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:

Before I show you what Bill’s response was let me share a little history with you. I started this blog a little over 3 years ago and the first person who noticed and acknowledged the blog was Bill Rice. He was one of the first lead gen bloggers and CEO’s to really understand the power of social media. He still remains on the leading edge of lead generation, lead management and social media. Lets put it this way, he has been around the block a few times when it comes to lead management.

With that said, here was his response to my post last week.

lol, and I still get a chuckle when I read this tweet, but isn’t he right? When it comes down to it, isn’t it all about lead management and ROI? Is the transparency discussion just a red herring to poor lead management? Aside from knowing how your brand is being represented, does it really matter how your leads are being generated?

I don’t want to sit here and ask a ton of rhetorical questions, but really. When it comes down to being profitable with online leads and all the things that need to be done right to show just the smallest profits margins, shouldn’t we being having more passionate discussions about lead scoring, pricing, and analytics rather then transparency?

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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?

Buyers definition of transparency: Knowing exactly what each lead source is doing to generate leads. Knowing what the creative says and looks like, knowing where the ads are being placed, knowing the exact source of every lead (did they come from the another company or were they organically generated), what keywords are being bid on, etc

Sellers definition of transparency: Conversion data (contact rates, app rates, conversion rates, etc) knowing what the Lead management process is.

Let me know if you think something needs to be added to either of these definitions.

So, how does love compare to transparency, you ask. We like to call the relationship between buyers and sellers “partnerships”. These partnerships are similar to interpersonal relationships in that, in the early stages of the relationship, there is a lack of trust. The trust needs to be earned, and it can difficult to earn if one of the parties had been burned in the past. Whats funny is when the relationship gets to a point where both parties clearly care about each other, but both are afraid to be the first to say “I love you”. Neither really wants to stick there neck out there for fear they will get hurt. lol I can’t help but to laugh, because its a silly analogy, but I feel like its exactly what is going on in the lead gen space.

We have been talking about transparency for YEARS! We both want the same thing. Seriously, exactly the same thing! Lets just do it already. Should we plan a day where we say it at the same time, “I love you!”  Why are companies simply not willing to share their data? Obviously there is an insecurity about sharing the data.

Do sellers really need all the information they want or are the just “nice to have”? Frankly, I think there are some cases where the requests are just nice to have and others are a necessity, for legal reason. Lets define what is actually needed. Thoughts?

Do sellers really need all the information they are requesting? I think they do. The real question is do they actually do anything with the data. All the data requested by sellers, if applied, can extremely help the performance of a campaign.

Last thought: I think we are making a ton of progress and we are close to standardizing the expectations of transparency. Both parties simply need to take a risk, stick their neck out there and be more transparent. Who knows, maybe you will find that it will strengthen the partnership.

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Leads360 Express. The Powerful and FREE Lead Management Solution for Lead Buyers with 1-5 users. Visit Express.Leads360.com to apply for our exclusive BETA program.
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There are some interesting things shaping up in the booming for-profit edu space. If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know this is not the first time I have said the EDU space is facing troubled times. Even though this may be the case it doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t make sense for lead gen companies to continue their pursuits of market share. It does mean you should be diversified in the space and probably should be looking at partnering with traditional schools as well as for-profit establishments. Okay, aside from my opinions, I came across a great article by Anne Ryman at AZCentral.com that did a great job of encapsulating a number of the issues that the EDU space faces. If you want a quick read on what is going on with the space regarding student loan default rates, possible new marketing regulations and the high costs, the article is a must read.

The traditional schools should be looking at the online space and quickly figuring out how they can take away market share from these schools. It is quite possible for state schools to offer online classes and service more students at lower cost. It won’t be long until enter the market and begin building downward pressure on the enrollment costs of the higher priced for-profit schools.

Here is the article

Defaults on student loans rising

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Leads360 Express. The Powerful and FREE Lead Management Solution for Lead Buyers with 1-5 users. Visit Express.Leads360.com to apply for our exclusive BETA program.
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There were a number of take-aways from LeadsCon 2010.

Here are a few funny ones. These were included in a sponsored workshop put on by Leads360 and I thought, if you missed the session, you may find the numerous too.

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Last week at LeadsCon Tree announced their new plans for the Tree.com website. Doug Lebda, CEO of Tree took 15 minutes and briefly described the revamped site.

The goal is to provide quality content to the consumer regardless of what service they are interested in. No longer will Tree only focus on just a few large categories, but rather a whole host categories ranging from Attorneys to travel.  Tree aims to gain market share by taking a bite out of the “web 2.0″ strategy book. By allowing businesses and consumers to create their own pages and also allowing them to manage and create their own content Tree hopes to build a highly organic web presence. This strategy is nothing new for most companies and whether or not Tree will be able to pull it off will remain to be unseen, and likely for a while. This organic strategy takes time, a lot of time.

