Day One LeadCons Recap:
I am going to keep it short, because I’ve got beers to drink, rrrrrr. I mean people to see and clients to meet. 
It was a great first day at LeadsCon that started with Dan Ariely‘s keynote speech that I think set the tone for conference. Being a Psychology major for 2 years and then transferring my major to Business Marketing I love to hear his thoughts and ideas, because the combine the two so perfectly. Dan’s Behavioral Economics session pointed out how predictable consumers can be when choosing to buy a product. The catch is that they are predictably irrational, hence the namesake of his book. A couple bullet points would include:
- Do not overwhelm the consumer with choices.
- Direct the consumer on what to buy with less attractive decoy options.
- People buy out of habit.
Those are just a few that need elaborating on and I suggest you buy his book.
The next session was the “State of the Industry”. The moderator asked the crowd to raise their hands if they thought they would make less money in 2009 compared to 2008 no one raised their hands. However, most of the crowd raised their hands when asked if they would make more money in 2009 then 2008. I think that shows how lucky the lead gen industry is to be flexible and be able to change on a dime if needed. Of course the big companies have a difficult time being flexible, but most in the industry can easily follow and move into verticals or offers that are working at that time.
QuinStreets CEO and Chairman Doug Valenti backed that statement up by saying, “the Internet benefits from secular trends”, however also stated that on contrary QuinStreet is focusing on their core verticals rather then diversifying into new ones. Another panelist suggested that companies need to keep things simple and be very focused to make it through these turbulent times.
The next session was titled “Lead Exchanges: The Future of Lead Generation?”
The segment started out as a lead exchange pitch fest where each panel member pitched their product, but thank goodness did not last long. The most interesting and fun to watch part about this session was to watch Reply.com get picked on by LeadPoint and Detroit Auto Exchange for being a lead generator too. Marc Diana of LeadPoint seemed to have an agenda to point that out on a number of occasions and frankly I think it was a very good point. I don’t see how a “neutral third party” exchange can also generate leads and compete for the same buyer that its partners are fighting for on the exchange. Diana pointed out that there is unfair insight into what the demand is from the buyers that the publisher partners may not have. Along with that, I think it simply opens Pandora’s box. Now you have to wonder if they are giving themselves special treatment and insuring that all the leads they generate are being sold, regardless of the price. A true exchange, in my opinion should not be generating their own leads, so I agree with Diana.
That is the recap for the major sessions. I will circle back with you tomorrow or over the weekend to recap the the rest of the sessions. You can also follow me on Twitter for LeadsCon updates as they happen.
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I think its a little difficult to think that people are going to be honest when you get a bunch of competitors in a room and ask “who is going to make less money this year?” A better question might have been “who thinks it will be harder to make money this year than last?” I doubt too many hands would be down on that one.
Keep up the blogging. Some of us are legally barred from entering casinos.
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I had the pleasure to hire Dan as a consultant while I was at Match.com and found him to be brilliant and insightful, which is the case with the post on lead exchanges.
For transparency, I am the Chief Marketing Officer for Reply.com and am responsible for both product and acquisition marketing. I can ensure you and your readers that the system Reply! built does not favor our inventory over any of our sellers / publishers in our exchange.
Being a sophisticated, direct online marketing company has material benefits. First and most important, we have tremendous liquidity in our exchange, which is not the case with LeadPoint. It is nifty to build an exchange and claim you are in multiple categories and it is another point all together to create usable inventory that people want to transact. Launching any successful vertical exchange requires liquidity and quality. To make my point, look at LeadPoint’s failed entry into the auto category.
Second, being a lead generator we understand the technology, systems and margins associated with consumer acquisition and we do not require publishers to dump all their leads into our exchange. LeadPoint claims they do their best to monetize publisher’s inventory but what if their best is just really bad? Reply!’s approach is simply more sophisticated and based on running a multi-category lead business for +8 years. Using the Reply! exchange, a publisher can “ping” our infrastructure to see if Reply! can beat their other options for monetization and never give us control over their inventory unless it makes financial sense to do so. This gives our publishers ultimate control over their inventory and allows them to control margins and revenue on a lead-by-lead basis.
Third, Reply! was first to market with a transparent quality system and we consume leads the same way our advertisers / buyers do and our retail network is the a fantastic litmus test for quality. We get real-time feedback from thousands of buyers on the quality of traffic and make changes to algorithms, terminate publishers and improve quality constantly.
Last, we enhanced our offerings with a Click Marketplace. It allows any company the option to liquidate either clicks or leads with Reply! through an exchange. We use the Click Marketplace ourselves as both a buyer and seller and so do many of the largest lead generators in the industry. Reply! has the most comprehensive online marketing solution for SMBs seeking to get into Internet marketing and ways for lead generators to maximize their revenue. For more, please check out http://www.relpy.com.
I look forward to your thoughts and feedback.
Brian
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Can you ensure market participants that Reply! will NEVER favor its own lead over other participants ? That would be a bold statement.
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BootyJuice (hummm on the name) – To answer your question directly – Yes, we do not preference ourselves… you systems aren’t built that way.
To me, what matters most to a seller is their ability to maximize yield. We can guarantee that you will never have to park a lead with Reply! unless you find our bids to yield a higher ROI than all of your other alternatives. We understand that publishers have choices, so unless Reply! is able to provide better yield, we won’t earn a publisher’s business.
Here is why we believe our model is better than LeadPoint:
Not every exchange has every buyer and not every buyer has the same bid. So as a seller of leads you want to be able to maximize your revenues for every lead. That’s why we want you to ping us as well as competing exchanges with every lead and only sell your lead to the highest bidder. We are confident we will earn your business and maximize your revenue.
We look forward to earning your business.
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You specifically did not address the question I asked. That is a “hmmm” IMO. I take your answer to mean that, while currently Reply! does not favor its own leads over those of its sellers, but it reserves the right to do so in the future. At some point, every one has to make numbers for the analysts or simply needs to shore up revenue, and that’s when the temptation to make small but significant adjustments in an exchange occurs. While not exactly the same, this can be similar to a broker-dealer “front-running” his clients.
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Sorry – Thought I did answer. Our system doesn’t have the facility to bias our own traffic. We are source agnostic but quality conscience. The Quality process is the same for every source so we aren’t biasing that either. Basically quality rules.
Regarding quarterly numbers, you will be happy to know we have consistently beat our quarterly objectives for over a year by driving more search volume – that is very high quality traffic and is great for all buyers.
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Am I the only one thinking in this conversation that the argument as to who has the best lead exchange is like arguing which WNBA team is the best?
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That is pretty funny… or … nothing like winning the championship of indoor Soccer. Perhaps I am gripping the crystal ball too tightly but my perspective is a little different. I think you WNBA comment could have been laid down in front of GOTO.com or Google back in 1998 too.
I honestly believe we are at the start of a massive transference of ad dollars from offline to online. There are billions in offline spend in classifieds and newspapers that are waiting for an easy way to move SMBs over. I believe what we are doing at Reply! and lead generation in general will be that catalyst.
Anyway — go Hurricanes … (who?)
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