like calculators in their daily life. I could never understand how they survived, which I know now sounds silly. What will be the next innovative creation that will change our world???????? Who will discover it?

Is there really a good time to capture email addresses and other secure information from consumers that are visiting your website(s)? Bizreport.com thinks there is an optimal time to get the consumer to provide their email addresses, when doing their online shopping (or other online activities). So, when is an ideal time to capture this sort of information from the consumer?? The report says, “At the highest engagement level, and most times this is at the point of purchase or while consumers are beginning to shop your site. .” Why is this? Capturing this sort of information creates more customer loyalty. If you want the customers to come back to your site, or eventually react to future emails you send them, they have to trust you and the site. The report also found that since mobile marketing (SMS marketing)is so popular right now, capturing their email addresses to send them mobile updates is something a lot of consumers are open to.
These sort of rules also apply to other online experiences, such as lead generation. For instance, Leadpile captures email addresses on all it’s leads, however there are some lead types such as payday loan and auto finance where additional secure information is captured. Capturing this information at the right time is certainly key to the trust factor with the consumer submitting online requests for things such as loans.

Running an effective business you now have to have a website to help promote it worldwide. However, creating a good website is not enough, you have to have it promoted in the internet’s search engines. This is something easier said than done. Creating a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy is very important on getting that desired traffic to your website. I thought this was a good basic article about some things to really pay attention to.

1. Most prospects to your website will be coming from search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask etc).
2. Well known search engines work the best.
3. Most prospects use phrases, not single words, to do a search on the search engines.
4. Track the prospects experience on your website.
5. Optimize using more than just one search engine.
6. Check and analyze the results of your tracking/reporting.
7. Use results from tracking to update your site where needed.
8. Prospects rarely go beyond the first or second page of in the search engine results. Work to get on those pages in order to benefit from your SEO strategy.
9. Keyword density is a major part of the ranking of your website.
10. Successful keyword placement.

Having our website, and our publisher’s websites, ranked high in the search engines is key to getting the traffic to get leads. Leadpile Lead Exchange believes quantity is not necessarily the key to success, but quality is.

In these challenging times, as I read more information about how things are changing, perhaps it is best to find a little humor in the headlines. Today I was reading about how many people are moving their attentions to online activities. Well, The Nielsen Company did a recent study and found that 94% of adults prefer to watch television on… wait for it… on their television!! I don’t know why this made me laugh, but with all the change and turmoil in the world, it appears we still prefer to watch television the same way we have been watching it all these years. We may watch a missed episode online, but the study clearly shows that we would prefer to watch television the old fashioned way.

Here at Leadpile we are always changing, but the goal remains the same. We want to help you grow your business. With our Lead Exchange, List Management, Email Marketing and other services we are always changing, but the goal of helping your business grow stays the same.

Ok, I may be taking a bit too much credit for this exciting news.  Just before the recent holiday, a study came out that said email marketing has taken the lead over direct mail and all other forms of direct marketing.  Direct Partners, in their report state that 35% of the companies surveyed use email marketing as their primary form of direct marketing.  The study which surveyed companies with revenues in excess of $100 million found that 25% of the companies use direct mail, and 21% of the companies use free inserts for their direct marketing.

Obviously, these companies have found the value and return in email marketing.  Email marketing is growing and becoming more accepted everyday.  Please let us help you and your company with your email marketing and list management needs.  We are presently adding more servers to keep up with the growing demand.

With surging fuel prices, the airline industry is in dire condition. Even before the rising fuel costs, the industry as a whole was in pretty bad shape. Through it all, there has been one shining (and profitable) star. You can probably guess that I am writing about Southwest Airlines. They have been profitable, and remain profitable because of shrewd business decisions and good customer service.

Well, they have made another good decision, and this one touches in our world. Like everyone else, they want to drive as much traffic as they can to their website. Of course, their way of building traffic is not traditional, and excellent out of the box thinking. They are sponsoring the upcoming Midnight Gaming Championship. The ages for these participants are 16-25 years… not exactly your frequent business travelers.

The marketing message is about their desktop widget and their weekly email. Of course, the participants have to register for this event, and I can guess you know where that is done… their company website. This appears to be another great business decision by Southwest Airlines… exposing future travelers to their company and their services. Based on their track record, you would have to predict this will be successful.

We are having great success with email marketing and list management at Leadpile. This can be used to build traffic and/or be more transactional and create sales. Please let us help you and your company become the Southwest Airlines of your industry.

You are in the right place at the right time! For old time Rock and Roll fans…Dr. John was in the right place, wrong time.

If you are reading this post, you are part of a large movement, and an expanding market. 

With all the negative talk about the economy, and housing, and jobs etc… you are likely engaged in an INCREASING and IMPROVING economy.  It is an exciting and rather historic time for the internet and advertising on the internet.  This year advertising expenditures on the internet are going to pass the expenditures on a little medium that has been around for a while.  The medium I speak about is radio… I find it amazing that something still fairly new, can pass a juggernaut that has been a major part of people’s lives for so long.   This is an exciting and improving time for lead generation, and we are having great success with email marketing and list management.  By the way, magazines are next… Bloomberg projects that internet ad spending will pass magazine ad spending in 2010…  Indeed these are exciting times, and Leadpile can help you and your company reach your goals.