According to Mona Marimow, VP of Marketing for Tree.com,  via DMNews.com, the majority of traffic will come from organic search, online marketing and possibly offline sources in the future.

The announcement at LeadsCon was a little uneventful and frankly had critics saying, “what, that’s it?” The idea of creating a site, that will not only cover “life’s biggest decisions”, but ALL decisions seems like a big mistake with a hint of wishful thinking. The new site will encompass all the web 2.0 social media strategies that one could think of. Things like reviews, friends, followers and status updates will all be included on the site.

As I mentioned, Tree will look to the companies participating on the site to generate a portion of its content. There are a number of social network owners that will tell you that it is very difficult to get people, let alone companies, to participate on a regular basis and provide regular updates of content. Nonetheless, its a good SEO strategy, but will be very hard to make work unless the Tree.com brand really takes off.

This new path seems to make sense with all that has gone on at Tree in the last few years. Over that time period there have been a number of layoffs, year over year decline in LendingTree revenue, a significant decrease in market size for mortgage lead buyers, and therefore an initiative to diversify into other verticals. Two contrasting happenings would be layoffs and diversification into new verticals. This means less man power with more tasks on the agenda. The new Tree.com site is there way of consolidating their efforts into one focused strategy, which frankly is nothing new if you have been listening to Lebda for the last two years talk about their goals. According to Lebda the goal will be to market Tree.com and allow the traffic to funnel down to their other properties, LendingTree.com, DegreeTree.com, etc. Will  this work?

Let me back up a minute and get back to LeadsCon and then you can decide for yourself. While I was in a taxi cab making my way back to the Mirage hotel I received a direct message via twitter saying that I had the opportunity to interview Doug Lebda, but had to be there in 30 minutes. It was going to be close, but I accepted the invitation and told the cab driver to step on it! I had no formal questions prepared, but came up with a number of questions regarding the Tree.com initiative, Google and what the 12 month plan was for Tree.com. Here is the interview I recorded on my iPhone, which surprisingly the sound quality is not too bad. Hope you enjoy it.

Enjoy and let me know what you think:

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Get your leads faster, distribute easier, and convert more. Kaleidico lead management helps you close more loans. It is that simple!
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Yesterday, Feb 24th, Targusinfo announced that they have made hug investment towards updating their lead validation service. For the last few years users of TargusInfo’s lead validation service have been seeing an increasing number of cell phone numbers pass through their lead gen forms. In the past these numbers would be extremely difficult to validate, but more recently this has changed for TargusInfo.

“With mobile phone penetration nearing 90 percent, it’s crucial for our customers to have solutions that serve their evolving lead verification and scoring needs,” said Chris McArdle, executive director, TARGUSinfo.  “For example, our verification solution includes new authoritative sources that link more than 219.6 million verified mobile phone numbers to names, addresses and other relevant information — allowing our customers to accurately verify and score more leads who contact them using mobile phone numbers.”

I had the pleasure of speaking with Chris over the phone late last week he explained a few things to me and I will pass it along to you. First, 220 million verified mobile phone numbers is a huge addition to the already extremely robust database that Targusinfo has built. What is even more impressive, however, and what will make a real difference for Targusinfo clients is that these numbers are “Authoritative”. This means that the numbers are verified against the billable invoice data that is sent out to each cell phone number. That means if you put your name and cell phone number of a lead, and it gets verified through Targusinfo, you are going to pass with flying colors. In the past, it is quite possible your lead could have been rejected or sent to a call center whereby you would have incurred extra charges for validating the lead.

In their press release, which you can read here, they also mention their expansion to the west coast. Finally, the west coast will get a little love from TargusInfo aside from their San Diego office which includes all their “smart people”. Some of the smartest people are located in San Diego. Yes, they also opened up shop in NYC, but that is clearly not as important then the new SF office (please excuse extreme bias).

Anywho, this is excellent news for companies use the lead validation services.

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Buy quality mortgage leads in real-time from us. Exclusive available. ADCHEMY

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Aside from a great LeadsCon event the 2nd Annual Poker Tournament @ LeadsCon was equally as great. Granted, I did not win the event or even finish in the money, but we had a group of 100 lead gen players from CEO’s, CMO’s and company founders had a chance to mingle and argue over all-in-calls and bad-beats. Everyone was hooked up with a cool marketing shirt and had a chance to win $500.00 from Leads360.

Below you will find the results of the tournament. The winnings were broken out differently at the end of the tournament, however this was the original breakdown of winnings. So without further adieu I will leave you with the results.

