double POSITIVE Marketing Group, Inc.

Post By
Sean Fenlon

Wow.

Jodi’s post is a tough act to follow, but I did promise her that would provide a recap of the marquee LeadsCon panel of LeadsCon Las Vegas 2012.  The panel was presented by Doug Valenti, CEO of QuinStreet, and Tom Evans, CEO of Bankrate – the top two publicly-traded companies in the LeadsCon ecosystem.  The panel discussion was moderated by Stewart Barry, a partner with Investment Banking firm Union Square Advisors.  Stewart has represented several buy-side and sell-side clients in the LeadsCon ecosystem, and was a natural fit for the role of moderator between these two high-octane CEOs. 

In the spirit of full-disclosure, I have met Doug Valenti several times and consider him a friend.  I met Stewart Barry after the panel and found him to be incredibly knowledgeable of the LeadsCon ecosystem and also a wonderful person.  However, I have not yet had the opportunity to meet Tom Evans.

Arguably, the premier session of LeadsCon LV 2012, I characterized this as a “must see” to DoublePositive folks and it did not disappoint.  The discussion almost immediately gravitated to the role of mobile in Lead Gen.  Several oft-cited statistics were presented about the rising tidal wave of mobile usage.  Both CEOs acknowledged that they have observed a recent surge in visits to their owned and operated sites via mobile devices.

As a quick sidebar note on the role of mobile, the only other session I was able to attend was presented by Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio.  Jeff is an excellent and engaging presenter and really provided a wakeup call particularly to the mobile marketers and media buyers regarding how to adapt and evolve their call-to-actions to better fit the many different mobile environments.  One screen shot was particularly compelling – a screenshot of how most iPad users are typically leaning back or lying down while using their devices, then followed by a screenshot of a typical web-based long-form with several page-steps and dozens of fields right above an iPad touchscreen keyboard (which doesn’t even include a tab key for the user to move between capture fields).  Good luck getting those forms to convert with iPad users. :-S

Tom Evans segued out of the mobile discussion by making the point that it’s just another way to deliver media.  Tom surprised many in the audience by reminding them that Bankrate is a 28-year-old media company and that he joined the company in 2004 with a strong media background.  Bankrate has been positioned and perceived as a media company more so than a media buyer.  Much of Bankrate’s traffic through the years has been organic search traffic to their owned and operated properties including www.bankrate.com proper.  Organic search traffic tends to leave some in the industry unsettled because of the dominant influence that Google plays with its ranking algorithms for valuable search queries.  However, Tom pointed out that the recent Google updates (aka “Panda 1” and “Panda 2”) were ultimately net traffic gains to Bankrate’s sites.

The conversation naturally flowed to online consumer privacy issues after the mention of Google (given the recent uproar regarding Google tracking online consumers across all of their properties).  I believe Doug Valenti echoed the sentiments of all the white hat players in the audience that greater scrutiny and a better developed policy is needed around this topic of privacy.  The challenge here will be educating the policy-makers around how consumer privacy/tracking works in general and then to translate that into what is good and what is bad for consumers.  Most online marketers fear a brute-force Patriot-Act-style legislation that could severely impact many online marketing business models while providing very little additional privacy or control for consumers.  My personal philosophy is that the key is consumer freedom and consumer transparency.  Make what is being tracked very transparent to consumers while describing the benefits, while also providing the freedom to opt-out and otherwise control their own personal tracking settings.

The conversation then led to a conversation regarding online media in general.  Both Doug and Tom consider their respective businesses to be media companies (i.e. sellers of media, albeit most of it on a performance-basis), even though both businesses are also very active media buyers as well.  In that regard, it was refreshing to hear them speak of the consumers that visit their owned and operated sites as their “customers” and they both care deeply about the engagement and experience of those users.  Too often in the world of online performance-based marketing, the consumers are viewed by marketers as clicks and zeroes/ones on a traffic log rather than humans. 

Tom Evans described an interesting challenge for the whole online media ecosystem.  Traffic to online media is dominated by the big portals and players (e.g. Google, MSN, AOL, Yahoo, etc.).  They are all working hard to command the same rates for their premium inventory as offline premium TV could command.  I believe Tom stated the range to be $8-$15 CPMs.  In contrast to that, Tom identifies the massive amounts of non-premium inventory from these same players and other smaller publishers that are being auctioned off through real-time bidding exchanges in the sub-$1 CPM and often even sub-$0.50 CPM range.  On the other end of the spectrum are performance-based media sellers such as Google or Bankrate selling clicks that net an effective $60-$70 eCPM to the publisher.  Thus, Tom identified the big media companies to be stuck in a strange spot in the middle.  I personally view the continuum of eCPM’s as a simple reconciliation of supply and demand, and the continuum becomes more rational as the market gradually becomes more efficient through value-based pricing and real-time bidding.

