Leadpile’s Blog

According to internetnews.com, “A new forecast from research group IDC is projecting that in the first quarter of 2009, online ad spending will see its first real decline since the dotcom implosion in 2001. ” In addition, the fourth quarter e-commerce spending had declined, compared to 2007 e-commerce spending. Consumers spending less could certainly have an impact on the overall online ad spending, however it appears paid search has been the best performing. This article also points out the correlation between the US economy (recession some call it) and the overall online advertising being down. Companies don’t have as much money to spend on this aspect of their business, compared to when sales are up they can afford to spend more on things such as advertising.

Leadpile Lead Exchange deals with all sorts of online activity. Paid search is a very common way of driving traffic to our lead generation websites, however there is also a lot of others that seem to be performing well too.  I am not sure I really see the decline in ad spending, but time will tell.

To no surprise, job websites have seen an increase in traffic to their sites.  With the national unemployment rate above 7%, Americans are reaching to the internet to help find a new job.

According to DMNews, more than a half of a million jobs were lost last month, which is the most in a month in 35 years. Therefore, job websites are beefing up their ways to monetize this traffic. Some are incorporating newsletters, which contain helpful information about interviewing and other helpful tips. However, others are offering potential advice on starting a new business during these tough economic times. Leadpile Lead Exchange does not necessarily work with job websites, however we do work with lead types/services some of these consumers would be interested in obtaining. Home based business is a lead type that we are working with, which a perfect opportunity for consumers to try and be matched up with those that can help them start up that new business.

Some higher traffic job websites:

1. Snagajob.com
2. Careerbuilder.com
3. Monster.com
4. Simplyhired.com
5. Dice.com

Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com both are sites that also took advantage of the highly watched Super Bowl. This exposure is certainly going to help contribute to some increased traffic.

Everyone is still scrambling to get their shopping done, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday is officially over. These days, more and more people are looking to shop online to find the best deals, save time and energy.  To help with this cause, I researched some top retail websites listed by Hitwise.  This information is based on total internet usage through the end of last month. Maybe these are where the deals are at and we should ALL take a look.

1.  www.amazon.com

2.  www.walmart.com

3.  www.target.com

4.  www.bestbuy.com

5.  www.circuitcity.com

6.  www.jcpenny.com

7.  www.toysrus.com

8.  www.kmart.com

9.  www.khols.com

10. www.overstock.com

According to Hitwise, there is a lot of traffic being driven to these popular retail sites through email marketing.  Searching for the best deals is becoming a lot more convenient for customers because you don’t have to go physically store to store buying each store’s best deals.  While looking at these various sites myself, I will say that it looks like all of them have major deals going on and FREE shipping. My prediction is Cyber Monday is going to eventually become more and more popular than Black Friday.
I am sure companies that also work with Leadpile Lead Exchange, are currently working with online retailers to capitalize on this demand for increased traffic. This is a perfect example of how beneficial affiliate marketing can be to online companies!

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.

The PPC gurus love the MicroClick ads and especially the MicroClick Form. Why? Because no PPC expert would want their traffic wasted, especially on broken links, or crowded pages with banners and text links. 

We all know that the CVR is extremely important when we pay for clicks. If we pay $3.00 or more on a click, we want to make sure that the consumer is going to click on an add, and go all the way to a conversion – a lead. That is going to determine the profit we make out the money spent on Adwords or any other PPC search engine. 

Our affiliates love the MicroClick Form because it’s co-branded and not only that, it’s compact. Being compact and easy to integrate in a website will maximize their CVR. The “call to action” is there, and it can be added on every single page of your site. That’s important, because you will have the consumer focused on the Form no matter what they read or on what page they are. 

In addition to the Form, we have added the MicroClick Ads. That helps the publishers that have blogs, or any other sites with a lot of content (and the SEO experts know what I am talking about). 

The PPC gurus know how to generate leads, drive traffic and optimize their campaigns. Not all are good designers, or some they are, but don’t have the time to waste time designing new sites. That’s where Leadpile can help again – we design the sites for them, host the site for them, or zip it and send it to them. All the ads and forms are integrated in their site, with no cookie tracking needed – that’s what we call an Affiliate Marketing Revolution. 

Leadpile can give you the real deal, exquisite treatment, no matter how small you are. 

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. 

In today’s internet savvy world, consumers are going to online search engines to find businesses in their area. Years ago local businesses would advertise in the local newspaper or even post flyers around the town. However, to be successful, businesses are having to maximize their online presence too.
According to DMNews, “80% of an indi­vidual’s income is spent within about 50 miles of their home. With 95% of the potential local search advertising market today remaining untouched, this is a huge opportunity for businesses.” Local search traffic is very targeted, however the bottom-line is the advertiser is getting a very targeted customer AND at a cheaper cost.
Since print publications are becoming less and less prevalent, companies must come up with ways to get customers in other ways. Using methods such as local search will allow these companies to find the customers they are looking for. Companies should also be looking at purchasing leads from lead companies such as Leadpile.
Leapile Lead Exchange understands that advertisers are looking for geo-targeted leads. In combination with our publishers, Leadpile is generating nationwide leads that can potentially meet the needs of all sorts of advertisers, in all areas of the country. For this reason, advertisers utilizing companies such as Leadpile, is ideal to increase the company’s ROI.

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. 

No its not a rumor! It is a confirmation, LeadPile does have the ability to HOST an offer.  LeadPile, has expanded to great expectations and the sky is the limit when it comes to new ideas.  Working with a variety of Partners we find different ways to work together. 

Are you a serious client that do not have an incentivize offer and needs traffic? Guess what? LeadPile should be the name coming out your mouth.  We already have traffic on our sites.  We are the largest in the industry and everyday we have new companies that are excited to being a part of LeadPile as they are being referred to us by our current partners having strong success.   We target the Best.  We look for quality, which is the key and a major role in the continuous of working together long time and the reason why our partner retention is at a sky rocket level!

There are different ways that we can work together, LeadPile is not just a Lead Generation company its a true Lead Exchange.  If you have an offer and need more sign ups, call us.  We will make this the best experience ever and you will be happy you picked up that phone.   

Take a minute and think about this, if you are currently receiving 25 applications a day and you are making a few hundred  or even thousands dollars from them, wouldn’t it make logical sense to work with your marketing department and generate 100 applications and quadruple your ROI.  I think it does, LeadPile have the traffic you need and I kid you not, it will be the best financial decision that you make!

Is the Exit Traffic considered a good or bad approach when it comes to Lead Generation and Affiliate Marketing? Well, that it all depends on how it’s used.

Just so we are all on the same page, exit traffic IT IS NOT a baby on a bike , but it represents a way to capture the visitor when they close the browser, or the first visited site. The way to do it, is by providing a popup window with a different offer. It can be a related service, or can be totally a different offer, but targeted to the consumer’s profile. The key of converting traffic is to offer something relevant to the visitors  you have. Learn about their needs and learn about your traffic. That will give you an advantage against your competition. 

After spending thousands of dollars on PPC (pay per click), each visitor represent a great deal to you, and by using the exit traffic in your advantage will help you increase your spent and not reduce it. Of course, Google Adwords division will be really happy about this!

There are many popup blockers out there, but there is still a good percentage of visitors that don’t use them. Learn about your traffic, create targeted pop-up and you will succeed in a market where many struggle. 

Everything is possible with the right mind set! 

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!