double POSITIVE Marketing Group, Inc.

Post By
Rich Dent

Hey, everybody, it’s been a while, but I have a good reason for my absence.  I’m a new dad!  Wife and baby are doing just fine.  Thanks for all the nice notes we got.

Back to reality

Unfortunately, I came back to the reality of even more frustration for the mortgage industry.  As a former loan officer, I know a little bit about what those guys are going through.  That’s why I want to share the news that DoublePositive’s hot lead transfer service can help.

You guys know me – I’m not trying to sell anything.  But situations change.  Maybe more people may be able to hear me now.

Here’s the deal

There is still a struggle out there – what’s more important?  Having someone like DoublePositive call your Internet leads, or having your own reps call them?

In our economy, there aren’t a ton of interested, qualified consumers out there.  There are some, but not a lot.  By volume, there are far more uninterested, unqualified Internet leads to call on.

This leaves you with a decision.  Do you call the big pool of low quality leads, or receive calls from the small pool of high quality leads?

Does it really matter?

The impact of making a mistake is huge.  Companies are finding it more and more expensive to grow.  Hiring new sales professionals is a long process.  It requires a substantial investment in planning and training as well as employment costs before you can acquire a single new customer.

DoublePositive can get you that customer without all the time and expense.

How it works

Let’s say you want to 500 more leads per day, starting tomorrow.  Most organizations don’t have the ability to call on 500 potential new clients tomorrow.  For example, who will call?  It could take months and months to hire the people and get them up to speed to handle a surge like that.

Instead, DoublePostive will do the work for you.  We’ll send your sales force more consumers on the phone who are interested in talking to them.  Like a sports car running on high octane, your currently successful salespeople will only get better with higher quality leads.

This approach allows you to grow faster, without investing the money and time to hire and train people.  And you don’t have to wait until 3-6 months later if your new people are valuable to the organization.

Victory lap

That’s all I wanted to tell you guys today.  Don’t be afraid to trust a new source to transfer the calls to your existing sales team.  You can double your customers with the same amount of salespeople.  It happens every day.

Post By
Rich Dent

When you’re hot, you’re hot, and DoublePositive is definitely hot.

First, we’re growing at a torrid pace.  That’s why we decided to bring both our DP East and DP West teams to LeadsCon East in New York last week.  Hopefully you got a chance to meet more of our talented people who are setting the industry on fire.

Second, we were happy to be in a position to underwrite LeadsCon East as Lead Sponsor this year.  DoublePositive has had a hot hand, and this is one small way we were able to give back to the community.

Third, to really spice things up, we brought our own hot sauce to the event.  It was a special fiery concoction that was brewed just for us.  We passed out 250 bottles in New York.  Yes, that’s me on the label.  Hot stuff, I know.

Are you tough enough to take the heat?  Can you handle all that Live Hot Transfers flavor?  If you were one of the fortunate (or unfortunate!) ones to pick up a bottle, let us know if your tongue survived.  And check back soon because I expect to have a few more posts about LeadsCon.

Post By
Rich Dent

Back in February, in my post How to Strengthen Contact Rates , I told you guys about the new inbound-outbound service DoublePositive had recently launched.

As I mentioned at the time, our contact rate is historically about 50% – but early this year, we saw that rate dipping.  We knew the problem had to do with smart phones and the personal firewall they create.  According to the most recent Nielsen report, as of December 2010, 31% of cell phone users in the United States are smartphone users.

Show of hands.  If I called you on your smart phone right now, and you didn’t recognize the number, would you answer?

Probably not.  Over 90% of consumers would ignore an unknown number, according to an informal survey I ran on Facebook.  But those same consumers said they probably would call back if the caller tried to reach them more than once.  Wouldn’t you?

Our new inbound call-back service was born.

So, are they calling us back?

