LEADCRITICThe Leads Behind LeadPoint
If you’ve ever wondered where LeadPointobtains their leads from, I’ve done some research that might shed some light. I’ve only looked at their mortgage vertical presence. Their system operates like an exchange with pricing transparency. Although they do not share the seller or buyer names, I don’t see that as a big hurdle if they police and segment the lead quality for buyers. Also, they don’t have to worry about blacklists because you can’t sell the leads you sell on LeadPoint anywhere else.
Long Tail- LeadPoint has succeeded by federating the long tail of lead generation using its Secure Rights licensing and form technology. The easiest way to find these sites is to search Google for the words “secure rights” (with quotes). I found over 384,000 results in this search. Interesting! Although these are small long-tail players, the smaller the player the less foul-play we have to worry about.
Brand-name Partnerships- I noticed that LeadPoint has launched a relationship with Equifax. Just as Experian has LowerMyBills to integrate into their customer-facing properties, now Equifax has LeadPoint. I wonder if there is anything going on between those two companies with regard to trigger leads. I’m figuring other prominent partnerships are in place or are pending.
Direct Advertising- This is a big question mark. I noticed that amerivalue.com is registered to Marc Diana, founder of LeadPoint. And I also have seen them advertise on paid search in various places. Either they are generating leads by directly advertising, or they have a technology for allowing affiliates to use their brand name and are credited for the lead sale.
I imagine that some of their sellers are untrackable because they have their own independent aggregation forms and simply post their leads to LeadPoint. But because LeadPoint requires you to sell all legs of the lead through their system (all or nothing approach), they probably have a big portion of their sellers leveraging the Secure Rights licensing.
LeadPoint’s expansion into new verticals such as education, financial advisors, health insurance, and more, is also very intriguing. It has been great to watch these guys progress.
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webstertm | Jul 30, 2007 | Reply
I don’t want to be the guy that dogs out any company, but I have the biggest problem in trusting any company that is re-selling or passing along data from other companies. My first thought is that data, in and of itself, is not proprietary and so there is no way of proving that any company sold the names/leads to various sources. There is also no real way of validating that they generated the leads in the way that they are supposed to. Second, the whole bidding idea sounds great on surface, but the average broker wants the same as all the other brokers in his niche group. For example all prime brokers want excellent credit, 75% LTV’s and $250,000 plus loan amounts with no purchase data. I wonder howmany times this particular lead is generated is generated through out the internet? How many times does it get sold just on the surface using only tier one companies? Add to it the trigger lead, public record data, title data and sales genie factors. Now on top of all of that let’s also bid on this very same lead? “Also, they don’t have to worry about blacklists because you can’t sell the leads you sell on LeadPoint anywhere else”, so you can’t sell them, but you can give them away to your friend down the street that haas a lead company and let him sell them a few more times. Add to it the “prove I sold it” idea. For myself, I do not trust this structure, but maybe I’m just negative at heart.
Duran | Jul 30, 2007 | Reply
Via the Juicy Leads Website:
“Any lead that has not been sold 3 times will be in the Overstock section until that lead is sold its full 3 times. Once it is, it will be removed from the database until it is 30 days old. Once the lead turns 30 days old customers will have a chance to buy the lead at even a deeper discount, these we call “vintage leads”.”
You guys re sell leads that have actually been sold 30 days later and that is your choice. Leads are going to be resold by shady brokers, but To buy from a company that choose to add to the problem, i.e. Juicy Leads, I will not.
some insider | Jul 30, 2007 | Reply
webstertm
Your concerns are 100% valid. Having worked in the lead industry for more than 4 years, I can tell you that it is 100% correct to look at any company that does not generate their own leads organically with a jaundiced eye. But I would invite to look under the hood a little more on the concept of the exchange. With the Leadpoint example that Lead Critic gives, there are actually answers in their business model for your legitimate concerns. The question you would need to ask yourself is, would you ever buy anything off of eBay, or from the NASDAQ? If the answer is no, then lead exchanges are probably not right for you because the concept is the same. The same way that eBay doesn’t buy or sell anything, they just create the marketplace for the transaction, that’s how a lead exchange works. But an exchange like LeadPoint is not “reselling leads or passing along data,” they serve as a marketplace for trading – buying and selling – leads. The company doesn’t purchase the leads, mark them up and then re-sell them. They simply take a commission, about 20%, on the sale of the lead. Also, as Lead Critic mentioned, through the branding of each lead as a “Secure Rights,” lead, the info is indeed proprietary. So, as I said, your concerns are completely valid, but I think you would benefit from taking a closer look at the lead exchange model because I think that you would be satisfied with how each is addressed by the model.