1st – Nathaniel McNamara, SocialFeet.com – $4,104 (4th from the left)
2nd – Ronald Cardoza, tellus.com – $2,280 (1st on the left)
3rd – Zach Coelius, triggit.com – $1,368 (3rd from left)
4th – Chuck Swenbert - $912 (2nd from left)
5th – Vini Narang – $456 (Far Right)

the others at the final table:

6th – Todd Bairstow
7th – Mike Fortini
8th – Ken Nelson
9th – Kwan Kim
10th – Ellen Gold

Thank you for everyone who played and I hope to see you all next year. Once last Big thank you to the Online Lead Generation group, GearyPMG and Leads360.

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Buying Internet leads sucks! Who is the best? Will they convert? Are they a good source? Get help from the experts at www.leadmarketwatch.com a service of Kaleidico.
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New for LeadsCon Las Vegas. The Launch Spotlight is a chance for the selected company to leverage the platform of LeadsCon to announce a major release, new venture, major shift in direction, or other newsworthy development. The company’s release should impact not just how they operate their business but have a broader impact for online lead generation and customer acquisition.

Launcher: Tree.com, Doug Lebda, Chairman of the Board & CEO

Doug – Everyone has created their own “LendingTree”. Now they want to create a single source for all types of leads

The reveal: Be a new search engine in more then 50 categories. There is will be a page for every company and category. (Simple way to create content and gain SEO value. We will have to see if companies become active in creating content. I seriously doubt that will happen past a single edit to the page)

Enter the music “waawaaawaaa”.

Simply put Tree.com is going to become the hub for all the consumers decisions.

People will be able to ask questions, create reviews and communicate in forums, etc.

“Open source entrepreneurship”, “Don’t partner with Google, partner with Tree.com”

Doug – “blue links” don’t work. We want to create a destination site for consumers to find great content.

Tree.com will take a portion of your revenue.

That is it.

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Leads360 Express. The Powerful and FREE Lead Management Solution for Lead Buyers with 1-5 users. Visit Express.Leads360.com to apply for our exclusive BETA program.
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One of the major themes for 2010 is disruption. Its impacts can be both good and bad, an enabler for many and the end of business as they know it for others. Of the many disruptive forces impacting the world of online lead generation, none compares to Google’s decision to sell not just clicks but now leads to certain clients, a 180 from their decade old business model. What does Google’s Comparison Ads mean for the existing buyers and sellers of leads? Is it death to the short form as we know it or a catalyst for overall growth?

Moderator: James Cham, Vice President, Bessemer Venture Partners
Panelists: Marc Diana, Founder & CEO, LeadPoint
David Thacker, Associate Partner, Greylock Partners
Owen Raun, RMC Vangaurd.

What is Google thinking?

David – Google is trying to improve the consumer experience. ( I call BS on this. As if Google was actually looking out for the greater good.) Comparison Ads is also supposed to improve the advertisers experience too.

What is the eco-system get affected?

Marc – You have a consumer,  publisher and direct marketer. Googles play changes is it for the positive. All players will benefit from the a better Google experience. (Not sure how this makes any sense for non-google advertisers.) LeadPoint sits in the middle and Google plays in LeadPoints model, because there will be more leads. (?)

Dave – Those that continue to advance will be fine in the eco system. Companies that continue to improve the consumer experience will succeed. Google still does not provide content and this is an area for companies to gain market share. Companies should be diversified to where they receive traffic. If your business is 100% reliant on Google, you may have a problem.

Owen – It is a little too early to tell how this affect his business. It possible that Google will push out poor sources. Also, this is not the death of the short form, but rather the short form is only getting shorter.

What are the blind spots of the Comparison Ads?

Marc – This is the first product that is in Googles core revenue stream. I believe that Google has done serious due diligence. It is highly disruptive to their search advertisers and is a risky play. they must know that it is going to work.

Dave – Froogle was said to displace other shopping comparison sites, but it didn’t. Googles Comparison Ads will not hurt the industry.

Owen – Would like to see more volume. The interface between the advertiser and Google is a little “clunky”. It is hard to develop nurturing campaigns with these leads, because of a lack of data.

Marc – People should look out for Google to come into their vertical and expect a volume dip. IN order for Google to scale they need to validate the process, for all player involved. Once it is validated they simply need to dial up the frequency of how many times they show the ads. With that in mind, Google has little vertical experience in house, but they will move into new verticals quickly once the process is validated.

Dave – Pubs should focus on content and the brand. Also diversification is key with your marketing efforts. Also, adding useful tools to add to the consumer experience.

Owen – Buyers need to focus on real time management of calls and how to best convert them.

