Leadpile’s Blog

In the last few years many new ad networks or lead exchanges have surfaced. Many have survived and many have not. The need for networks and exchanges like Leadpile Lead Exchange came about because of the desire to connect multiple publishers with multiple advertisers to create simplicity for both parties. In addition to simplicity, is there any other reason that a publisher or advertiser should look at using a network versus one on on relationships?
1. As consumers get online more and more, publishers and advertisers need to figure out the best way to get the largest captive audience in once place. This is very difficult if you are trying to set up one on one relationships. Networks and exchanges allow this to be done without the hassle of developing one on one relationships.
2. There are cost benefits to the advertisers with working with network versus working directly with a publisher who usually has higher margins than the networks. This increase cost if passed on to the advertiser, whereas networks have higher volumes which allows there to be more of an ability to have lower margins.
3. The advertisers can capture all types of traffic sources in just a few networks versus trying to get a different publisher for each traffic source they are interested. For instance, to really diversify you want to utilize social networking, PPC and SEO, and SMS marketing.
4. Networks allow publishers an opportunity to sell their traffic/leads to various types of buyers/advertisers which allows them to diversify their ads to have everything funnel through one place, versus setting up one on one relationships with each advertiser.
5. Sophisticated networks/exchanges like Leadpile offer the technical capabilities for advertisers and publishers detailed reporting of the their campaigns. This creates simplicity for the publishers or advertiser with being able to have one place to track all their campaigns. This could be very large headache for someone to track each campaign they have one on one with.
Everyone in this industry has their own opinion on what is more effective: networks or one on relationships, however there just seems to be more benefits with working with an exchange or network versus trying to set up one on one relationships.

Leadpile has rolled out a new offer for the payday loan lead type, and we are looking for more traffic!
We are looking for traffic to Green-paydayloan.com through PPC, email marketing, banner or social networking. The top payout is currently at $73.60. If you are a Leadpile publisher and looking to drive traffic to the offer, you can locate the text link in your seller account under the “offers” tab. If by chance Leadpile is not already working with you, we would like to see you join our marketplace and generate payday loan leads as a Leadpile seller/publisher!
As we all know, a lot of consumers are looking for help in their temporary setbacks, so a payday loan is a lot of the time that in-between money that is going to help them in their current situation.

In the days of companies trying to be the best of the best, companies are trying to always come up with fresh new ideas. Yahoo has rolled out it’s new search tool called “search pad”. This new Yahoo tool will allow those that are trying to do a lot of research on a prticular subject matter, to keep all their results in one common place to reference (a notepad per say). This new tool will allow you to really sort through all the various search results you obtained from a particular subject matter. This is not something that can be organized with search engines such as Google and Bing, so there could be some interest in this new notepad. The unfortunate thing about this new tool is it really is not beneficial for those that are just doing a quick search for simple subjects such as stores in the area.
The idea of this could be really good for students or workers that are doing an indepth report, and need to have a lot of material to complete the report. Unfortunately, the use of libraries has pretty much dwindled, where people now use the internet to research reports for school and work.
Leadpile and other internet companies have to have this same sort of initiative to stay around. The future of your company relies on knowing your competition will always be trying to come up with new/fresh ideas. If you want to stay around and remain competitive you have to come up with ideas to capture a new audience that some other company is not doing. This appears to be that attempt by Yahoo, and it certainly has a uniqueness that other search engines are not yet offering. So maybe it will be received with open arms like Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The key is to not capture of the attention of users, but to keep their attention.

Day in and day out I have great conversations about what a publisher thinks they should do to become an effective affiliate in the Leadpile Marketplace. Like other networks, there are certain things that any affiliate should do to become an effective affiliate marketer. The Examiner points out some good points on becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