It’s still very early, and so far, we’ve limited our test to mortgage leads.  But I can tell you definitively that we’ve seen a lot of call-backs.  And when they call, one of two things is happening.  Either they hang up right away (“Oh, it’s ABC Mortgage.  I don’t feel like talking to them right now”), or they stay on the phone because they are interested in speaking with a representative.  Those in the second category are transferring at 70%, a very high rate.

What does that mean to lead buyers and lead sellers?

It means we are improving the performance of your leads.  Keep in mind, those call-backs are consumers we previously never would have been able to contact.

As a result of this early success, we decided to roll out our call-back service across all verticals.  Our new test group is 80% of all the leads we are dialing on, and we are holding 20% back as a control group.  I will share the results as soon as comparative data becomes available.

Meantime, we’re still asking ourselves, what else can we do to get people to call us back?

Local versus 800

At LeadsCon in Vegas last month, DoublePositive partner Joey Liner spoke on a panel with Ken Krogue, President of InsideSales.com, a dialer manufacturer.  Ken confirmed what DoublePositive had long suspected.  He said that InsideSales.com had seen a nice uplift in performance by displaying local numbers to consumers, instead of 800 numbers.

In our experience, this seemed true.  Prior the conference, we had conducted another informal survey on Facebook.  We asked, would you be more likely to answer the phone if the caller was a local number versus an 800 number?  Again, over 90% of consumers told us they would be more likely to answer a local number, because it might be someone they know.

DoublePositive decided to test this theory.  We reached out to one of our key clients in the mortgage industry, and will perform a test on the leads we dial on their behalf.  The expectation is that using local numbers will increase our contact and transfer rates.  We’ll let you know how it goes.

Needs evolve.  Buying habits change.  The important thing for all of us is to keep innovating.  Stay ahead of the curve, and you’ll be ready for where the market takes you next.

Your turn.  What are you doing to get consumers to call you back?

Post By
Rich Dent

I have been silent for a few weeks, but for good reasons. March was just a crazy month for us at DoublePositive. We had our best month with respect to Hot transfers.  We had LeadsCon 2011, the Lending Tree Summit, March Madness and Opening Day for the Baltimore Orioles!  I am back and have some good stuff I want to share with everyone.

This year in Vegas was my 4^th LeadsCon, and I must say, the growth of this event has been nothing short of amazing.  At 2500 participants, word has clearly gotten out.  More lead buyers from more verticals are realizing how important it is to attend the pioneering conference for the online lead generation industry.  And why not?  They get a valuable take-away: Information that can revolutionize their sales function.

My role at LeadsCon this year was “booth babe” – I didn’t spend a lot of time in break-out sessions but stayed out on the floor where I could talk directly with hundreds of lead buyers and take a pulse on what’s really happening out there.  Here are some things I heard:

The pain is spreading

Problems that used to affect only the mortgage industry have spread other lead-buying sectors as well (for-profit education, insurance, home services, automotive, real estate, etc.).  I even met some great people from the 2^nd largest supplier of diabetic equipment in the country, who said they purchased thousands of leads per month.  They told me, “It may take us an hour or two to get back to a lead – and by then it’s too late.”  Sound familiar?

The pain is deepening

I also spoke with a lot of companies that were afraid to expand their businesses.  They knew that simply buying more leads wouldn’t work, because then they would have to invest heavily in recruiting, hiring, training to expand the sales floor – all of which could take months, whereas they needed results immediately.  Have you been there?

The solution is working

And then there were the dozens of folks I spoke with who were already fully aware of the value of LIVE hot transfers.  I got to spend quality time among friends who had successfully leveraged our process and grown their businesses.  Here are some of the success stories I heard:

• “I know I can start buying more leads tomorrow and send them to my top guys, increasing lead flow overnight without missing a beat.”
• “We are talking to interested consumers within minutes, not hours.”
• “We were able to ramp up without hiring.”
• “We love how flexible hot transfers are.  Now we can speed up or slow down the lead flow at a moment’s notice, unlike call centers, which put us on the hook for a certain amount of leads per month, even when we can’t handle them.”