Both Bankrate and QuinStreet have been highly acquisitive in the LeadsCon ecosystem as a supplement to their organic growth.  Both CEOs agreed that owning the media (as opposed to buying the media – perhaps “renting” the media is a better term here) is a key consideration of value in their M&A strategies.  Doug Valenti used his recent acquisitions of two B2B media companies (Ziff Davis Enterprise and IT Business Edge) as examples.  If the business that is the acquisition target is not a media company, but rather a network or technology company, the key criteria they use to evaluate the strategic fit is whether or not there could be growth “acceleratation” post-acquisition as a result of the larger platform.  Doug Valenti used the acquisition of SureHits as an excellent example of successfully using this approach.  Both CEOs agreed that as publicly-traded businesses, they had a responsibility to obsess about scalability of acquisition targets, but also to enforce best-practices in the industry and accelerate the transition from the Wild West to well-organized and well-governed business practices.  In other words, there seemed to be very little appetite for businesses that utilized incentives or promotions (or good forbid spyware/malware) as part of their interactions with consumers.  My takeaway was that Wall Street tends to reward businesses that are perceived more as media-owners and platforms more so than media-buyers/renters or intermediaries.

The discussion then shifted to the topic of vertical markets.  This has always been a fun topic since 2007 when hundreds of millions of mortgage lead gen dollars simply vanished as a result of the mortgage meltdown.  Many lead gen businesses then began going to great lengths to identify the characteristics and attributes of the best verticals to enter.  Tom and Doug confirmed a few of the most basic desirable attributes – high-value “considered” consumer purchases, sometimes referred to as “chunky.”  It is interesting to note that both QuinStreet and Bankrate share several vertical markets (e.g. Mortgage, Insurance, Credit Cards) but Bankrate does not operate in several other vertical market that QuinStreet does (e.g. Education, Home Services, and B2B).  Verticals that also reflect desirable attributes that I do not believe QuinStreet or Bankrate have entered – at least not yet in a big or meaningful way – include Health, Auto, and Travel.

The topic of the Home Services vertical invoked some interesting disagreements amongst the panelists.  While QuinStreet has a strong presence in Home Services, Tom Evans was sharply skeptical of the opportunity, citing the lack of “any big business in Home Services.”  When the moderator Stewart Barry politely reminded Tom of ServiceMagic as a very big Home Services lead gen company, Tom acknowledged the example but continued to be skeptical of the opportunity because of the noisy/messy long-tail characteristics of the service providers and contractors (who are also the lead buyers).

The conversation then shifted gears away from vertical markets per se and into various pricing models (e.g. clicks vs. leads vs. calls, etc.).  I was thrilled to hear the position of both Tom and Doug on this topic to the extent that it matches the long-held DoublePositive philosophy.  They both held the position that we are all in the customer acquisition business, and that our function is to deliver net new customers at scale and at target cost.  Thus, clicks, leads, calls (and I’ll self-servingly add Hot Transfers to this list), are just various performance-based pricing models at different stages of the funnel, but are designed to achieve the exact same ultimate outcome. 

Amen. 

I will only add one additional observation from the market that I suspect both Tom and Doug would agree with, that the deeper in the funnel that the pricing is determined yields an inverse relationship to scale/volume vs. risk/challenge.  In other words, the challenge/risk of buying clicks and converting them into sales is greater than that of buying leads, calls, or Hot Transfers, but there is a much greater volume of clicks available to buy in market for those that can manage that risk/challenge.

Tom Evans described the evolution of pricing models at Bankrate.  When he arrived in 2004, they sold mostly display ad inventory on a CPM basis.  Their online rate table product allowed them to evolve into a CPC pricing model that sold clicks.  The insurance vertical acquisitions of InsureMe, NetQuote, and InsWeb pushed them into selling leads on a CPA/CPL pricing model.  DoublePositive is happy to be working closely with Bankrate Insurance which allows Hot Transfers as one of the delivery model options, thus a CPT or Cost-per-Transfer may soon follow.  Tom seemed to suggest a bias for the higher pricing models with his colorful comment during the panel that “We’re still asking people to swim through a lot of swamp water to get to the jet fuel… We charge a lot more for the jet fuel.”

