Leadpile’s Blog

Ever wonder what search engine terms are used the most? I know I do, and search terms also tell a little bit about what is going on in the world around us. According to dmconfidential, eBay gets the award for the top terms (eBay and eBay.com)in the month of August. People trying to find bargains, or sell items they have I would say is partially responsible for this. Home depot was the next highest term used, followed by mapquest. The shopping/office supplies category received 43.15% of all paid search traffic. The fortunate thing is that this is an 8% increase from July’s 39.81%. Maybe people are staying home and doing more of their shopping online to try and get the best deal, without driving store to store. Business telecommunications and pharmaceutical & medical traffic was slightly up. However, travel and business/legal traffic was down for the month of August.
Another interesting fact, yet not surprising, is that Google accounted for 71% of all US searches in the month of August. In a distant second place was Yahoo with 18.26% followed by MSN (5.32%) and Ask (3.45%).
To truly be effective with lead generation, knowing this kind of information and detailed information about the verticals you are promoting is key to being successful. For instance, someone who is doing PPC for payday loan will loose a lot of money if they are not first aware of everything there is to know about payday loans, and also if they do not understand search engines.
Here at Leadpile, I am going to do everything I can to help publishers know what buyers are maybe looking for in a particular lead type. This helps with how the traffic is driven to the website and ultimately helps with conversions and payouts. Communication with your affiliate manager or account manger is key to running a successful lead generation campaign.

The quality of leads in a lead exchange is one of the most important factors in making the exchange work. Leadpile Lead Exchange currently allows 48 hours for a lead buyer to return a lead for bad contact information. Our quality control department is there to provide feedback from the leads being returned to the business development department. If there is any sort of consistency with bad quality, the issue will be addressed individually with the lead seller/publisher.
However, how does a lead company potentially deal with lead quality if they do not allow returns?
According to the Leadcritic, Lower My Bills has not allowed leads to be returned for some time. However, they incorporate an expected return rate into the cost of the leads. Do you think this is as affective as companies allowing returns?
Each lead company is different on the time frame they allow leads to be returned, and that is another question to address. What is a fair amount of time to allow a lead buyer to return a lead? Is it maybe simplified to do things the LMB way, and just incorporate the cost of potential lead returns into the cost of the leads?
Leadpile Lead Exchange believes that hearing the feedback of the buyers – good and bad – is crucial for us to make this marketplace work effectively. If we do not get feedback from our lead buyers, we don’t know how to fix a “problem” that we might have. We LOVE feedback… good and bad!

Now might be the time to go out and get your new GM auto. According to MSNBC, the employee discount promotion will not be extended past the end of this month. If you are wanting any type of GM, now would be the time to go out and get it and save some money! The discount was saving some consumers anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars on that new car. This promotion has been going on since mid August, however sales are still down from the year before. Fortunately, it has allowed GM to have less of a “slump” compared to Ford and Chrysler.
If you are a consumer who is wanting to get that new auto NOW.. Let Leadpile connect you with dealerships in your area. Go to my loan and debt website to get matched up with an auto dealer.
If you are a publisher or advertiser, we would love to work with you here at Leadpile Auto Lead Exchange to connect consumers with dealership near them!

How many of you have been approached to get a life insurance quote from your insurance agent? Let me guess, you said I am too young to buy life insurance. Any successful life insurance sales person will tell you the key to life insurance is really “understanding” it. There are a lot of misconceptions out there regarding life insurance. There really are a lot of specific reasons consumers take out a life insurance policy, besides just to “be covered” when they pass away.

1. Business owners can take out policies to take care of their key employees, so the business can run smoothly if the business owner passes away. Is the deceased person’s spouse really going to be able to run the business if they passed away? Probably not.
2. Spouses take out a policy to cover their spouse so they can try and maintain a similar lifestyle, if their spouse passes away.
3. Some take out policies for a short period of time to cover loved ones, because they took out some extra debt and they want their beneficiaries to not incur this debt if they pass away.
4. Some take out a life insurance policy because they want to have their loved ones to not have to take care of paying for their burial expenses.

Overall, there are so many reasons why a person has to consider taking out a life insurance policy. The most common types of life insurance policies are whole life and term life.
Whole life insurance generally is more expensive because it generates cash value, and it remains with you till you pass away. However, term insurance is an insurance policy that generally lasts for 10,20, or maybe even 30 years only. These policies expire at the end of their designated time frame. Unfortunately, if you take out a policy and then cancel it or don’t pay, it can expire and if you wanted another one, you then will be rated on the age you are now. Buying life insurance at a younger age can have some long term benefits for individuals, because life insurance premiums are based on your age (and health condition too).
According to Yahoo.com, 94% of life insurance that is sold is sold over the kitchen table. This means that most consumers who get life insurance have chosen to get it while meeting face to face with their insurance agent. 4% of consumers feel comfortable getting a life insurance policy over the internet. This is where Leadpile Lead Exchange comes in.
We work with some of the best publishers out there, and they are ready to embark on generating more insurance leads. Not only will we want our publishers to bring in auto and home insurance, we will ask them to bring in life insurance. This is a very important lead type that is a very important insurance for every American. We ALL need life insurance at some level. Just like in any loan you take out… do your research with life insurance. Ask a lot of questions.