One great thing about meeting people in new verticals is that our service is plug-and-play.  It makes no difference to us if they are in mortgage, for-profit education, insurance, or even diabetic equipment.  We make their phone ring with live, qualified consumers who are interested in talking with a sales professional.  Everyone can win.

I have more to share about LeadsCon, so check back soon.  Meantime, drop me a note in the comments section below – what issues did you hear people dealing with?

Post By
Brian Tomasette

Press release on RingRevenue’s site

Partnership allows lead buyers to generate more voice leads, minimize consumer contact time, maximize consumer contact, and improve ROI.

Santa Barbara, CA (February 15, 2011) – Today, RingRevenue, the leader in call performance marketing and DoublePositive Marketing Group, specializing in LIVE Hot Transfers, formally announced their partnership to deliver high-quality, live voice leads to national lead buyers in higher education, insurance and financial services. Since launching a series of call performance marketing campaigns with selected customers in late 2010, the partnership has already generated thousands of inbound live voice leads.

“We know the most valuable scenario is having the consumer on the phone from the start when their interest level is the highest and they are the most likely to convert to a paying customer,” says Brian Tomasette, Vice President of Media Products for DoublePositive. “Our partnership with RingRevenue allows us to deliver even more value to our customers by increasing the return on their advertising spend. Using RingRevenue, we’re able to include unique phone numbers in every advertisement. By doing so we are able to more accurately measure the effectiveness of those ad placements and we consistently see contact and conversion rate improvements on those ads and lead forms that include phone numbers.”

While marketers pay millions of dollars each year for leads and lead generation form completions, what they really want is customers. “The inherent challenge with lead forms is that consumers are at their peak interest level when they fill out the form, but the minute they hit the submit button they are on to something else and their interest level begins to decline,” adds Tomasette. The combination of inbound and outbound hot transfers allows a lead buyer to drastically minimize consumer contact time and maximize contact percentage, one of top metrics in lead value.

With RingRevenue’s call performance marketing solution, DoublePositive leverages strategic media placements and partnerships with publishers to drive inbound phone calls to unique toll-free phone numbers that connect consumers to agents in DoublePositive’s call center. The combination of RingRevenue’s call quality filtering technology and DoublePositive’s live agents qualifies the caller, confirms their interest and connects them live to the advertiser’s sales representatives.

“DoublePositive, like RingRevenue, is built on the premise that having the consumer directly on the phone is of great value to the advertiser,” says Jason Spievak, CEO of RingRevenue. “The combination of our technology and their call center’s qualification and live transfer process ensures that advertisers are delivered a high volume of quality voice leads that are ready to become customers.”

“We looked at a lot of call tracking vendors in our search to find the right partner. RingRevenue has a leadership team with a proven track record in both telephony and performance marketing, which is very important to us,” says Tomasette. “Off the shelf, the RingRevenue platform comes fully equipped with all of the lead generation tools we need: call ROI by keyword search tracking, instant access to promotional phone numbers, advanced call routing, creative services, great real time reporting and more. We knew we could easily get up and running right away and stay focused on delivering value to our clients. Our advertisers are already seeing the benefit in the form of new customers, increases in quality leads and expanded distribution.”

Both companies will be attending LeadsCon Las Vegas 2011 March 1-2, the premier conference for the online lead generation industry. DoublePositive is a Gold Sponsor of the event and can be heard talking about the power of phone calls in the panel session: All About The Call – From Speed to Lead to Call Center Effectiveness, on March 1.

About RingRevenue

RingRevenue improves every marketing campaign with better quality leads, higher conversions and increased ROI. By tapping the power of the phone, RingRevenue’s patent-pending call performance marketing platform captures and converts more high-value customers. RingRevenue’s comprehensive tracking and analytics consistently increase revenues from mobile, print and other “offline” media while also improving the performance of online campaigns such as search, email and display. RingRevenue powers many of the leading performance marketing networks and agencies. To learn more about RingRevenue or to request a demo, please visit ringrevenue.com or call 866-943-6426.