The “jet fuel” metaphor is a good one.  Tom mentioned that a $1,500 total marketing cost-per-funded-loan is still the market average in the mortgage industry.  Most buyers would gladly spend $1,500 for a single click, a single lead, or a single call/transfer provided that they had a 100% conversion to funded loan rate, but that is only hypothetical.  It is the “swamp water” that requires lower blended price points.  In Baltimore, we refer to this as crab-cake filler. :-)

As an extension of this principle, both Doug and Tom agreed that it is still difficult to get end-of-funnel sale or transaction feedback from lead buyers.  This has been a common meme at every LeadsCon, and a common frustration of lead sellers for over a decade.  The buy/sell market will never be as efficient as it can be as long as the feedback loop of true value is broken.  Bridging the gap of this broken feedback loop is a key pillar to the DoublePositive media buying and right-pricing strategy.

At the end of the panel discussion, the moderator allowed a few questions from the audience.  An interesting question from an audience member was regarding the roll of affiliates within their supply channels, especially with respect of both CEOs passion to eliminate bad actors.  Tom Evans responded by stating that his affiliate channel was Bankrate’s least-profitable channel.  The most profitable channel was of course organic traffic from owned and operated sites.  However, direct media buying (where there is no fear of bad affiliate behavior) yielded higher margins than the affiliate channel, thus challenging the myth that businesses utilize an affiliate channel (and the noisy risk of bad affiliate behavior) merely for higher margins. 

The next question was a nice segue.  A representative from Progressive Insurance asked “who pays the cost of these bad affiliate actors?”  The answer shared by both CEOs is that both the lead buyer and the lead seller share the cost.  The lead seller bears the cost by having their performance diluted thereby preventing from securing higher rates in market for the rest of their inventory.  The lead buyer bears the cost by working to a lower blended price per lead (thereby reducing their overall volume) but also wasting operating time/money and emotional bank accounts of their sales force.

The final question from the audience was about International expansion opportunities.  Doug Valenti took the lead on the answer and first set the table by stating that the vast majority of the opportunity for lead gen businesses is still in the USA.  He went on to describe QuinStreet’s international strategy and how it fit into Western Europe and Latin America.  Doug confessed that China is a tough nut to crack given the highly-localized and highly-personalized idiosyncrasies of the culture and the market there.  DoublePositive board member Stein Kretsinger has made several investments into online advertising businesses in China and agreed with Doug 100%.

Overall, I found this panel discussion to be one of the most memorable and enjoyable in LeadsCon history.  I’m hoping that Jay is able to make this inspiring State-of-the-Union style panel an annual affair.  Bravo to Doug, Tom, and Stewart, and Cheers to Jay.

 SPF

Post By
Jodi Swartz

WOW!  What a conference.  What a city.  What an exhilarating (and exhausting!) experience.

As a LeadsCon newbie, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I mean, I’ve been to what feels like one million tradeshows, and managed half as many as a marketing director…so I was curious to find out for myself what all the buzz was about.

As my previous posts indicated, LeadsCon West 2012 was held in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 28 and 29 (with a special buyers only event held on the 27^th).  Vegas is one of the best places to hold tradeshows, so that, by design, is a positive.  The leads ecosystem is forever evolving with new businesses and professionals entering the market all the time, so that’s a positive.  And, since I planned our exhibit (complete with photo booth) and party (with our partner Leads360) I knew those were going to be, if nothing else, fun!  So, positives there, too.

Thus, I came into the show with the following:

• Vegas?  Positive.Evolving industry? Positive.
• Fun booth? Positive.
• Cool parties? Positive.

Seemingly, the basics were covered.  But, what else would make THIS particular LeadsCon stand out?

Well, first, companies in attendance topped 1200 and total attendance topped 2600—a myriad of exhibitors welcomed booth visitors with hospitality and enthusiasm, speakers inspired and challenged audiences, the Mirage excited and delighted (just ask me about my final night’s stay in the penthouse suite),  and the networking was unstoppable.  So unstoppable, in fact, that it stymied my original plan of being a devout LeadsCon student—attending each and every seminar available, soaking up new industry knowledge, every minute completely rapt—graduating with my PhD in “the biz.”  Yeah…not so much.

My team was on FIRE this year!  Booth regulars like Joey Liner, Syed Zaidi, and Brian Ocheltree spent so much time meeting with clients, prospects, and partners that our “while you were out” notebook was nearly full.  At times us DP booth folks were outnumbered by a margin of at least 3:1 by those wanting to chat with us.

