LEADCRITIC

A company that does not get mentioned here as frequently as they probably should, for what ever reason, released their bi-annual benchmark study last week. I was going to cover it as soon as it came out, but I was actually going to make an effort to try and acquire the study, but did not have any luck, so this post isn’t as timely as I would have liked, but better late then never.

That said, many of you have probably already seen the press release, if not you can download it here, MortgageBot Benchmark Study. First, I love the fact that MortgageBot puts the time and effort into putting a report like this together for their clients. They have the data, so why not share it?

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Insiders at Tree.com were informed recently that a key member of the team will be moving on to the next step in his career. Keith Moore, Senior Vice President at Tree.com and long time Lead-Gen industry member, who was the reason for the positive quality and growth of the LendingTree’s short form product, has chosen to take a stab at a new venture.

Where Moore will officially land next is unknown at the moment, but he will be missed at Tree.com and will be a huge asset to the his next destination.
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Guest Post By Adrian Huth, friend and “good guy” in the industry.

Allow me to introduce myself…. I am an individual who has been in the lead generation industry going on 10 years.  I have seen the industry involve from the early days of the mortgage boom to the now recent collapse and repositioning to new verticals gaining increasing value such as loan modification and debt consolidation leads. I have seen the evolution of the search engines and SEO marketing and was there in the beginning of cost per click marketing.  I have witnessed how lead generation and lead quality was affected by the rise of the affiliate networks, display advertising, email marketing and incentivized leads.  I saw first hand how all these different types of marketing caused lead buyers to cancel and how some increased closing ratios.  Even back 4 years ago with all these types of lead generation I began to suspect that people are playing a game of buying and selling leads to each other and that everyone is becoming the enemy of the other.  Lead generation has now evolved into screwing people over and this has now become the de facto business model and state of the industry.

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Carpool Confessions are conversations that take place with Lead Generation professionals on the way to and from work.

Last Friday I had the pleasure of speaking with Paul McLenaghan, VP of Interactive Markets at TargusInfo, regarding their new product AdAdvisor. I covered AdAdvisor when it first was publicized earlier this year and was amazed, so I again wanted to learn more and figured a phone conversation would be best.

On the call we discussed what AdAdvisor was all about. How it works. How it outperforms traditional behavioral targeting. And how you can take advantage of the amazing product.

Take a listen and tell me what you think about AdAdvisor.

I think it was on the call with Gariel Buck of ClickPoint where I we discussed the low barriers of entry into the lead gen industry. It was my view that they have been continually been lowering over the last few years at a dramatic pace. Sure anyone can get out there and generate leads, but the difficult part was building out an efficient code to distribute the leads. With implementation of ClickPoint and others it has become even easier. But first, I must say that not everyone can do it, even with the amount of out-of-the-box tools that are available. It takes much more then simply being able to generate and distribute leads to build a successful lead generation company. The evidence for that statement is the many lead gen companies that have not been able to survive the economic downturn of the past 2-3 years.

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After a few weeks of forced “vacation” time I am will be hoping back on the lead generation saddle for another ride.

I have recently excepted a position at Geary Interactive where I will be helping grow their performance marketing division with a focus on the education vertical . To say the least, I am very excited and feel that this is a big step forward in my own personal growth within the lead gen space. I was blessed to have a number of different opportunities present themselves to me that came from both the buyer and seller side of the lead generation equation, but I felt the opportunity to work for an exciting, growth oriented, full service interactive marketing company, located here in San Diego, was going to be the best home for me.

I want to thank all of you who have sent me notes of encouragement and support! The lead gen industry can sometimes get a bad rap, but from my point of view it has some of the most supportive and helpful people in any industry. Thank you!

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Short answers is Yes!

4-5 years ago I came up with my own ways of scoring leads, but mine were macro focused rather then the micro techniques that are being advocated today.  I think we all know that some type, and some people may know more specifically what type, of lead scoring needs to be implemented into your lead buying/marketing controls, but most have not implemented any type of real time scoring. For a few years now we have been validating data and in some eyes scoring leads prior to entering our databases, however now more efficient and scientific scoring services are being offered by companies like TargusInfo and eBureau that take into count a number of different data points to predict the likelihood of a lead reaching the point of sale.

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LOS ANGELES, June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CyberDefender Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: CYDE), an award-winning provider of PC security, Antispyware/Antivirus Software, PC Optimization, PC Support, and Identity Theft Prevention solutions, announced today the hiring of Mr. Steven R. Okun as Senior Vice President of Marketing, a new position at CyberDefender. Mr. Okun will report to the CEO and the Board of Directors.

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August 17 - 18, 2009.

Full Conference Program Now Available

LeadsCon exists not just to bring people together but to provide a forum for leadership and actionable information.

Here are but a few of the sessions happening at LeadsCon East 2009:

• Achieving Breakthrough Results - Get more out of your efforts without spending more
• The Rise of Direct Response and Per Inquiry Advertising - Offline media offers more opportunites than ever before for performance minded advertisers
• Display 2.0 - Bridging The Performance Divide Between Display And Search - New advances in targeting and new ad units can help make display a main focus
• Stories from the Front Line - Learn has worked and more importantly what hasn’t.
• And Many More!

View the Full Conference Program and check back soon for the Speaker List.

Save $$$ - Early Bird Ends This Month

The Early Bird price of $395 ends June 30, 2009. Click Here to register.

Wow, this had probably been the longest time I have gone without a post. Since my layoff I have been quite busy discussing different opportunities and jobs offers. And additionaly any time I am home my wife goes on “vacation”, which is well desrved, but I gotta tell ya I was hoping to get a few rounds of gold in during my time off and I don’t think that is going to happen!

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LOS ANGELES - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Leads360, Inc., the largest provider of lead management solutions to the mortgage industry and Calyx Software, the leading provider of loan origination software, have interfaced to provide a bi-directional integration between their products. Leads360 has leveraged the Point Software Development Kit (SDK) to create the interface and is currently the only company to offer this type of solution. Through this interface, mutual clients of Leads360 and Calyx benefit from real-time synchronization of leads and automated updating of conversion data on a nightly basis.

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