That special day for “lovebirds” is approaching, and the many dating sites out there are competing to get some love matches for the big day.  According to DMNews, single consumers are shopping for love on the web. DMNews also states, “The US online dating market will reach $932 million in 2011, and European online dating will double by the same time, according to JupiterResearch. The beginning of the year is one of the busiest times for this market.” So is this true, singles have new resolutions and now are looking for that “cupid” online?
The statistics seem to show that those surfing the net for love, and those that actually click on advertisements/offers increased at the end of January/beginning of February. Based on this information, generating dating leads might be something we work a little faster to get into here at Leadpile Lead Exchange. It seems most of those lead buyers that are looking for dating leads, are looking for personal information about the consumer. This is something we are already capturing to a degree, so maybe this is something we start drumming up some business for.

Cupid + Leadpile Lead Exchange = Match?

As many of you already know, LinkedIn is a great source for networking.  I was looking over the site and came across and very good article about the benefits of LinkedIn.  I thought I would share this information with the Leadpile readers.  According to LinkedIn blog, there are 10 potential benefits to using LinkedIn:

1. Increase your visibility
2. Improve your connectability
3. Improve your Google PageRank
4. Enhance your search engine results
5. Perform blind, “reverse,”

and company reference checks
6. Increase the relevancy of your job search
7. Make your interview go smoother
8. Gauge the health of a company
9. Gauge the health of an industry
10. Track startups

Leadpile Lead Exchange and myself included, utilize LinkedIn as a great source to network with other companies. If this is not something you are already doing, I strongly suggest taking a look and seeing all the benefits of using this great site. We would love to hear from you on LinkedIn.

If you want to access your LinkedIn on the go.

I have to share some information that I obtained from the Affiliate Summit Vegas.  In a informative pamphlet given out by Davis & Gilbert LLP, they point out some helpful tips that affiliates should pay attention to.

1.  Know your stats- make sure you receive sufficient feedback and reporting on your accounts.

2.  Know what is being done with your data- use data in a ethical legal way according to all privacy laws.

3.  Any new partnerships, always get the agreement in writing- anyone doing business for you or with you, make sure agreements are in writing for you to always refer back to.

4.  Have a game plan for 1 year, 5 years down the road- where do you want your company to be in the near future or even years down the road?  Have a plan.

5.  Know what you are agreeing to – if you are signing up with a new affiliate or starting a new offer, make sure you know all the ins and outs of what you just agreed to.

6.  Have insurance- corporations need to make sure they are adequately insured (ie- errors and omissions, liability and possibly some other applicable types of insurance).

7.  Know what your employees are doing with your systems and data- monitor what is happening in your business with your own employees and partners. The more involved you are in all aspects of your business, the more you will know what is going on. Proactive NOT reactive!

8.  Corporate housekeeping-keep all that you are doing as a company organized.

9.  Monitor internal and external business practices regularly

10. Have good ethics- those affiliates that do things “right” will have a long successful affiliate marketing partnerships.  Those that choose to try and “beat” the system will be short lived.

Becoming the best affiliate you can become is very important in building your business.  Leadpile Lead Exchange is very concerned about how it conducts business and making sure it maintains the highest standards.  Like any other affiliates, if there is room for improvement we are always open to getting feedback from our partners and clients.  Have some additional tips…. We would love to hear them.

According to Hitwise.com, in the last month of 2008 Google accounted for 72.07% of US searches. I know, this is no surprise, but the part that caught my eye was what categories people were searching.

This article breaks down the subject matters that consumers searched for on Google, and I was a little surprised financial related searches were so far down on the list.

Of the people who searched on GOOGLE, here is what categories they searched:

Health and Medical   44.45%

Travel  36.24%

Shopping and Classifieds  25.81%

News and Media  20.54%

Entertainment  24.83%

Business and Finance  19.19%

Sports  13.33%

Online Video  33.69%

Social Networking 17.87%

Leadpile Lead Exchange deals a lot with financial lead types so this is a little surprising to me.  People searching for a payday loan, new car, debt help and other finanicial assistance I would have thought would have more people looking versus the “travel”?  Are people traveling these days and trying to find deals still?  Maybe it is time to promote our vacation offer.

Thank you to all the affiliates that stopped by our Meet Market booth on Sunday!  We look forward to working with some of you in the near future.  Overall the Affiliate Summit was great turnout.   The only challenge I saw was the need for some more meeting rooms.  Meeting with current or potential new clients is one main reason for attending the summit, and I have to say finding a room to meet in was sometimes a little more difficult.  The other thing I noticed was that Vegas was just not Vegas.  The streets were more vacant and the casinos were certainly filled with less people.  Has the economy hit Vegas????? Overall a great show!  Thanks Affiliate Summit staff.

According to emarketer.com, 2009 is going to be the year of spending advertising dollars on online video.

US marketers responded on how they plan to spend their 2009 online marketing budgets.

Of the people surveyed, here is who plans on spending their budgets on what:

1.  Online video  (66.8%)

2.  Social media   (41.6%)

3.  Search    (34.1%)

4.  Podcasts/webcasts (32%)

5.  Rich media  (30.5%)

6.  Banner ads   (22.8%)

7.  Mobile  (17.4%)

8.  Other   (6.8%)

This shows that more than two-thirds of respondents said they would focus their budgets on online video in 2009. According to the article, “eMarketer estimates that spending on online video advertising will grow to $4.6 billion in 2013, representing a more than sevenfold increase from the $587 million spent on the format in 2008.”  Therefore, if you are not planning on doing any online video with your marketing campaigns, you might want to at least entertain the idea.  Leadpile Lead exchange is utilizing online video to educate the public on Leadpile. Take a look in YouTube and see for yourself. How will you try and utilize online video to help promote your company?  Time to start thinking about that.