DoublePositive/LeadsCon360 party bracelets were so in demand they became near black market items.  And, I was about ready to hang a sandwich board sign on my back that said “To speak with JT Benton, please take a number.”

So, what WAS all the excitement about?  What made this year different?

Well, it started right before the show when we were honored with two LeadsCouncil LEADER™ awards— Best Hot Transfer:Lending and Best Hot Transfer:Technology.

Needless to say, we were thrilled and took that enthusiasm straight to Vegas.

On Monday at 2:30 (the day before the actual show began), the aforementioned Mr. Benton spoke at the first-ever LeadsCon Buyers Summit about performance mobile marketing.  JT, a long standing expert in the field, spoke about why (finally) the time is right for mobile click-to-call, how it impacts marketing and media plans, and strategies for implementing it successfully.  All of this good stuff was promoted well in advance via news releases and blog entries, and a terrific webinar produced by our partners at Ring Revenue.  At the close of the seminar, JT also unveiled DP’s first white paper on the subject.  (SPOILER ALERT: Look out for a webinar in the very near future where you can learn from the master himself and get your own copy of the whitepaper.)

Although I wasn’t able to see it live myself, I would have thought JT was one of the Beatles at the height of their popularity (thus the sandwich board dream).  A big shout out to @LeadsCouncil for their tweet “@DoublePositive JT Benton Doing an amazing job presenting on Mobile Marketing #LeadsCon.”  Thanks guys!

On Tuesday morning, as the team’s official “crazy marketing lady” it was my job to make sure that DoublePositive was ready for the crazy schedules that were ahead of them, that our booth was inviting and fun, and that our head “misfits,” company CEO and EVP, Sean Fenlon and Joey Liner, respectively, were prepped and ready to go for their welcoming address.  Sean and Joey had the priveledge of welcoming the entire conference immediately following the keynote.  The moment was certainly not lost on them as Joey (@joeyliner), so fittingly  tweeted: “This is 1 of those defining moments in life, about to speak to 2500+ in a welcome address for LeadsCon with my partner Sean #DoublePositive.”

Following the welcoming address, it was over to the tradeshow floor where our 10×20 booth was transformed into a comfortable lounge space complete with a photo booth (to capture folks in their tradeshow best)!  We brought our favorite DP website characters with us, we had Viking helmets, sunglasses, and signs promoting Joey for Mayor!

While people shed their inhibitions in the most PG ways possible in photo booth…

…others shed their shoes and kicked up their feet on our couches (including our very own John Nuclo, Stein Kretsinger, and Syed Zaidi—can you feel the love?).

The DoublePositive team was visible on the floor and off Tuesday—most notably with Joey “LeadsCon Mayor” Liner invited to speak during the “Is Lead Gen a Dirty Word?” panel.  He was joined by Jeremy Johnson, Co-Founder and CMO, 2tor, Inc., John Kobs, CEO & Co-Founder, ApartmentList.com, and moderated by Jeff Lawson, CEO & Co-Founder of Twilio. (That’s our guy, second from the left.)

All the while, attendees zoomed from booth to booth making friends and influencing people—and searching for the sacred bracelets for the DoublePositive/LeadsCon360 party later that night at Rhumbar.

So…later that night at Rhumbar…the atmosphere was sumptuous, the drinks were spirited and flowed freely , the staff at the club couldn’t have been more hospitable, the weather was beautiful (albeit a little on the windy side), and everyone relaxed…played some cards,  snapped some shots in the photo booth and all around had a great time.

Thank you to our friends at Leads360 for (once again!) making it a special night, and thank you to Steve Hall for the great photographs (below).

Up early again Wednesday morning…

Day two proved even more exciting as attendees and exhibitors alike knew they had just one final day to meet, greet, and eat.  Our booth was a flurry of folks looking to engage with our team members, learn about our products and services, and snap some shots in our photo booth.

Midway through the afternoon, our very own Rich Dent donned his favorite sombrero and participated in a video interview about the show with VigLink CEO, Oliver Roup.  Go Rich!

After a brief rest and bite to eat, it was off to the LeadsCon VIP after show party at newly opened 1Oak Night Club in the Mirage Hotel and Casino.  Attendees got decked in their show-stopping finest and partied in celebration of another spectacular LeadsCon.  Our team really got into the spirit of the event (thanks again to Steve Hall for the great pic on the left)!

So, let’s review.  Obviously, my expectations were pretty basic and I kept that that way as to not be disappointed:

• Vegas?  Positive.
• Evolving industry? Positive.
• Fun booth? Positive.

