Leadpile’s Blog

Twitter and Yahoo! have announced a new relationship that will change the “tweeting” world forever! As if there is not already enough instant access to your friends, neighbors, and now even your dogs every tweeted thought, Yahoo! search will now include real-time twitter updates!

According to CNN, real-time tweets will now be available to the 600 million users in Yahoo’s global network. Twitter users will also be able to update their status from Yahoo! sites and share content from Yahoo! in their Twitter stream.

Being in the internet marketing industry, it is pretty common knowledge that there are huge benefits to utilizing the social networking site LinkedIn. However, have you ever thought of LinkedIn as a source for traffic to your site? Webpronews, referenced some good points about the business social networking site, and it’s huge advantages. “You need to take into consideration that LinkedIn has the highest average household income per user over any other social networking site (even NYTimes.com and BusinessWeek.com readers).” “That being said, these are business decision makers you are targeting with your traffic from LinkedIn. The network is for real, and it will only continue to grow in time as there are currently 60 million professionals.”

The steps you should follow in order to truly maximize the capabilities of the LinkedIn site:
1. Complete your profile.
2. Increase you connections.
3. Customize your website links.
4. Answer questions.
5. Update your status.
6. Join niche groups.
7. Post comments in groups.
8. Add RSS feeds to groups.
9. Create a group.
10. Add the blog application to your profile.
I find this information very helpful and am going to look at following these steps with my LinkedIn profile, but also with the Leadpile profile. In the age of competitive traffic, finding a “free” way to get more traffic to your site is very very important. LinkedIn seems to be able to help with that if we all use it to it’s fullest potential.

Those five words seem to be to most said that day after the Super Bowl. It seems as if people are more interested in watching the new television ads rather than the actual Superbowl (unless your team is playing or you have money riding on it, of course!). This year does not seem as if it is going to be any different. According to a Nielsen survey, 51 percent of viewers are more interested in watching the Super Bowl for its ads, rather than the actual game. The survey also shows that viewers are more likely to remember the ads that are shown in the first quarter rather then the second, third, and fourth (the fourth having the least recall, only at 25 percent). Most of the ads that show in the fourth quarter tend to have similar ratings to a regular television commercial.
So how much cash is being shelled out this year? For a thirty second spot, it will cost an advertiser three million dollars. When spending that type of money for such a short period of time, advertisers are trying harder than ever to make sure that their commercials are remembered. Companies such has Papa Johns got creative by taking this years Super Bowls roman numeral and turning it in to a new pizza offer. Super Bowl XLIV will now be a Papa Johns Xtra Large four(IV) topping pizza. Boost Mobile is giving consumers a sneak peak of their ad on YouTube, for hopes that it will create excitement and buzz before it is aired during the game. Brands are also trying to use social media more for their Super Bowl advertising. Marketers are realizing that social networks is a great way to have people buzz about a product and get the word around.
It is interesting how on a daily basis so many of us will skip through the commercials, but for the Super Bowl we sit down to watch them. Some of the big players that you will see this year will be Frito-Lay, Boost Mobile, Diamond Foods, and many more. It is very important that brands are taking the time to make sure that they are remembered and are coming up with new and creative way to advertise. LeadPile has also been working hard to create new successful offers, however unfortunately we will be sitting this one out with advertising during the Super Bowl. Wishful thinking uh?
Now the only real question is, are you going to be watching it for the game, or the commercials?

In recent news, Leadpile is getting some great recognition from Revenue Performance Magazine. Here is a recent press release from December 11th:
Revenue Performance Magazine today ranked LeadPile as a Top Ten Performance Marketing Network in the United States in the Advertising and Marketing Category with 10 or fewer employees. LeadPile ranks the #1 Ad Exchange in the prestigious Revenue Performance Blue Book Top 20 rankings. The list is designed to provide some answers, by aggregating expert views, traffic data, and measures of industry influence.

LeadPile joins MediaTrust, ShareASale, Commission Junction and NeverBlue in the top ten list. LeadPile is the premier Lead Exchange, providing a central marketplace for the buying and selling of targeted consumers or “leads”. According to Revenue Performance Magazine, LeadPIle was selected to the celebrated Top Ten List because of its size, growth, and simplicity it offers both buyers and sellers of leads.

Eugen Ilie, LeadPile’s Marketing Director, says, “We are honored to be included in such an important publication as Revenue Performance Magazine. It is a testament to our team that we have been evaluated on our overall influence and reputation, and have earned the spot decided on by so many industry experts. It is our goal to continue to live up to such an honor, and our entire organization is committed to continuing to leverage our position in multiple verticals within the industry.”
LeadPile is the premier Lead Exchange, providing a central marketplace for the buying and selling of targeted consumers or “leads”. The Company, also ranked by Inc. Magazine as the Number 3 Company in the United States in the Advertising and Marketing Category with 10 or fewer employees, is the world’s largest exclusive online lead marketplace. LeadPile offers the lead-gen space the first ever, secure, online centralized location for buyers and sellers of exclusive leads to engage in an efficient, exclusive, lead exchange.

Almost everyone goes to the ATM to take out cash on a regular basis. Most of the time we do not even think about the task because it has become second nature. But have you ever found yourself in a situation where you need cash and you can find every other banks ATM, but not yours? It is not a big deal going to an ATM other than your own until you see that they are going to charge you around $3.00 to complete your transaction. Then on top of that your bank sometime charges you additionally for banking elsewhere. Over time all those fees can really add up!
Is anything currently being done to lower the fees or get rid of them at all? Currently, the Federal Reserve is reviewing the matter of the rising fees. This all started to come to the service when Bankrate.com found that out of network bank fees rose 12.6% from last year. Where every dollar counts these days, it would be great if the bank fees were eliminated or at the least, decrease. It should not cost an individual $5.00 to take out $20.00.
Here are some useful tips of how to avoid these fees:
1. Only withdraw money from your OWN bank
2. Use your debit/credit card
3. Get cash back when you are at the store
Maybe we should all go back to the old school way of banking… use a piggy bank!