After reading some recent advice from some DMNews contributors, I thought I would pass along these suggestions on how to maybe maximize your lead generation efforts.  One suggests providing feedback on the leads to the publishers/companies where you get the leads from. Publishers then can use this information to try and alter the traffic so conversions increase.  Good feedback and bad feedback is always helpful to the lead generation company providing the leads.
Another suggests keeping landing page information short, and try and minimize the information that is asked of the consumers. Others suggest making webinars as simple of a sign up process as possible.  This all kinda correlates together in the fact that the more “simple” things are for companies and the consumers they are trying to capture, creates more success.  One suggestion I would recommend is utilizing your affiliate manager/account manager for information.  They work with campaigns all day long and can probably offer some information that will also help to make your lead generation campaigns a success.  If you have no way of speaking with a live person, then that could make it very difficult to get that extra help.  Find a company that has “live” people to help answer all your questions.

Leadpile Lead Exchange, and I am sure a lot of other lead generation companies, are always looking for ways to improve.  Having a successful experience with us on the advertiser/buyer and publisher/seller side is also our goal.  Simplicity of landing pages and buyer feedback on leads are just a few things we also agree are very important to the success of our marketplace.  Got any any suggestions for a successful lead generation campaign?

There was a recent report by Channel 15, that brought up a study done by Vanderbilt University. In this study it pointed out, “Payday loan customers who are approved on their first application are more likely to file for bankruptcy than those whose initial applications are denied, according to a study out of Vanderbilt Law School. ” I am not sure I understand where this is going as far as trying to point out a bankruptcy filing rate with those that took out a payday loan. The people that could not get a payday loan probably did not qualify for the loans because of some sort of income issue or other specific requirement the payday lenders require. I would think this sort of individual had more potential of falling behind and contemplate bankruptcy, don’t you think?
Leadpile Lead Exchange has been generating payday loan leads for some time now. Blaming or relating  bankruptcy filing rates to those that have taken out a payday loan, and not those that have been approved for one, just does not make sense to me. Does this also mean that someone who took out a new auto finance loan is more likely to file bankruptcy, versus someone that applied for an auto finance loan and was denied? There are people that have a lot of outstanding past due debt that I would say is more of a correlation to filing bankruptcy, versus someone who took out a payday loan.  Those that did not manage their debts properly, had an expected loss of job, or those that had a major financial change in their life are more of a cause of someone filing bankruptcy. Payday loan = bankruptcy?  Payday loan = what else?

In the midst of banks going under and consumers struggling to survive, another bank transaction has happened. According to consumer affairs, Capitol One has purchased Chevy Chase Bank. Chevy Chase bank has a large presence in New York, New Jersey, Texas and Louisiana.

     I think the oddest thing about another bank merger happening is, that I am not sure how many more of these mergers can really happen?  What other banks are out there anymore?  Also, I am not sure about your area of the country, but there are other “new” bank branches showing up on intersections all over my city.  I thought banks had no money?  How are they building all these new locations around our towns?  Maybe Leadpile Lead Exchange should start generating leads of businesses wanting to open a new bank…. no I don’t think so.

On a serious note, it is just a little odd to me to have so many banks either going down or being purchased, to then see new banks opening up in our cities. Are they going to be able to lend to all these consumers who are not qualifying at these other “struggling” banks?  I hope so because people need help right now!

In recent news Amazon.com rolled out that they will be using customer feedback to help market products on their website.  According to DMNews, “The company announced this week it has formed a “Holiday Customer Review Team,” comprised of six of its top customer reviewers.” These reviewers are going to provide helpful tools to fellow Amazon.com customers. This is something that caught my eye because you don’t normally see companies utilizing the very same people that are also customers. Customers listen to other customers, so this could be a good thing for Amazon.
Today will officially start the Cyber Monday, which refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the United States between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hopefully, with the kickoff of the shopping season, we will see more customer feedback being used to help guide customers on shopping “smarter”.
Besides shopping websites, sites such as Leadpile Lead Exchange use things such as testimonials to help provide feedback. Testimonials, customer feedback and other forms of “product review” are great ways for companies to know what’s working and what’s not working in their company. Nobody knows a company better than the people actually using it!

According to DMNews, Yahoo was rated the preferred search engine for US Hispanics in October 2008.
Knowing this popularity, Yahoo has launched Yahoo Publicidad. This is Yahoo’s answer to reaching the large Hispanic population.  Yahoo’s Hispanic America Marketing director says, “Yahoo is the only marketing platform to integrate display, performance or search and mobile advertising.”  This site is a marketing platform for advertisers to reach US Hispanics, Latin American and South American consumers.  Many lead generation companies are fucusing on the Hispanic market.  This might be a good indication that companies like Leadpile Lead Exchange should focus more on this market.  

Yahoo has an eye wide open for targeting the hispanic population, maybe we should also take note too!

Help with repairing your credit is something pretty much everyone could use a little assistance on. With a tough economy, Americans are needing to worry about more important things like paying their next electric bill. However, when that time comes where they have the ability to get help, credit repair is a great option to look at. Credit repair assistance can be a very informative service, that once you learn what makes up your credit report, you will be able to use the valuable information in the future.
Leadpile Lead Exchange is currently generating a large volume of credit repair leads. These consumers need the help now and are looking for someone to provide that service. Knowledge is power when it comes to your credit report, unfortunately not everyone is in a position to have great credit. Knowing we have a large demand for this lead type, and the large amount of consumers wanting assistance, Leadpile has rolled out some text links/landing sites for lead sellers to use.

www.countrywidecreditfix.com
www.creditfixnationwide.com
www.mycreditjump.com
www.personalcreditassist.com
www.uscreditfix123.com

If you are currently not working with Leadpile to purchase or sell credit repair leads, I recommend it!