Leadpile’s Blog

When and why a Lead Exchange would work? I’ve read many articles on this topic and none seem to understand why an Exchange would work. Mostly it’s because they don’t know what Affiliate Marketing is, and how to generate revenue by promoting websites online. 

We all know that behind every online business stands the “Traffic”. The traffic a website has determines the revenue the site will make. After you have the traffic, you need to have the smart people behind it that understands what to do with it. 

The value of a Lead Exchange stands in its Lead Generation capability, the Network of Affiliates they have, and what tools they make available to its partners. 

Without the Leadgen platform and the Affiliates that use the tools effectively, the Lead Exchange/Marketplace it is nothing more than an “Aggregator”. We all remember the “Aggregators” and their stories. Buying a lead from here and sell it somewhere else for a profit. 

Leadpile has been focusing on the Leadgen, offering alternatives to the existing Affiliate Marketing for over 7 years. Not only that we know what it takes to be successful in generating leads from Search, but we know what painful it is when you use the traditional Affiliate Networks like CJ (CommissionJunction.com). 

The MicroClick Forms and Ads (www.MicroClick.com) are just the front-end pieces of the Exchange, the real stuff starts when you start promoting them and get into the Tracking available in the Exchange. 

Superpages (part of Idearc Media) has implemented a new policy, where if you are a lead generator, you can’t advertise directly for the service you are targeting. For example, all the sites like LowerMyBills, LendingTree, etc., will not be able to advertise under “loan” or “debt consolidation” categories. They are forced to advertise under the “referral” category. 

Also, it appears that if you are a lender or a bank, you will need to fill out a credit application, even if you have been doing business with them for years. The credit cards are not enough as they need to make sure you are not going to go out of business. 

I will keep you updated with news from them. 

If 85% to 95% of all emails being handled by the ISPs represent spam which mostly are unwanted messages abusively and indiscriminately sent by unscrupulous marketers or scam artists, and the costs associated with the necessary bandwidth and network maintenance are supported by the ISPs, which in turn get paid by everyone that’s using the internet one way or another, then spammers are really picking our pockets.

Someone has to pay for creating and supporting the infrastructure required by 100 BILLION SPAM emails PER DAY!!! And that’s not cheap: the estimated costs were about $100 BILLION in 2007. So with 1,412,489,652 internet users worldwide (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) and $100 billion in money spent/lost in connection with the spam, it comes to about $70.79 per person using the internet per year.

Incredibly, about 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200 spammers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam), which would mean that each spammer steals nearly $500 MILLION per year from everybody else. Now is that grand theft or what? If a bank had HALF A BILLION stolen by 200 different people in a year I would tend to believe these people would be caught pretty fast.

LeadGen companies and Publishers that specialize in internet marketing do need to have an ethical conduct and refrain from spamming. LeadPile has built its reputation as a lead marketplace / exchange that strictly prohibits the practice of spam or any other abusive or deceptive marketing methods. All marketplace participants have to abide by strict rules which ensure that consumers are protected, and the lead exchange continues to grow based on the benefits it brings to consumers, lead buyers (advertisers) and lead sellers (publishers). All accounts have a dedicated account manager who is in constant communication with lead sellers and our quality control division is closely monitoring the leads production. Confidence in using the LeadPile Lead Exchange is critical to its success and the marketplace proved to be incredibly successful at attracting both quality lead sellers and lead buyers (http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS215372+06-May-2008+MW20080506).

According to the AP,  Yahoo stock rose out of a free fall Tuesday on reports that the Internet pioneer is reconsidering its recent decision to fall into the arms of online search leader Google Inc. instead of Microsoft Corp. The prospect of Yahoo spurning Google in favor of an alternative deal with Microsoft cheered Wall Street who are still disillusioned with Yahoo’s rejection of a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft.

For players in LeadGen, watch this closely! When a deal does get done, this will make it even more interesting for the Lead Exchange, its participants, and the way in which it will continue to impact the Lead gen Industry.

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. 

If you follow the LeadGen business, you probably have already heard that the LeadPile Exchange recently announced that it has topped the 15,000 mark in Buyer Accounts. While this is quite an interesting accomplishment for Leadpile Exchange, the real key is to monetize these buyer accounts by placing them in the position to provide accelerated growth to the platform.

Leadpile’s advanced proprietary exchange system places lead buyers in the position to receive exclusive leads “real-time” in the format they want, and with any filters they need. It also can provide lead buyers the opportunity to simply self-select and download as many leads as they desire from the huge lead database. Many people ask why would a Lead Buyer use Leadpile’s Centralized Online Exclusive Lead Marketplace instead of an “Old Fashioned Affiliate Program”. It’s really quite simple. Leadpile’s exchange provides Lead Buyers with an incredible platform to reach the finest Lead Sellers in the world. Lead Buyers can bid on Leads making the marketplace more efficient. And not only that, Lead Buyers will pay a much lower commission than with “The Old Fashioned Affiliate Program”. And more importantly, Lead Buyers in the exchange purchase leads on a real time basis, and only buy what their system is set up to buy, with the filters you desire!

Welcome to the Leadpile Lead Exchange Exchange! Our blog about everything Leadgen, lead exchanges, lead marketplaces, affiliate marketing, and lead industry news.

While Leadpile is at the forefront of the Lead Exchange/Lead Marketplace Industry, there are many interesting things that are continually going on within the LeadGen Industry. It is for this reason that we invite all interested parties to participate in making this a great place for information, thoughts, and exchange of ideas.

As you may already know, Leadpile believes that the Internet LeadGen space has been a bifurcated marketplace for too long. This is the reason why we have built Leadpile’s centralized Lead Exchange and Lead Marketplace the way we have. Simply put, the system places buyers and sellers of leads to engage in the business of doing business…fast, simple, and easy.

At Leadpile, we believe that Lead buyers should have access to the highest number of quality lead sellers in one simple to use location. And, we believe that Lead Sellers want access to the world’s strongest lead buyers, who will bid for their quality leads.

We welcome all of our friends, competitors, business associates, and Lead Marketplace and lead Exchange participants to participate here.

Thank you in advance:

Andrew Jacob and Florin Ilie; Founders, Leadpile Lead Exchange/Lead Marketplace