Leadpile’s Blog

It comes to no surprise that economist are saying that spending will be down this year for the holiday season and Halloween is no exception. Consumers are cutting their spending across the board this Halloween. From candy to costumes to decorations, it is predicted that consumers planning to celebrate the holiday this year will be down two percent. Even the pumpkin patches are taking a hit!
What is one market that thrives this holiday? The alcohol business, specifically Captain Morgan rum (number 2 in rum sales). Adults love Halloween just as much as the kids do and Captains realizes that. Their new slogan of, “Calling All Captains” is being pushed through several of the marketing verticals. They have made a huge push this season not only coming out with new television ads, but also three Halloween parties, and a photo content. According to Tom Herbst, Director of Marketing, “We feel like Captain Morgan sort of owns Halloween. No other brand markets as much as we do and sees the return from it…Halloween has always also had an adult component to it and when that adult component reached mainstream, we felt that this was an opportunity to jump on it and bring the unique Captain energy to it.”. This time of year is one of the busiest for the brand. With the captain always being in costume it makes sense that this is his time to shine. I am sure that there will even be many individuals who dress up as him for Halloween. So this Halloween when someone asks what you would like to drink, go for the Captain. Why you say? Because you and the Captain can make it happen.
It is amazing the effects a “captain” can have on a company’s marketing. Leadpile and all other companies I am sure wish we had a catchy mascot like the “captain” to spread our marketing message!

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.

Phoenix June 30th, 2009 — LeadPile, The World’s Largest Online Exclusive Lead Exchange announced today record results for its MicroClick Form (http://www.microclick.com) in June, 2009. LeadPile reports a record number of Lead Verticals being served by its MicroClick Form with Lead Sellers producing leads in 61 different verticals in the month of June. This makes the LeadPile MicroClick Form the most widely used Multi Vertical Lead Generation Form in the lead Marketplace and Lead Exchange Industry.

LeadPile’s Centralized Online Exclusive Lead Marketplace supports thousands of affiliates that use the exchange to sell to suitable lead buyers. By using the LeadPile MicroClick Form, Affiliates can focus on driving traffic to their pages and not on managing lead buyer relationships. Over 90% of LeadPile’s active affiliates are currently using the MicroClick form, offloading the responsibility for lead collection, management, technology infrastructure, and quality control to LeadPile.

Astoundingly, LeadPile’s MicroClick form has been used to produce leads as diversified as Tax Debt Relief, Home Improvements, Business Loans, Health Insurance, Equipment Leasing, Credit Card Processing, Cash For Gold and more.

Andrew Jacob, CEO of LeadPile says, “The LeadPile MicroClick Form allows us to handle leads across multiple verticals, including payday, starter credit, debt consolidation, credit repair, bankruptcy, auto financing, and homeowner. While the majority of leads currently being exchanged in the  Marketplace are in the Financial sector, the fact that Lead Sellers are using the MicroClick form to produce leads in over 60 verticals is very rewarding for our team.

Jacob adds, “I would like to personally thank our existing Lead Buyers and Leads Sellers for their business, and it is our promise to everything we possible can to help them in their efforts by continuing to provide the type of technology infrastructure and transparency that they have come to both expect, and deserve, from LeadPile.

To read more, please visit http://www.LeadPile.com/

Twitter has become a phenomenon. People connect to each other, following each other, and I guess create a different type of network. Even at a point where Evan Williams doesn’t know exactly how to monetize it, he is improving the core of the platform. Slowly, but surely, it’s becoming one of the new “things to do” online. From the networking perspective, Twitter is offering an amazing opportunity for companies out there to keep their readers informed with what is going on at the current moment. Apparently, even the journalists can make some extra money by releasing the news to their subscribers before the article shows in the paper. Of course the subscribers should pay a membership fee.

Leadpile will most likely use Twitter as well, keeping our clients informed with what is going on in the office. We can update the clients on new offers, increase in payouts, or the addition of new buyers in a certain verticals.

If you are using the Twitter, please follow our messages … Just search for vp_leadpile on Twitter, and you will find me.

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.