About DoublePositive

DoublePositive Marketing Group, Inc. bridges the “last mile” of converting traditional (data-only) leads into sales. DoublePositive has evolved the model of lead generation to provide sales professionals with a live, qualified, and interested consumer, along with the consumer’s data, all in real time. DoublePositive primarily serves clients and lead providers in the mortgage leads, online education enrollment leads, and insurance leads industries. To learn more visit: www.doublepositive.com.

Post By
Brian Ocheltree

How to Use the Supplier Lead Funnel to Optimize Supply and Maximize Sales Volume

Summary

• Supplier leads should be used appropriately to help optimize your growth
• Lead-Buyers can improve overall lead performance by connecting to more suppliers
• Lead-Buyers can overcome the typical technology integration hurdles with new Quick-Connect options
• A broad source of suppliers optimized on cost-per-sale-per-supplier creates aligned incentives for buyers and sellers

Understanding the Role of Supplier Leads

No one would question that supplier leads are almost always lower quality than branded leads. Branded leads are typically highly motivated and proactive consumers who are “in market”. They are usually exclusive, as well. The combination makes these the highest quality leads possible, and most likely to convert.

So why, then, would Lead-Buyers EVER want a lead from a lead supplier?

The reason is usually scale required to hit sales goals. Companies are limited in how many branded leads they can create cost-effectively. Once this point is reached, the cost-per-lead can sky rocket, making the ultimate cost-per-sale much too high. If a company has maximized its volume of cost-effective branded leads, wherever that point may be, and yet still needs sales growth, supplier leads are usually the next best option, by far. The quality may be lower, but the price is usually low, relatively speaking, and the available volume very high, if not unlimited for most buyers. If a buyer can make the economics work with supplier leads, meaning they can convert enough of them to obtain a reasonable cost-per-sale, then the injection of supplier leads into a sales floor can help a buyer attain almost any desired sales growth.

In our opinion, it is this combination of branded leads first, then supplier leads to fill the gap, that all Lead Buyers should consider when planning the best method of integrating supplier leads into their sales and marketing efforts.

The Power of Connecting to Many

Another simple fact: Lead-Buyers can lower their cost-per-lead and improve their ability to optimize lead flow by connecting to many suppliers.

There are several reasons to diversify supply sources as much as possible. First, having multiple supply sources creates more potential lead volume. Having more volume allows you to extract the performance of each supplier, and optimize towards the best performers.

Second, being connected to more suppliers increases the number of original lead generators, as opposed to lead aggregators or wholesalers, who buy from lead generators and resell to customers like you. This shift creates transparency that can help in your efforts to find the best performing leads sources. If all leads are purchased through an aggregator, you loose transparency to the original lead source, and then are dependent upon the aggregator for your supply source optimization. It is hard to know what an aggregator’s criteria might be when optimizing their supply sources.

Physically Connecting with New Suppliers Overnight – Third Party Connectivity Services

Despite the benefit of doing so, it can be challenging for Lead Buyers to connect with multiple Lead Supply sources and optimize lead flow to the top performers. We have seen firsthand from many clients that getting connected to new suppliers can take months, if not a year or more, due to the technical and testing requirements with each data feed. This level of complexity and cost prevents most companies from engaging with any but the largest of Lead Suppliers, at least initially, thus limiting their supply diversification.

One solution to this problem is to utilize a third-party connectivity platform. For example, DoublePositive’s Lead Funnel facilitates and automates the physical connection to many lead sources automatically, allowing Lead-Buyers to build one physical connection that is already connected to multiple supply sources, while allowing them to maintain a direct relationship with the supplier.

Lead Funnels are basically platforms that have already built XML connections to the suppliers. They can handle the connectivity and translation issues required, typically much more quickly and cost effectively. Here’s how it works:

In the above illustration, a Lead-Buyer in the Auto Insurance sector is using a DoublePositive Lead Funnel to solve this exact problem. The Lead Funnel consists of robust physical connections to all Lead Suppliers, combined with a proprietary Translation Engine that handles the entire custom data mapping per supply source. By building one connection to the DoublePositive Lead Funnel, the company can be connected to virtually every supplier, large and small, very quickly and efficiently.