There is generation “X” and baby boomers that we all hear about, however have you ever heard of Generation “V”? Generation V is the generation of the future… the generation that is dealing with online EVERYTHING. Unlike the other generations, Generation V is not defined by an age, gender, social class or where they live. However, this generation is based on what they can and have achieved, accomplishments, and an increasing desire for the use of digital media channels to discover information and build knowledge. If you are a company that is not online… you better be soon!
According to marketingcharts.com, 80% of generation V will be “lurkers”. These are people that will reap the rewards of the online world. Others are trying to be apart of the online world by participating in the activites such as blog posts, forums, and YouTube. Those is previous years did not do such things to keep an online presence, however this is something that companies need to take a look at when dealing with how they market their company online. Defined demographics of consumers are a way of the past, because it is getting harder and harder to determine those that are online and buying the product.
Companies must change around how their online presence is represented, because so many people are using the internet as their only source for information and other key aspects to their daily lives. Why is it though that many create accounts in places such as dating sites, email providers and blogs, that is not themselves (anonymous)? Are they trying to protect themselves from people knowing who they really are? Not sure on why Generation V does this, but we will see how much more the online world really affects various things such as retail, dating, lead generation and other up and coming industries.
I have to say the publishers I work with in the Leadpile Lead Exchange are mostly going to be considered Genration V. These are people that live, breath and do everything around the internet.
We welcome all generations to our marketplace, but I have a feeling there will be much more Generation V making up the Leadpile Lead Exchange!

Publishers are spending a lot of money on PPC campaigns through Google AdWords.  Have you ever researched the cost of producing a real time quality lead? Depending on the vertical, it can get really expensive, especially if you are looking for quality and genuine interest.

Capturing a name, number, email, address, best time to call, can get really expensive. If you want to target geographically, by zip or state, it will increase your price and lower the amount of traffic you are getting. A lead can be really inexpensive, if you are just capturing email address, and you incentivize it, but if you are looking to attract customers that are genuinely interested in your service, its not going to be .20 cents or .50 cents, it will be way more expensive. You can expect prices as these if you are looking for lists, but why would you do that when you have the Yellow Pages and costs you nothing. You can definitely get leads for such a price, but those will be leads that are generated from the yellow pages, or aged data (lists) of consumers that showed an interest in your service years ago.  So what is the price for a good, real time, exclusive leads? It depends, it can be very expensive, depending how competitive is your vertical.  You will get what you are paying for. In other words, you are going to be happy with the return on your investment (ROI).

Advertisers have to consider that publishers or lead exchanges are eating the cost of any leads that are invalid.  Paying anywhere between .25 to $1.50 per click, or even $15, does not guarantee a conversion. Even if we get a conversion, it will not necessarily mean that you, as a buyer, will accept the lead. If you are a Debt Settlement buyer, you might want only want $15,000 and above in Unsecured Debt, which will significantly increase the price to produce that lead. 

Lead exchanges welcome advertisers to join the marketplace to HOST their offers. Paying the right price for the lead, working with the lead exchange to optimize your campaign and filter the lead sources, will ensure a successful campaign for you, as a buyer, and for the Lead Exchange and its publishers. 

Think of it this way, lets say you need to travel to a different state.  Would you rather rent a bike or a car? By renting a bike, you will save money on gas and get in a better shape If you are concerned about the time you need to get to your destination, this will not work too well for you, and renting a car might be more suited for you. Time is money, and we all know it very well.

Make great choices and you will see more money coming into your business! Buy quality, real time exclusive leads, and you can be assured that Leadpile will be on your side from start to end! Pay the price that they are worth and you will get the satisfaction that you are searching for!

Leadpile’s Motto: “Good is the Enemy of Great!” – Jim Collins, Good to Great

Google, since the acquisition of  DoubleClick, has been adding new features to it’s Adwords platform, meant to bring more value and why not “options” to their Advertisers. With their release of “Google Affiliate Network” at the end of August, we will see some interesting developments when it comes to CPA offers. Even though we know that everything comes down to an impression, click and conversions, by actually giving the option to the Buyers (Advertisers) to pay per lead (or action), you give more quality control, which can be relative to the traffic as well. 

You will be still looking at competing with the CPC Advertisers and from what Google says, you will set your CPA goal and the conversion optimizer will automatically adjust the CPC to reach that goal. 

One thing is for sure, Google is helping us the industry and more and more Advertisers will learn about CVR and how to use their advertising dollars efficiently. Bidding in a Lead Exchange is not too different than bidding on Adwords, your CVR and the actual rank you have in the distribution will affect your results. There is also the network and the traffic you are getting, based on your price you attract better traffic, better publishers and your CVR will increase. 

