So today I had a few seconds to read through my Google Reader and catch up on the blogs that I follow and one of them includes a fairly new blog, that I actually added to my blog role, but haven’t yet had a chance to mention in any posts. The blog is excellent and I recommend that every lead buyer, no matter what the vertical, should read. Its insightful and very informative, however as the author will tell you and freely discloses that he is a Leads360 employee. In this case, it really doesn’t matter and you shouldn’t expect to get bombarded with Leads360 ads. In fact, you will probably see more here then there. Its very similar to the founder of Kaleidico Lead Management Systems blog, bettercloser.com. The new blog is titled “The Lead Blog” and I suggest you become a subscriber.

So, as I was reading through the posts on numerous blogs I came across The Lead Blogs most recent post on sharing data. Well apparently he pulled a LeadCritic and had to pull the post down, because it is no longer there. lol I laugh because I am glad I am not the only who has revealed more information then what was allowed and had to take down the post. Anyway, it was a great opinion post on sharing data between LMS and lead providers and was actually going to reference in this post, but I have got something even better to reference.

Leads360 has posted a new Power Point presentation on DocStoc regarding a new offering for their partners and lead sources that will allow them to share data between one other. Here is the DocStoc description:

“Leads360 launches Partner Reporting, another module of our Lead Performance Intelligence platform. Partner Reporting provides Excel reports emailed weekly to participating lead providers like LowerMyBills, LendingTree, Quinstreet, Adchemy and hundreds of others. Reports include valuable performance metrics including contact, qualification and conversion rates.”

This is cool stuff. Its not that they are the first to give the ability for buyers and sellers to exchange data. LeadROI, Lead Mailbox and Kaleidico have opened the doors to for sellers to receive this type of data, however Leads360 gives the buyer the opportunity to easily turn on and off the weekly reports. Additionally, the reports are sent in an excel sheet that can easily be put into a pivot table or a database for analysis.

So is this revolutionary? Of course not, but it is a very nice step in the right direction. And coming from Leads360, who a few years ago when the topic gained popularity and even more recently, were quite sure how to handle the idea or even if they supported it, this is good progress. The one shortcoming is that its overall campaign performance metrics and not the actual leads, including their status, are not included, as far as I can tell. Its important to have the data and disposition statuses down to the lead level so that the sellers can track back successful leads to their specific campaigns. The only way to do that is to pass back either the leads email address or the assigned lead ID from the provider. The other LMS companies can provide that, however not as conveniently has a weekly report. Now one can argue that statement, because Kaleidico, Lead Mailbox and possibly LeadROI can set up a reverse post that will include the lead data and disposition.

Leads360 can provide this type of data as well and my guess they will get there soon enough, but this is a good baseline to begin the communication between the two providers.

What do you think?

.

.

.