1. Create a website
*Don’t just throw a website together and not put any thought into it. Add some creativeness and content to the website, so others can enjoy their experience too.
2. Create a website about something you enjoy
*Design your website around something you enjoy and will want to work on. If you are excited about the website then that will come through to the visitors, and they will enjoy their experience too.
3. Take the website seriously
*Unfortunately, just having a website is not enough. The website has to flow well. Putting the right type of design and content on the site will ultimately make the site attractive and EFFECTIVE.
4. Build links
*Once you have a completed website, you want to try and get ranked in the search engines. Having other sites link to your site will ultimately help with this search engine ranking, but you have to have something on your site to make others want to link to you. Once you have others linking to your site, you now have 2 ways for people to get to your site- search engine AND other sites that have linked to you. Having traffic to your site is ultimately the goal because that potentially = more $$.
5. Develop affiliate partnerships
*Monetizing your website with offers and banners is a great way to make money with your completed website. Using companies like Leadpile allows you to capture leads from your site, and then earn revenue from those leads selling. The other way is working directly with traditional affiliate networks like CJ. Do your research and find offers that will flow with the website you have created AND make you money. Once this project is working well, look at doing it all over again with additional websites to maybe run other sorts of offers. Find your niche and what you are good at doing effectively. Is it financial offers, product offers, work from home offers, or a combination of them all?
6. Track statistics of your website
*To help you determine what is working well for you on these sites, then you might want to implement some sort of tracking system. Monitoring your statistics will allow you to make necessary changes with your campaigns. Utilize various sources of traffic and see what works with the particular site. Some networks will control how you drive traffic to the site, so you will always want to find that out. Finds networks that even have their own tracking available for you so you can have that as an additional source of information. You can never have too much information to be successful in the affiliate world!
Become a Leadpile Super Affiliate………

Hitwise always comes out with it’s top searched terms for the month, and I know this sort of information can always help the Leadpile publishers with generating traffic. Getting as targeted traffic as you can will always help with the conversions of clicks to converted leads. For example, people selling items to generate income is a very important term consumers are searching for on the internet. Here are some examples of what consumers are searching for when trying to “sell” something.

Previous months Top 10 Search Terms by Category (April 2009) (%)
Automotive Manufacturers

Search Term/Search Volume

Honda 1.50
Toyota 1.37
Ford 1.37
Harley Davidson 1.04
Oreilly auto parts 0.98
Nissan 0.87
Dodge 0.69
Chevrolet 0.67
Kia 0.67
Honda motorcycles 0.66

If you are wanting to generate auto finance leads with Leadpile, these might be some terms to utilize when setting up your PPC campaign or trying to be indexed in the search engines (SEO). Keywords should be relevant to the products or services represented on your website being optimized. Keywords, should include single- and multiple-word phrases.

Net Communities and Chat

Search Term/Search Volume

Myspace 5.00
Facebook 4.28
Youtube 1.83
Myspace.com 1.61
Facebook login 1.23
Facebook.com 0.90
www.myspace.com 0.61
My space 0.56
You tube 0.40
Twitter 0.36

In many potential ways, social networking sites are a part of lead generation. Utilizing sites like Hitwise, helps with knowing more information about the consumer and where they are looking on the internet. Do your research, and know more about the consumer you are trying to attract to the website.

With tough times even in the internet business world, businesses must find effective ways to generate new business. Companies need to see results from their money spent on advertising, so many choose to invest in lead generation.
Businesses could spend an infinite amount of money on PPC and not know what the result could be. Businesses could spend undefined amounts of money on hiring someone to do SEO.
Businesses could purchase “lists” and cross your fingers there will be a response rate that is acceptable.
OR
Businesses can look at lead generation (CPL), where each lead you purchase is a defined person who is interested in their product. There are various ways lead generation companies are generating leads. For example, leads can be generated from things such as surveys or incentives. However, these are not always going to be as targeted of leads, because consumers could be looking at it like what is in it for them? Unlike some other lead generation companies, Leadpile Lead Exchange is working with ONLY consumers who are opting in for a particular product of service. This end result means a lot more targeted consumer,  and a much bigger chance the lead will convert to an actual sale.  What should businesses choose?
Marketing dollars are down, so this requires a strict focus on making the most out of what you spend on marketing. Businesses can’t afford to pay for random non targeted ads, unopened e-mails or wasted clicks. CPL pricing models allow businesses to get returns on every advertising dollar they spend.  Tough times are not just affecting consumers, it is affecting businesses all over the world.  Businesses are fighting over every last potential sale because they are becoming far and few between!

