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.

The first session was titled “Must Know Advances in Lead Quality”. The members of the panel included Alex Baydin of PerformLine, Inc, Dave Behn of Performance Marketing Group and Matt Coffin founder of LowerMyBills. The session was moderated b y David Wengal of TARGUSinfo.

First Question proposed was regarding quality issues and how do you handle the issues.

Dave- Responded that tracking the leads and integrating with thrid party platforms tend to invite a number of issues. One of the issues he sees with quality is that people have different ways of analyzing lead quality and many are not sufficient. Dave encouraged lead providers to push for companies to use lead scoring, smart lead routing and to open that data to the providers.

Matt- 4 years ago LMB realized that better quality could be attained by asking for the SS#. He claimed it raised the level of intent with the consumer. The challenge arises for lead providers when the try to implement the strategy and the incurred cost that associated with the implementation. Matt claimed that most lead providers are short term thinkers and I completely agree with this, and will not implement the strategy. He also said that lead generation must evolve to better qualifying the consumer…currently customers are being pummeled, he said.

Dave- The industry is lacking innovation…huge media budgets with very little user experience…companies need to add content, videos, articles, etc to enhance the experience.

The next question brought up Atul Patel’s new venture LeadIDentity. Who does it benefit?

All four of the panel thought it was a positive step in the industry, but was fairly unsure about the details and did not have too much to say other than that they like the concept.

LeadScoring- Who Should implement this?

Matt- hopped on a bit of soap box on this topic and is because he has recently invested his own money into a company, eBureau. Lead scoring is right at the tipping point…smart guys are all over it…some companies are waiting and running a risk…lead scoring is a no brainer …you will be left behind if you don’t implement this into your business…

Dave- Claimed that it helps buy traffic

Matt- Came back to say that it is can be used as a leverage tool to make more money for lead providers and buyers.

Buyers remember one bad lead, how do set expectations?

Dave- You have to educate your clients on lead scrubbing and that fake or bogus information will come through even with lead scrubbing in place…its the nature of the business.

Alex- Mentioned that companies cannot find and properly evaluate a good lead source over a two week time frame and that by doing so you are setting your business up for failure and possibly lead-gen in general up for failure.

Great session and look forward to a recap tomorrow of day two from LeadsCon in Las Vegas.

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