(Full disclosure…I am employed by Zipsearch! although did not participate in the writing or conception of the related press release, but because of my position was able to receive the news first. )
LeadCritic Exclusive:
Kaleidico takes action on the requests of a number of lead providers at the LeadsCon convention. This request can actually be traced back almost a year and probably further. One of the biggest requests from lead generators and publishers is the request for feedback and it again was a big topic on the LMS panel at LeadsCon this last week.
Lead generators will be extremely pleased to hear that Kaleidico has implemented a real time closed-loop feedback post to all providers.
Bill Rice, Kaleidico’s CEO, explains “online lead generation can be an expensive exercise in trial and error without feedback from your sales force.” Unfortunately, the typical lead buyer is constantly trying to guess what is working and what isn’t. “Our new lead performance feedback application programming interface (API) will uniquely enable lead providers to improve their lead generation campaigns in real-time to help each client’s unique lead buying success,” concluded Rice.
I can personally tell you that I am really excited about this development. Finally we will have the information needed to fully optimize our marketing efforts and improve our effectiveness to our buyers. I have always been a huge proponent of giving feedback to lead generators. This goes back to when I was purchasing 500 leads a day. It just made sense. The lead providers were my partners and I treated them that way and I have always expected other buyers to be as open as I was, but I found that this was not the case. Many think that the provider will raise prices, which is simply ridiculous, or that it was simply too time consuming to gather the data.
I am tired of talking about this and waiting for something to happen and I was extremely excited that Kaleidico opened its doors for this to happen. Along with Kaleidico, Rick Doyle at Lead Mailbox has also the ability to send real time feedback and has offered a similar solution. Rick, look out for a call from me to get things set up. If anything I hope we are paving the road for all lead providers to receive feedback, because ultimately it is going to benefit the lead buyer. It actually makes me slightly envious of lead buyers today.
“This partnership between lead management and lead generation technology is going to deliver incredible results to our clients,” says David Schneider, CEO of ZipSearch!. Schneider, continued by explaining, “in the past we have had to burden clients with requests for data and status updates on leads we provide, and often the data was too old to be effective in adjusting our campaigns to benefit them. Now we are able to tune each of our clients’ lead quality in real-time.”
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Fortunately, we built this type of response system to Lead Providers a few months back when we were building the automated returns interface. We would like to work with ZipSearch and other lead providers to be able to give real-time feedback to help improve lead quality. The only caveat that I have is that this data ultimately belongs to the clients who use our system and we would need their permissions to do so. We will get permissions from each client for each lead provider.
There is one concern with this process and fears that I have heard from clients who we have discussed this with in the past. If a lead provider has information that their leads are performing well for a client, would they then increase the cost of those lead campaigns to that client? I certainly hope not. I would hope that the goal of this exercise is to understand how the lead is converting and how to ultimately improve lead quality. If this exercise starts immediately affecting lead pricing, we will see a lot more hesitation from the clients to release this data.
How is Kaleidico and LeadMailBox dealing with this issue and you guys hearing the same concerns from your client base?
I have been contacted by several lead gen companies since the panel and have already worked with several prior to the panel to provide this data, as I mentioned at the conference, the lead gens are going to have to make it worthwhile to the buyers to get them to participate.
I would never send any data without a buyer’s full awareness and permission.
I have spoken to a few Zip Search clients today about posting this information and they saw the benefit and agreed immediately to participate. It will now be up to Zip Search to follow through with accepting our post and prove they will be better because of it. If it just becomes all about increasing price, it will be very short sighted and take major steps backwards on the progress the industry has made to clean up it’s reputation.
Raj,
you bring up a few good questions. First, as a current lead seller and a past lead buyer I would expect to have the choice to give or not give feedback, BUT giving feedback should be mandatory if you really consider your lead providers as your partners.
I have heard the excuse from lead buyers that they don’t give feedback to their lead providers because they will raise prices and that is simply the DUMBEST thing I have ever heard. Not to say that it isn’t possible, but those of you who buy leads have the leverage of leaving and finding another partner. Price points are all in the hands of you and the market.
Lets think about this for a second…I should really dedicate a post to this subject and maybe I will..let say you allow a lead provider to receive data from your LMS in real time. This means that you will not need to spend the time gathering the data every week or month it will go to them in real time and the lead provider will be able to make educated decisions on where he buys media.
Ok, so things are going well, in fact your conversions have increased and all of a sudden your provider says that they are going to raise the price of a lead by $3.
What are your choices? Firs the lead provider is taking a risk by increasing your price. You can either except the price, because you see that there is value in the relationship and the lead provider has done a phenomenal job sending you leads that close or you can simply tell the lead provider to eat dirt and move on to another provider that you have done well with too.
Either situation leaves you with better leads and more conversions.
The market will also determine lead price…look lead prices are being sold at a discount, many times less then what they cost to create.
I think ultimately lead providers and LMS companies want you to stick around and more then ever are motivated to help you succeed. I suggest not allowing fear of a price increase to slow your business.
If you don’t feel comfortable with this idea, don’t do it. No one is forcing you to give data to your lead providers, but don’t be surprised when your competitors pass you by or out perform you.
Ask any of the major lead buyers. i.e. Quicken, etc if they give feedback to their lead providers and they will say YES.
I think you stated it well. Producing quality leads is a science that requires visibility through the entire lead lifecycle and the market will determine pricing. These were the driving forces behind why we aligned ourselves with a lead exchange and why we have informally done this with the client’s consent and lead providers in the past. I believe LendingTree LeadPoint, and LowerMyBills had programs similar to this for quite some time with their clients and we have supported them. We look forward to working with the lead gen companies to further define best practices for our mutual clients all toward improving the quality of the oil that lubricates this industry.
Perfect!
Then we should all collaborate and turn it into one open, published standard. Our final API will be finished next week, but I will send our initial implementation to you, Rick and Raj, and we can start the discussion. Jeff, you in?
Send me yours too if you want to and we will try to combine/boil it into the simplest denominator.
BTW, our clients can toggle on and off the feed. One click.
I feel better leads coming already!
Good stuff. Like I said, we are on board with this, but I’m not going to rush it. I definately agree with you Bill, having some standards in this industry is a great thing. Please do send me the specs; I want to build things in a way that makes it easy for our clients and our partners to win.