A few weeks ago we discussed what I believed to be a valid lead. Take a reread of the rant at the link you just passed by to catch yourself up on the topic.

I want to revisit this topic because some lead sellers are taking advantage of very small loophole, the email address. Lets get something clear. Lead Buyers expect a valid lead to be one that can be contacted by phone. In most cases they expect a person to actually pick up the phone and not simply ring and ring and ring and ring, leading to no answer and no voicemail. I have been involved with working leads for about 6 years now and never once would expect to only rely on the email address to contact a prospect. Aside from how important email is to nurturing and following up with a lead it is hardly a sufficient means for an initial contact and in many cases a follow up. In fact, I would put money down that if a lead has an invalid phone number it has almost has no chance of being contacted, much less converted, through email.

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In general, the ability to return leads is a safe guard put in place by lead sellers, or demanded by lead buyers, that allows for a certain level of leeway when paying for “leads”.

The acceptable reasons for a lead to be returned are fairly specific and generally boils down to the definition of a “lead”. Quickly, what is a lead? For some reason this definition is not completely clear to most. While it would seem a very simple question. When you throw in the topic of returns or the payment for qualified leads, it gets a little blurred. A lead is a person that has indicated interest in a product or service by requesting to be contacted through a inquiry form online or via a number of other sources.

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There is a lot of talk about educating the consumer and providing the proper content so that they can make informed decisions. In the finance space this content is completely missing from the lead generation process. In the EDU space there is content overload.

The finance space provides very little information about the companies the consumer is being matched with until after the consumer has committed to receiving phone calls from unknown companies. There are a few companies that are changing that process as we speak, but I can continue to make that general statement until it becomes the norm. What the finance space does do well is cap the amount of companies that will contact the consumer. While we all know there are companies that sell their leads more then they claim, we can assume that most legitimate companies are being ethical and responsible with their distribution model.

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I would like to think that our industry is not the only one that has such a wide array companies from the completely unethical to the highly ethical and honest, but because of its fairly low barriers of entry I think the lead generation industry might be the only one.

I started writing on this blog 3 years ago with the goal to out companies that took advantage of lead buyers. Unfortunately some the same companies that have been written about on this blog a number of times are still in business, but the good news is that many have fallen to the wayside. It is also important to note the companies that follow high ethical standards, or more frankly show any level of ethics. When I used to buy leads I would share which companies were performing the best and who in my opinion held themselves to higher standards then the others.

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To really do well with Internet leads you have to do a number of things right. You need to have the right personal, the right lead management process, the right leads, proper tracking and analytics, the right re-marketing campaigns, and slew of other things. With this is mind do you really need to know exactly where the leads are coming from?

As a lead buyer I wanted to know how the leads were being generated, where they were being generated and how many times they were being sold. Today, lead buyers are expressing the same concerns within their conversations about transparency. This is the same discussion that I mentioned last week and it has been going on for years and years. After I wrote last weeks post I sent a quick note to friend Bill Rice:

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There is a strange similarity between transparency and love.

I find it a little humorous quite frankly, but let me try and explain. I don’t claim be a industry veteran by any means, but for the last 6 years or so I have continued to hear the topic of transparency. Everyone has a different definition of what transparency is, though. I have heard people claim it is only a scapegoat for lack of quality. I have heard buyers claim they don’t get enough of it from their lead sources and vice-versa. In all reality a certain level of transparency is needed for a successful partnership (Partnership = High Quality Leads = Positive Results) to be created.

What is transparency and does it mean different things to different people? Here is what I think buyers and sellers thing transparency means?

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In this industry, specifically the lead generation industry, you don’t have to be around very long as a lead buyer to be able to start sniffing out the questionable lead sources. They claim to generate thousands of leads through SEO and Paid Search, but a quick glance at their websites stats tells a vastly different story. How do they get all those thousands of leads? It gets fairly easy and over time you learn to trust your instincts.

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Are they really “branded leads”? Better yet; Are “branded leads” really exclusive?

The EDU space is different then any other vertical slightly different then other verticals in how leads are captured. I am tempted to cross out the whole sentence and say that it is no different then any other vertical, but I will give the vertical a little credit and say it has a few differences. The key difference is the attention that lead buyers give to “branded leads”. Even though directories have been around in other verticals of ages, like the mortgage vertical, the attention to buying branded leads has never been so strong.

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Their are so many factors that affect lead quality. The list is long, so you are not going to find it included in this post, but there is one specific item that is on that list that I do want to discuss. Ask anyone that has been involved in the lead generation industry for longer the 5 years and they will tell you that the space has been growing at an amazing pace. Right or wrong I think I have seen articles stating that the industry produces tens of billions of dollars every year and is growing at a rate of 20%+ per year. The bottom line, the industry is growing at a healthy pace.

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There is nothing more frustrating then when a lead gen company is run by a bunch of unethical morons. And even more frustrating is that there are a number of them, but the good news is that you can usually spot them fairly quickly. In fact, most of them are companies you initially had a bad feeling about from the start, but wanted/needed more volume so you thought you go out on a limb and give them shot.

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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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I know I have gone out of order with my LeadsCon recaps posts, but I think by now you all know I do things my own way and a little out of order. Day two, I must admit was a little slow moving, but included some very good session.

I am not going to go through each session for this post and am only going to highlight a few them. The first session I want to discuss with you is the “Lead Buyer Perspective” session. The panel included Chris Meerschaert formally of Quicken Loans and now with Adchemy. Adam Graff of Career Education Corp, Jordan Drew of findalocalagent.com, Todd Davison of Bulldog Solutions. The session was moderated by Rick Natsch of Potreto Media Corporation.

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How, it was only a have day that only included two sessions, but what a great way t start off a conference. First, I must say I was surprised by the turn out and the packed house!! Great Job Jay.

Let me give you all a brief run down on the the first day here in Las Vegas. I guess I should also premise this post by mention that the crowd here at LeadsCon is a nice mix of affiliate marketers, lead providers, lead sellers, ad networks and everything in between. It a very diverse crowd, which I think it going to continue to lead to great discussions and insight. Hopefully I can pass along some of the conversations to those of you who could not make it.

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