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Leads360 Express. The Powerful and FREE Lead Management Solution for Lead Buyers with 1-5 users. Visit Express.Leads360.com to apply for our exclusive BETA program.
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I am going to give a shot at live blogging LeadsCon. I am not sure how this is going to turn out or if it will be at understandable, but lets give it a shot. Please accuse the spelling and grammar.

First Session:

What’s in Store for 2010 – Industry Leaders

Despite the lackluster economy, the online lead generation space had no shortages of successes in 2009. From companies going public, to already public companies deciding to shake up the world of online lead generation. To help us look into what the future holds, we have gathered a group of industry leaders, those who have been through good time and bad, to help us all read the lead gen tea leaves.

Moderator: Bruce Eatroff, Partner, Halyard Capital
Panelists: Matt Coffin, Investor, Coffin Capital
Thomas Evans, President & CEO, Bankrate, Inc.
Ronald Pruett, Jr., Chief Executive Officer, MercuryMedia
Ty Taylor, Group President, Experian Interactive

Notes:

Fist, companies that were able to diversify in the mortgage industry fared better then those that did not. No Duh, but this needs to be reiterated over and over because management, in many cases get caught looking at their shoes all day.
Matt Coffin – Be in more then one vertical. There will be increase in companies wanting to do this for obvious reasons. The great debate will continue about being Horizontal or Vertical with your business model. From a pure financial standpoint we will see increased consolidation within the industry. From a product standpoint there were companies with great product offerings that did not get traction. Marketing power was key to success for companies, despite the product offering. Mobile and Facebook continue to be the rising tide in the industry.

Ron – While social media does not drive volume, it does seem to be driving quality. You must play the whole marketing field.

Experian representative (name?) – Lead gen is a game of scale. Facebook is getting very crowded for advertisers and seems to be working. (This is questionable at best, whether it is working or not. Outside of diet products. IMO)

Scott – Buyers do not want to work with 15 – 20 sources.

Are there still low quality sources out there and how many?

Ron – These companies are disappearing.

Matt – RingRevenue.com, DoublePositve.com. This is the next step towards lead quality – Call center filters.

Regulatory framework in Lead Gen:

Experian representative (name?) – Appending real time data is becoming a concern by consumer groups.

Thomas – Pro consumer, anti business regulations. Violations will happen and the Gov’t will rush in and over correct the problem.

Who is collecting data well:

Matt – Experian is doing an excellent job using consumer data. Companies are putting money towards lobbyist to help direct where the regulations are being made and how they are being made.

(Is this a place for the new Lead Council to get involved?)

How is it being a public company in Lead Gen?

Thomas – It is brutal and forces you to be more short term focused. 90 day chunks, etc.

Do people understand lead gen companies?

Experiance guy – Not sure if people understand companies and is not sure about IPO’s right now. Companies will continue to roll-up. He suggest looking for a roll-up rather then an IPO.

Thomas – IPO’s is interesting because it creates a level or benchmark. Allows other companies to evaluate themselves. It is a nice metric to point to. There will be rapid consolidations this year.

Matt – People should be hoping these IPO’s are successful. Unfortunately it is not a good IPO market right now.

Ron – IPO has allowed lead gen to be more powerful.

Thomas – investors really do understand lead gen. The biggest concern is that it is an ‘arm business’, simply brokering data.

Is the private equity interest growing in Lead Gen?

Matt – There are a lot of venture companies being more aggressive. Not a huge appetite for pure lead gen. Venture guys want a different twist. They want to invest in a rising tide.

Will large companies. IAC, AOL continue to consider lead gen as a viable model?

Experian guy – Yes, but cautiously

Ron – It is not going to be the old companies, but rather it will be new companies that rise to the top in lead gen.

Matt – There is a race to the first Billion dollar lead gen company. It is not going to be an established company.

IS google good or bad for the lead gen industry:

Thomas – Yes! (both) They are beyond the 800lb gorilla. They are the life blood of the entire industry. Companies are looking for other sources, email, display, etc.

Ron – Google has quietly moved into TV, which is very interesting.

Thomas – Looking at what they are doing, it makes brand so much more important then it was before. You have to compete against Google, you need a solid brand.

What can change the landscape?

Ron – Web intelligence will change the landscape. Analytics will become increasing important.

Matt – I honestly I don’t know. Not completely clear.

Experian guy – Efficiency is a big factor. The ability to improve the traffic instantly and real time.

Thomas – Completely agree. Lead gen is now being looked at by customers and is a critical portion of their business and marketing plan. Lead gen is going mainstream.

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Buy quality mortgage leads in real-time from us. Exclusive available. ADCHEMY

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