Leadpile’s Blog

Exchanges, marketplace, networks, lead providers, lead generators or all the above are places any advertiser/lead buyer can purchase leads.  How ever or where ever you get your leads, there are going to be variations in the conversions you have as a advertiser.  Why is this?  One large factor is the end user- the person/company that purchases the lead has a major affect on how well purchased leads convert.

A recent article on Lead Market Watch brought up some good points about lead buyers providing performance data to the lead provider. As a lead buyer, you want to get the most amount of leads at the least amount of cost to your company. Also, having the highest conversions to sales with the least amount of money invested in these leads is very important. Therefore, would you be cutting off your own feet if you provided how the leads are specifically performing to the company that provided them to you? When things aren’t going so well, the natural thing to do is always complain and express that. However, should you tell the lead company what the results of these leads was, in order to provide them with specific information on the lead providers bringing in the leads? Would providing this information eventually promote the exhange/network etc to increase the cost per lead if they are seeing the specific success you are having? These are a lot of tough questions that I am sure have a lot of different opinions on.
Here are Leadpile Lead Exhange we welcome lead buyers to provide conversions to us and also any potential issues with the leads. The more information we have on the leads the more we can help the next guy that is wanting to buy leads from us.
On a side note, each buyer of leads is going to have different ways of working leads they purchase. Knowing that, it is hard to actually compare apples to apples with leads. Knowing overall specifics of the leads and the companies buying them, will also help us to see any sort of consistancy on that lead type.
Some other questions lead providers might be curious to know are:
1. How long is your sales cycle?
2. How quickly do you call the leads you purchase?
3. How many times to you call the leads?
4. How many leads does it take for your company to get an application?
5. How many applications does it take for you to get a sale?
6. Approximately what kind of cost/fees does the customer absord for your service?
This information can be very helpful to any company that is providing leads, however there could be some information that is just not something that the lead buyers want to provide.

Webster’s defines Quality Assurance as “a program for the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service, or facility to ensure that standards of quality are being” and Quality Control as “an aggregate of activities (as design analysis and inspection for defects) designed to ensure adequate quality especially in manufactured products”. Doing both is making sure that every lead and producer is of the highest quality.

 Quality Assurance should be done on a daily basis to make sure that each producer is introducing the best quality lead to a marketplace. Every company should check a select number of leads every day to check quality and make sure that everyone is doing their best to make every lead the best it can be.

 Quality Control must be done if a lead happens to get returned. By checking each one and making sure those producers get notified if there is abundance by them so that they can make assessments and/or adjustments.

 Quality is very important and is something that everyone must think about. Whether you are a producer bringing in a lead, or a buyer trying to contact a consumer, quality should be one of the first things that you think about.  

According to a BtoB magazine survey, nearly half (45.4%) of B2B marketers plan to increase spending on lead-generation programs in the second half of 2008. “The online survey of 273 corporate marketers, conducted in May, also found that of those planning to increase spending the majority (39.4%) plan an increase of 11-20%. Half (49.9%) of marketers say increasing lead-generation activities is their top priority, followed by proving the ROI of marketing expenditures (27.1%).

According to the survey, even though the budgets for lead-gen programs are rising, the biggest obstacles for increasing spend on such programs, the majority of respondents (47.2%) reported, was that they do not have reports to show the ROI for what they are spending. Moreover, 41.8% cited sales management lack of follow-up impeding their ability to show ROI; and 11% said the biggest obstacle was their agency’s not knowing how to prove ROI.”

This is a very interesting survey. We often find that a few simple suggestions to our Lead Buyers in terms of Sales Approach can make all the difference in the world. For many companies, it is not about lead quality, as much as it is about the quality of their Companies Sales Cycle.

Lead buyers – reallocating their advertising budgets from PPC into the lead-gen… because it works. 

You can have your money spent on PPC and try to compete with the big budget companies over the first 10 or 15 placements, or you can choose a lead-gen company that will send you the leads you desire for a lower price. If you will start working with a Lead-gen company, ask them if they produce their own leads. The value and power of a lead-gen company resides in its knowledge of generating their own leads and the ability to increase their CVR while improving the lead quality.

Spending less for a quality lead it’s just one of the advantages of choosing to work with a lead-gen company. Another tremendous advantage will be the option you have in filtering your leads. A Debt Settlement company, for example, can filter your leads by the consumer’s debt amount, or a mortgage company can filter the leads by LTV, loan amount and even credit score. If you choose to advertise on the paid search, the same lead could cost you 3 times or more, and unfortunately, you will also be paying for leads you can’t use. 

Why a lead-gen company can deliver you the same quality leads for a lower price than producing the leads yourself? It’s all about the supply. The webmasters are choosing working with a network or a lead exchange due to the fact that they have a higher acceptance rate for their leads. This brings to the Lead Exchange a larger supply of leads for the buyers (advertisers) and more money for the sellers (publishers). 

Leadpile, producing leads in over 30 verticals for the last 7 years, has improved constantly the process from a click to a complete application, resulting in an increased CVR and a lower price per acquisition for its buyers. We wouldn’t be here if our work wouldn’t have been valuable, considering that Leadpile had no outside funds and the Lead Exchange was built entirely on the profit from producing its own leads.

Since we opened up the Lead Exchange, our publishers can use the same technology that makes the lead-gen a better alternative to the traditional affiliate networks. Instead of crowding their pages with banners, they choose to place a form on their site that will give them an instant access to the entire network of buyers. 

The lead-gen space its just in its infancy, and it’s here to stay. 

What is the quality assurance program that each lead generation company should follow?

Leadpile has built its reputation on both lead volume and quality. Started as one of the largest producers of finance leads, Leadpile kept its promise to deliver the top quality leads and never compromise when it comes to lead sources and advertising channels. 

Generating leads by incentivizing the consumer is probably one of the major problems in the leadgen space. Delivering incentivized leads can be a short term revenue and it has all the chances to hurt the entire business on the long run. 

If we would have to outline the quality assurance program, it would look something like this: 

• No Incentives
• No misleading information
• No adult content
• No old leads (Real time generated leads only) – major difference between Leadpile and SalesGenie for example
• No third party submissions – Consumer must submit the information online
• No gambling content
• No SPAM
• No Adware/spyware
• No fly by night companies – All websites are owned by legitimate, reachable owners, with valid contact/taxpayer identification

Lead production needs to be continuously monitored to ensure that every publisher meets stringent standards.