In addition to reducing the time and cost of connecting to new supply sources, this type of third-party platform allows large Lead-Buyers to justify building connections to smaller suppliers, thus increasing the pool of available supply sources.

Using the Supplier Lead Funnel to Reduce Cost-Per-Sale-Per-Supplier

The Supplier Lead Funnel model overcomes the typical technology integration hurdle for Lead-Buyers looking to add new suppliers. Now that you are connected, how do you optimize for top performance?

The most effective way to optimize for top performance is to track conversions, or sales, and run cost-per-sale-per-suppler models. Incremental metrics – such as cost-per-contact, cost-per-transfer, transfer ratio, or cost-per-lead – can also be used as lower value, but real-time optimization metrics.

Understandably, that’s easier to do in some verticals than others, because of varying sales cycles. For example, in the auto insurance sector, a two-week sales cycle should be enough to give a feel for the quality of a lead source. In the mortgage sector, the sales cycle is a bit longer, whereas for-profit education has the longest sales cycle.

Services exist, such as DoublePositive, that will track conversion metrics for you. Companies can do it on their own, as well. Lead-Buyers with the ability to track can match conversions against leads and calculate the cost-per-sale-per-supplier on a monthly basis. They can then optimize by giving the bulk of the volume to their best performer.

When Conversion Data Is Not Available

What to do if your company cannot get conversion data? One option is to use performance data gathered through a process such as the DoublePositive Hot Transfer process, that provide real time metrics that are highly correlated to lead quality.

For example, you could use metrics such as “Contact” percentage, “Not Interested” percentage, or “Invalid Phone Number” percentage as an indicator of lead quality to compare multiple leads sources.

The Value of Transfer Ratio

The next best metric to optimize against, after conversion data, is the transfer ratio. The transfer ratio gives the strongest indication of lead quality, because it indicates the strength of leads relative to four key hurdles:

1) Consumers have been physically contacted

2) Consumer interest is confirmed

3) Consumers are qualified

4) Consumers are willing to hold on and be successfully transferred to the lead buyer by phone.

If any of those hurdles fail, the call is not transferred. But if all those hurdles are cleared, and the call is transferred, that is probably a very good lead.

Another benefit to transfer data: It is usually available within a second of the transaction, allowing you to optimize your lead sources in real-time, without spending more money on underperformers.

How to Optimize Toward Top Suppliers

As stated above, Lead-Buyers who have sufficient lead volume, along with the ability to track their conversion ratios, can match conversions against leads and calculate the cost-per-sale-per-supplier on a monthly basis. They can then optimize by giving the bulk of the volume to their best performer.

Why Let Suppliers Know You Are Optimizing

Another useful strategy is letting your suppliers know that you are optimizing your lead sources, and that the best performers will get the bulk of the volume. This allows you to create a Champion/Challenger environment where the top performer puts pressure on the weaker performers, and the incentives of the suppliers are aligned with yours: Namely, finding and optimizing their best sources of leads.

We have found suppliers to be very receptive to receiving data on their performance (cost per sale, for example), as long as they are given some conversion data to help them optimize on their end. This is especially true if they know that doing so could raise the lead volume that you are willing to purchase from them.

This is a productive and healthy win-win environment.

The Ability to Control Capacity Variability

In this light, the primary role of the supplier lead, tied to the Lead Funnel, is to improve the most important growth metric: cost-per-sale-per-supplier. More lead volume from more supply sources, with whom you are more transparent, equates to a lower cost-per-sale.

There is another benefit to using the Supplier Lead Funnel: increased control.

Companies striving to hit a growth goal will, at some point, need to hire more salespeople. The problem is that salespeople are fixed costs that don’t go away, whereas organic lead flow is variable.