What I wasn’t expecting was EVERYTHING ELSE LeadsCon West had to offer.  Although I did not get to attend many seminars (because apparently I was preparing for some kind of cross-country marathon running from one end of the Mirage to the other all day long!) I heard from many teammates, associates, and those through the social networks (just look up #leadscon) how much they learned and enjoyed the material. Personally, I learned a heck of a lot about the industry, how deep my colleagues knowledge is (they fielded questions from every direction!), and how enthusiastic everyone remains about contributing to and shaping the leads ecosystem.    And the networking?  Let’s just say I am happy to have e-copies of all photographs from the booth so I can continue to match names with faces.

Obviously, my expectations were BLOWN AWAY.  We put a lot of work into preparing for LeadsCon, and LeadsCon clearly delivered back so much more.

• Amazing speakers? Positive.
• Super smart people?  Positive.
• Great networking? Positive.

Doing it all again at LeadsCon East? DOUBLE positive.

See y’all in New York City!

Post By
Rich Dent

You guys know me – booth babe.

So last month at Leads-Con East, I am chatting with this guy who says he’s a big leads buyer.  He likes our LIVE Hot Transfer concept, and wants his enrollment officers to receive live, interested leads on the phone, but …

“Can’t you guys qualify them more?”

This comment shows how times have changed.  In the old days, companies were simply handing a fat pile of leads over to sales, and asking them to call them all.  It was like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Then DoublePositive came along and found the needle in the hay stack.  We patented the LIVE Hot Transfer process, so that companies could receive phone calls from live consumers who were ready to talk with a salesperson.

Now this guy wanted to know if we could take it a step further and thread the needle for him.

“We do some simple qualifying,” I cautioned.  “But in my opinion, you should be careful what you ask for.  You might do yourself more harm than good.”

He said, “Why?  If I’m talking to people I can’t help, I want to filter those people out.”

“I understand,” I said.  “But you need to be careful who you filter out, or you will filter everybody out.”

“Not sure I follow,” he said.

I tried again.  “Think of it this way.  What if they have a family member you could help out? What if you discover there is another service or product you could provide?  You never know unless you talk to them.”

He shrugged.

“You are basically asking the call center agent to make that decision for you,” I said.  “That’s not wise.  What you should do is, let us eliminate those consumers who really had no interest of ever speaking to you about your product or service.  Let us take away that work for you.  And the rest?  Those who have raised their hand and said they want to talk to you?  You should take those calls as fast as I can transfer them to you.”

“I don’t know,” he said.  “There’s got to be an easier way.”

I gave him one of Sean’s great lines: “There’s nuggets of gold in the hills.  Finding them is the hard part – that’s our job.  It’s your job to work them.”

“Well, I need someone who will do all the work for me,” he said.

At this point I just had to laugh, shake his hand, and wish him luck.

So I’m writing this post to help folks understand.  There is a right way to use a LIVE hot transfer service and a wrong way.

If you want us to call your leads and transfer back only those that are ready to talk business, that’s the right way.

But you want us to call, qualify the lead, sell for you, close the deal and just send you the money …

Booth babe says, “Good luck.”

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

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 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
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.

Post By
Brian Ocheltree

We wrote about the top insurance industry lead suppliers recently in our white paper (link to: http://bit.ly/dyp3Sv). To recap briefly:

Here’s the DoublePositive Top Lead Supplier List, current as of this writing. Don’t blink – it may change.

1. Bankrate – when they acquired NetQuote in July of this year, Bankrate became the 600-pound insurance lead selling gorilla in the room. They had already acquired the #2 player in the space, InsureMe, back in February 2008, and today are the market leader by far.

2. All Web Leads – a relative newcomer out of Austin, TX, they’ve been on a serious growth trajectory growth over the past two years. Everybody’s got their eye on them.

3. InsWeb – despite the fact that they are the only publicly traded, top volume insurance lead producer, InsWeb has been flying under the radar. We think they may be set for a resurgence. In August of this year they acquired Potrero Media of San Francisco, CA, known to produce some of the highest quality leads available, which appear to be all Search generated.

4. HometownQuotes – out of Nashville, TN, HometownQuotes is another top volume producer, and seems a prime candidate to be acquired, or to make an acquisition of their own.

As the insurance leads landscape continues to shift, our hope is that the top volume producers will grow without sacrificing quality, thus raising the volume of high quality leads for everyone in the ecosystem.

So, given the industry consolidation, can the insurance lead buyer still get leverage?

Watch for the next post from DoublePositive, or read the white paper at http://bit.ly/dyp3Sv.