In past years, the internet did not play a big part in a company’s product sales.  Today, this is certainly not the case. The internet is a major player in generating revenue for all industries. Specifically, financial related websites are very popular for consumers to find out information and also purchase items. Leadpile Lead Exchange is no different. The highest demanded leads in our marketplace are financial related lead types. These are companies wanting to provide financial services to consumers looking for assistance.
The auto industry is also no different than our marketplace, and other companies generating business online. According to DMNews, internet generated car sales will rise from 5.1 millions in 2007 to 7.7 million in 2012. This means that auto makers, no matter what their future status is, need to be visible on the internet in order to generate car sales. This would mean that with the tight economy and not as many people out shopping for a car, auto makers must utilize search engines and SEO efforts to get the much needed attention of consumers. DMNews also stated that Nissan North America, Chrysler and GM have done the best with utilizing search marketing.
So does this also mean that those auto lead exchanges that are not focusing on any other lead type are suffering right now? My guess would be yes. Leadpile Lead Exchange is also feeling the effects of less consumers online looking for a new car, however that is why diversifying the lead types we generate is so very important. People are in dire need of other financial services besides just getting a new car, and we want to be able to help with that.

Running an effective business you now have to have a website to help promote it worldwide. However, creating a good website is not enough, you have to have it promoted in the internet’s search engines. This is something easier said than done. Creating a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy is very important on getting that desired traffic to your website. I thought this was a good basic article about some things to really pay attention to.

1. Most prospects to your website will be coming from search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask etc).
2. Well known search engines work the best.
3. Most prospects use phrases, not single words, to do a search on the search engines.
4. Track the prospects experience on your website.
5. Optimize using more than just one search engine.
6. Check and analyze the results of your tracking/reporting.
7. Use results from tracking to update your site where needed.
8. Prospects rarely go beyond the first or second page of in the search engine results. Work to get on those pages in order to benefit from your SEO strategy.
9. Keyword density is a major part of the ranking of your website.
10. Successful keyword placement.

Having our website, and our publisher’s websites, ranked high in the search engines is key to getting the traffic to get leads. Leadpile Lead Exchange believes quantity is not necessarily the key to success, but quality is.

A large portion of online advertising is done through search engines. However, getting ranked HIGH on the search engines is every company’s goal. Unfortunately, it is easier said than done to get ranked well.
According to onlineadvertisting.net, there are some facts regarding search engine ranking:

1. 80% of consumers click on the first 3 listing in the search engine listings.
2. 54% of consumers will only look at the first page of results.
3. 19% of consumers actually click through to the 2nd page of results.
4. 10% of consumers got to the third page of search results.

To really be effective you have to be listed well on the major search engines. However, businesses sometimes do not have the resources or money to get there. The key is to do your research. Search engine optimization companies are out there to help businesses understand how to get ranked higher. Unfortunately, like what makes up a credit score….. EVERYTHING that makes up your search engine ranking, is an unknown.
Search engine rankings are a key factor when dealing with lead generation and Leadpile Lead Exchange. The advertisers often times don’t want to deal with SEO (search engine optimization) or PPC (pay per click campaigns), so they turn to a more effective source for potential customers. They turn to Leadpile’s lead sellers. Many of our sellers are experts on getting ranked well on the search engines and other forms of online advertising. We are a common place for both sides to come together.

How much are your keywords worth? Being involved in the PPC or SEO, you will be constantly challenged to find the right keywords to use. One way to track which keywords are giving you conversions  is to place a tracking pixel in your confirmation pages. Leadpile has made this process easier than ever before.  For those using the MicroClick Form, Leadpile provides a detailed report that will display the Search Engine and the “Keyword” used by the visitor to find the website. Only the visits that resulted in a transaction are displayed. This report is based on the “referrer” and for that reason, you don’t need to add anything in the tracking URL. Once you take the MicroClick Form and you add it to you page you are done. All the stats are being gathered and displayed for you in the account. A snapshot of one of our Publishers’ report is provided below.

It’s the only time when such tools are made available to the publishers. We believe that the affiliate marketing is changing, and the current publishers are looking for more than just ways of sending traffic to “offers”, they are looking for ways to become part of the lead-gen space.

Many of our clients come to us because it has become too expensive to advertise or do any type of SEO on Google and the other major search engines. How dominant is Google in this area? Well, in the month of May, Google accounted for over 68% of the search activity in the U.S. Yahoo was second with just under 20% of the search activity. MSN and Ask.com combined for 10% of the search activity. (Yes, if you are good at math, that leaves less than 2% of all searches for all the other search engines) By the way, if you think Google dominates here, you should look “across the pond” where Google accounted for 87% of the U.K. search activity in May. So, if you are frustrated with dealing with the dominant players, please let us do the “heavy lifting” and we will continue providing great leads in our marketplace.