Having variable control over volume allows companies to handle the inevitable ebb and flow or self-generated leads. The Supplier Lead Model provides this level of control. Lead-Buyers have almost complete control over volume, up or down, which they use to level out the accumulative lead flow on top of their organic lead flow. This gives companies control over capacity variability, and allows them to grow.

Review

What options are available for companies looking to grow beyond the capacity of their self-generated leads? Let’s review the facts.

1. Every company should maximum their high quality branded leads first
2. Supplier leads play a key role in growing the company as well. Putting plans in place to connect to multiple supply sources allows Lead-Buyers to lower the cost-per-sale and optimize for top performance
3. Though building connections to new supply sources is costly and difficult, new options are becoming available all the time to help, such as the DoublePositive Lead Funnel. Therefore, we recommend that all large Lead Buyers continuously search for new supply sources
4. Using a Supplier Lead Funnel significantly improves the most important growth metric: cost-per-sale-per-supplier
5. Companies that have control over cost-per-sale-per-supplier, and have control over capacity variability, are poised to grow

Post By
Rich Dent

We were thrilled to be honored by the LeadsCouncil this month when they announced the first series of winners for their LEADER Awards. DoublePositive was voted Best Hot Transfers Company by lead sellers and Best Hot Transfers Company in the Lending Category by lead buyers.

In my opinion, there is no greater tribute than to be recognized by your clients and peers as the best. Especially now, at such an exciting time in the mortgage industry, where the challenge for lenders is not dealing with a lack of opportunities, but knowing how to capitalize on the abundant opportunities out there.

Why are there so many opportunities in mortgage right now? My colleague, DoublePositive partner Joey Liner, did a great job in his white paper (http://bit.ly/hjwf5W) spelling out the factors that are contributing to the win-win-win climate we are experiencing. To summarize Joey’s main points:

• Mortgage Lead prices are near all-time lows
• Low interest rate environments continue, creating higher lead volumes
• Simply buying more leads will not increase productivity
• Adding LIVE Hot Transfers and a Lead Management System (LMS) maximizes higher conversions and sells more units

Need proof? Check this out:

Graph provided by, Tim Watts, DoublePositive Director of Data Analytics

This graph shows that, just within the past year, DoublePositive has seen the demand for live transfers grow rapidly. Mortgage companies are coming back to us saying, “We need more transfers.” We tell them that the only way to do that is to buy more leads. This works because of how well industry giants Lending Tree, LowerMyBills and Adchemy, and others, have been doing in generating leads. We’ve been very impressed by their ability to increase the quantity of leads, without negatively affecting quality. As a result, mortgage companies will continue increasing their marketing budget and buying more leads.

That’s what I’d call a perfect storm. The lead aggregators are winning because they are able to sell more leads. DoublePositive is winning because we are able to call more leads. And the mortgage companies are winning because they are able to receive more inbound calls from consumers who are interesting in refinancing their homes.

There are many benefits to mortgage firms using hot transfers, which Joey talks about in his white paper. Probably the most significant is that the mortgage firms are able to grow at a strategic pace, using hot transfers. They don’t have to overwhelm their loan officers with calling every raw lead, or rush to hire more loan officers. Using hot transfers allows them to steadily turn up the quantity of leads without suffering from a loss of quality or straining resources.

There’s a whole lot more to share about taking advantage of this perfect storm. I will be out West next week, meeting with some great companies about how to win using hot transfers. When I get back, I’ll share with you guys some interesting data about the disposition of mortgage leads that don’t transfer, which will help you make decisions as a lead buyer or lead seller.

California, here we come!

Post By
Brian Ocheltree

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DoublePositive Wins Two LEADER Awards

HOT Lead Transfer Company Recognized for Excellence in the Field of Online Lead Generation

Baltimore, MD – January 20, 2011 – DoublePositive Marketing Group, the industry leader in LIVE Hot Transfers, announced today that it has been named winner of two important industry awards by LeadsCouncil (www.leadscouncil.com), the largest independent industry organization focused on online lead generation. The LEADER Awards is a new annual awards program designed to showcase the leading companies in online lead generation.