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).

What would you do if you came across your primary care physician on Facebook? How about if you came across a surgeon that was going to be performing some surgery for you in the coming weeks? Would what you see and read about that person affect your decision to trust them and their abilities?

This is something many need to be concerned about when it comes to blog posts, social media sites and other networking groups the public has access to. Too much information could be a bad thing. Too many negative blog posts could put a negative light on some and affect how the outside world perceives them.
According to a recent article on MSNBC, some researchers looked up more than 800 medical students and residents by name on Facebook.com, one of the most popular social-networking sites with about 80 million users worldwide. Everyone can limit who has access to their pages to just friends, however this information could be sometimes accessed.
The study, published recently in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, “found that nearly half the medical students had Facebook pages, with only 37 percent limiting viewership to their friends.” More than half of those whose pages were open for review provided lifestyle information, including sexual orientation, personal relationships and political views and sometimes opinions, according to MSNBC.
Erick W. Black, one of the researchers, said he found pictures with some students grabbing each others private parts, posing with weird objects, and multiple photos of medical students drinking heavily. Does this represent the image that we all have on those that are potentially taking care of us, such as our doctors?
I have to admit Leadpile Lead Exchange has this blog to posts our thoughts and industry news, however I would still be a little hesitant on posting something that I would some day regret or not want another person to see.

The Text Messages (SMS) have been always an interesting and productive way to generate leads or more business, including Branding awareness. 

We knew about it, test it with our Offers, and our Publishers are doing it as well, but we never seen such results as we are seeing in the last month. The MicroClick Ads and the Microsites are some of the favorites when it comes to our Publishers using text messaging to promote the offers. 

Just to have an idea of the efficiency, please check out the following numbers: 

The number of Impressions represent the number of people reaching the website from a text message. Out of everyone that have seen the site, almost 73% clicked on the form and 55% of them completed it – reached the confirmation page. 

The EPM isn’t too bad either, with $1,437.57 for one thousand of impressions. The highest we’ve seen ranges between $2,500 and $3,200, but that’s more from targeted traffic, new customer base (PPC traffic). 

The rule of success is to be creative and test new ways to build your customer base, offering quality and good service to consumers. Nothing is “Impossible” and things can be done in a very effective way without loosing the quality. 

One of the main issues when it comes to affiliates, lead generation and traffic is the fraud. The better you become in tracking your leads, affiliates and methods they use to generate leads, the better your program will work. 

Leadpile’s Lead Exchange  has been working into improving the MicroClick Form (previously known as the I-SaveNow Form) application process, storing as much data as possible, so that we identify the source and also the validity of the lead. 

Some lead verticals are easier to fake than others, and the more fields, checks and restrictions for the data, the better is to control what goes through the Exchange. 

Paid Search (Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing) are facing 20% or more fraud. The Lead Exchanges are not an exception, but the percentage is way lower. 

A click is very easy to fake and it can happen way faster and with a lot more volume than within the lead process. Also, each lead can be refunded in case of invalidity, where the traffic takes more time and sometimes is going untracked. Thinking that in certain industries we are seeing bids that are ranging between $6.00 to $50.00 per click, that can be a substantial loss for the advertisers. 

Let’s take a look at the following Click Fraud Index:

Leadpile has been producing it’s own leads in addition to the leads generated by its own publishers (partners) and that helped the Lead Exchange (Marketplace) becoming one of the top Lead-Gen companies out there. We actually are getting the hit from the PPC and take away the burden of this cost from our Lead Buyer (Advertisers). One of the most successful campaigns are still from PPC, where our Buyers are enjoying top lead quality. Of course, that comes for a price, but our service is going to make up for it, no matter how big or small your company is. 

Our team is geared up everyday to provide the top notch customer experience you (as a Lead Buyer/Advertiser) deserve! No matter what your challenge is, let us know so we can work better for you!

LeadPile Lead Exchange are true team players! You hear a lot about the workforce and unhappy employees among other companies but not in LeadPile.  LeadPile has a strong team assembled.  We are a unity! Happy employees that get along great! Our lead exchange has grown with high recognition, and part of its success has to do with the time, energy and effort that LeadPile’s team creates to be the top notch Lead Exchange.  From Customer Service, to IT, to Accounting, and Marketing I can honestly say that we all get along.  We enjoy working with one another and the work environment and synergy that gets created in the office is beyond exceptional!

We are true professionals that blend in together with unique ideas to continue to grow at a fast pace.  We thank our Advertisers and Publishers for allowing our lead exchange to be a part of there company, we will continue to strive to providing you with quality as well as nourishing you with the highest ROI in the industry!

LeadPile team would like to wish Marketing Director Eugen a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  We love what he brings to the table with his cheerful demeanor and friendly attitude.  His creativity is off the charts! Happy Birthday Eugen best wishes from the LeadPile team! You ROCK!