Facebook is the largest social networking site out there. Whether you are looking so see what your friends are doing, finding old classmates, or just trying to stay connected, Facebook seems to have it all. All except Twitter that is.
When Facebook failed to acquire Twitter.com in the fall of 2008 they decided to do the next best thing and try to be more like them. Within the past week Facebook launched Facebook Lite, which essentially works in the same manner as Twitter. Facebook Lite took out all the frills so a user can only post their status updates. This is a great way to get more people to the site who are looking for a simple way to follow what their friends or favorite businesses are doing.
Facebook has also made it so people who already have Facebook can simply “Tag” a friend and then begin to follow them. This will eliminate the need to juggle between two Facebook accounts. Facebook really did their homework when they decided to start to have some of the same features as Twitter. They even decided to copy the “@” that one puts in front of a name when someone “Tweets” to someone else. So it looks like Facebook didn’t do their homework, but just copy off the person next to them.

Leadpile Lead Exchange is happy to be a part of another great way to network.  The eComXpo is a great place to find new affiliates and companies out there, right at your fingertips.  There are virtual booths, a networking lounge, presentations and even an ability to exchange business cards.  If you are not a part of the eComXpo craze, take a look and see how to become a part of this modern innovative way to network from your computer.

First, I would like to say congratulations to our next president of the United States. No matter who everyone voted for, we are all keeping an eye on how the future of our struggling America pans out.  Secondly, there was something that America should really pay attention to, and that is an amazing effect the internet had on the election of our 44th president.
The internet AND social networking tools contributed to the Barack Obama being elected. According to businessstandard.com,“Obama, on his part, has refined the digital act further — a fact revealed during his presidential announcement speech in Springfield last October when he said: “Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age…” A few examples of this being implemented, was in the case where almost 300,000 people created accounts on the barackobama.com website, he became the first YouTube politician, got involved on Facebook, MySpace, text messaging and all other avenues of the internet for fund raising and party awareness.
Another interesting aspect in this presidential campaign was, “Obama has proposed the creation of the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that the American government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will have a specific focus on transparency, by ensuring that each arm of the federal government makes its records open and accessible as the e-government Act requires. The CTO will also ensure technological interoperability of key government functions”, according to Business Standard.
No matter who was elected, the excitement of the internet and the power it can have also excited Leadpile Lead Exchange. We are in it for the long hall on wherever this great internet craze LEADS us!

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. 

Leadpile Lead Exchange is proud to announce we are now a part of the Facebook craze. Social networking sites are key to helping to define a company’s online presence. Leadpile realizes this, and now has it’s own profile. Join our Leadpile list of friends, and become apart of our Lead Exchange if you are not already.

Who is still picking up the Sunday Paper?  It has some fascinating stuff like clip off coupons, find an automobile, or look for a job.  Sunday mornings, while I go for breakfast, I see the older generation reading the newspaper. Not so much the younger ones, they choose to have their laptops next to them or their iPhones. 

I was reading an article today on www.investopedia.com regarding the yard-sales.  They were explaining how to set up a yard-sale and make some cash. I’m familiar with the advertisements inside a lead exchange, but this was somewhat out of the box thinking.  The article is called “In A Cash Crush? Hold A Yard Sale” by Lisa Smith.  Lisa is explaining how to advertise and how to have a successful Yard Sale by making it unique using Craigslist, or putting colorful bulletins or advertising in the newspaper.  

It all comes down to: targeting the audience.  The older generation are not computer savvy, and they are not sitting on their computers as long as the younger generation, so they are better of reading the paper. Than you have some other people that are traveling a lot, they are more targeted by the bulletins. The ones hanging out in the Starbucks, with their computers, or with their web enabled phones, are going to see your ads on the web. The internet is the highest growing method of advertising, and it’s also the most targeted one. Not only that you are able to target exactly the demographics you are looking for, but you are able to track the efficiency of your campaign as never been possible before. You care see where the consumer came from, what ad they clicked on, how long they’ve been reading your page and even how long it took them to finish an online application. 

After reading this article, I came to think about advertising to the leads that did not sell in our marketplace. These are mostly aged leads that were left behind because the advertisers met their caps.  They might not be of any interest to the current buyers buying real time leads, but they are a treasure to the companies interested in cherry picking their leads.  LeadPile Lead exchange has an increasing network of publishers and active verticals that is doing business in.  As the Largest Online Lead Marketplace, LeadPile Lead exchange has a good number of valuable leads that can work out for the advertisers that have small budgets, or they want to complement their current inventory of leads. 

Testing out different venues of advertising or using aged leads and filtering them by the consumer initial interest, can bring some value to your current business. 

Leadpile is working closely with the buyers to increase their ROI, and we are committed to your, the Advertiser, success.

As the Affiliate Summit Boston 2008 comes to a close, we would like to thank all of our affiliates for a great show. We would also like to say thank you to the city of Boston, for providing a beautiful place to have an Affiliate Summit.
We enjoyed some good conversations, nice business meetings, site seeing, GREAT food, and nice hospitality. We all look forward to speaking further with the affiliates we met, and potentially doing some business together. Also, Leadpile Lead Exchange would like to thank all those for coming by our Meet Market booth!

AND…Thanks Boston for the great lobster!