“We are thrilled to be a recipient of two LeadsCouncil LEADER awards,” said DoublePositive Co-Founder Joey Liner. “There is no higher honor than to be recognized by your clients and peers as the best.  It is humbling to be named Best Hot Transfer company in both the Lending and Technology categories.”

For lending companies, DoublePositive contacts, qualifies and transfers online consumers who have requested a quote or information about the company. Companies’ salespeople receive phone calls from live consumers who are qualified, interested and have the highest probability of converting into a sale.

For lead gen technology partners, DoublePositive’s work improving transfer rates increases overall demand for leads in the industry, and provides disposition data that allows lead aggregators to improve their sources.

“Receiving two LEADER Awards is the result of the outstanding effort and dedication of our team,” said DoublePositive CEO Sean Fenlon. “We look forward to working even harder on behalf of our clients and technology partners in the year ahead.”

About DoublePositive Marketing Group, Inc.

DoublePositive was founded in 2004 on the belief that the traditional method of buying "leads" as a marketing solution had become costly and inefficient.  DoublePositive’s LIVE Hot Transfers out-perform other lead generation solutions because every DoublePositive lead passing through a DOUBLEconfirmT process, which delivers LIVE, interested consumers who have the highest probability of converting into a sale. DoublePositive specializes in LIVE mortgage leads, debt settlement leads, education leads, insurance leads, automotive leads and real estate leads. DoublePositive is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. For more information, please visit www.doublepositive.com.

About LeadsCouncil

LeadsCouncil is the first independent industry organization dedicated strictly to advancing online lead generation. LeadsCouncil members include lead buyers, lead sellers, technology solutions providers, and investment professionals. The group focuses on best practices, research, education, and networking to provide a more transparent and effective marketplace for online lead generation.

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Post By
Rich Dent

It was great to get a nod from Mike Ferree http://bit.ly/9RDG7s about the buzz DoublePositive has been generating lately. Lead buyers are discovering the value of using a live Internet lead transfer service like ours, not just to get insight into the quality of Internet leads in real time, but to share that information with their suppliers, which helps improve the quality of leads for everyone.

For example, take a look at leads generated for the online, for-profit education industry. A certain percentage of leads are not transferring. Why are they not transferring? Does the contact claim that they never filled out the form? Do they tell us that they are already enrolled in another program, or that they are still in high school? Is this happening more often than it should? What can we learn from these responses?

The following graph represents the top three dispositions of contacted non-transfers:

Graph provided by, Tim Watts, DoublePositive Director of Data Analytics

Supplier A and Supplier B are delivering pretty good results. But Test Supply is badly off the mark. The buyer can take this data and go back to Test Supplier and say, “Almost 10% of the leads we contacted told us that they never filled out the form. Can you provide us more information on how you are generating these leads? What is the message you are delivering to the consumer through search or display? Could it be because they are being offered some kind of incentive that makes them fill out the form, even if they aren’t interested in our program?”

Another disposition that occurs too frequently in the Test Supply is “No degree/GED,” because students who have not completed high school are not good prospects for online education. Some will fill out the form out of curiosity. Generally, 2% seems to be the industry average – but here we see Test Supply is generating almost 20%. Again, go back to your supplier. Ask, “What is the message and what can we do to change the message so we are not attracting people who are still in high school?”

One last point, and it’s important: Don’t assume that your supplier is trying to cheat you. We all work together here. The only way we can improve the product is if the buyers are willing to share more of the information with the sellers about what’s happening with the leads. After all, we want suppliers to generate more leads because that will drive up more transfers. It takes everyone working together.

That’s it, everybody. That’s the guts of contacted non-transfers. Next time, we’ll share some data on non-contacted non-transfers – or the leads we never make contact with. Until then, let us know about your experiences in the comments below.

Oh – by the way, our in these posts focus has been on EDU lately. I have not forgotten about my Mortgage and Insurance friends. I will share some findings with all of you soon. Please check back regularly.