Noel | Jul 30, 2007 | Reply
I can say from metrics of companies including past purchases of Juicy Leads that the Lead Point leads are doing very well for us, revenue to return ratios are very much in line and those numbers would be completely out of whack if the lead was oversold or not protected data. its an easy enough thing to check sold times, etc. from any supplier.
Since this post was about Lead Point, I will defer on making comments about other suppliers selling leads, reselling them etc.
webstertm | Aug 3, 2007 | Reply
Noel,
I appreciatge you reserving your comments about other lead companies. I speak not a representative of Juicyleads, but as my own company Closed and Funded Consulting. I don’t believe that the data would be completely out of whack. I have worked with clients that base their entire business on 30 - 60 day old leads that are sold a whole lot more times than 3 or 4. They pull a larger number of deals out of them. I think that there is a fine tunning process that often times gets overlooked and played down. Failure is often thought to be a direct result of the lead or the lead company. That is short sighted. You have worked with your approach, hired and fired loan officers, picked up more aggressive or less aggressive lenders, learned how some lenders work, forged better aliances with appraisers, title companies and credit repair companies as well as having trained processors to be more effective as well. You can not view this in a vaccum and if you have done none of the things listed above then you can not grow or succeed. There are only two states of any business, growth and death.
QuickApply | Aug 15, 2007 | Reply
Two major things are wrong with leadpoint. The Secure Rights system is flawed from a technological standpoint and cannot guarantee exclusivity. Also, since Quicken is the bigest buyer in the LeadPoint Lender Pool you have to compete with them as a buyer, and without Quicken in the mix (for the lead provider) the Revenue Per Lead is terrible and cannot create sustainability for the lead provider unless they are able to generate high quality leads for less than $5. Also Quicken does not adhere to the 30 dupe rule that leadpoint imposes on all other lead buyers. Preferential treatment is such a bummer for the smaller buyers out there trying to achieve an attractive cost per funded loan.
LeadCritic | Aug 15, 2007 | Reply
Quick Apply,
I suppose we have to take your comments with a grain of salt being that you are a competitor of LeadPoint. From a buyers perspective we have always had good success with LeadPoint. I think you also have to realize that Quicken effect happens to every lead provider that has them on their network. Our CPF has always been good and this come from an actual unbiased lead buyer.
QuickApply | Aug 18, 2007 | Reply
LeadCritic - I appreciate your comment and not just slamming me.
A few things - Leadpoint is not really a competitor to us, but a buyer (if we sold to them). Therefore, I am speaking on the as a “publisher” and this is unbiased. Leadpoint doesn’t generate any of their own leads and rely’s almost entirely upon the long tail and their expensive quality control system to handle the lead flow. They have to have Quicken in their network to survive, otherwise the expense of the lead flow would have to increase from 20% (Leadpoint takes 20% of what you as a buyer pay and then pays the rest to the publisher). The good thing about Leadpoint is they have catered to the buyer - but in response to a lot of the discussion from Leads2007, they do not do much for the consumer. There has got to be a solid mix between the two - otherwise Lead Gen will stay the same way.
Second, it is good to hear that you are maintaining an attractive CPF with them. It is hugely important for a lead gen company to pay attention to that metric - otherwise they aren’t providing good customer service (maybe that is because they aren’t really a good lead generator then). However, we also need to provide good customer service on the frontend to the consumer. Lead providers who sell their leads to Leadpoint need to have that impressed upon them. I am sure that most of the Leadpoint publishers never even follow up with the consumer to make sure that they received the “Value proposition” promised to them on the publisher web page.
Lastly, a lead provider does not have to let Quicken dictate their marketplace. There are thousands of lead buyers out there and Quicken places themselves well below market rates for quality leads. I am assuming that Quicken will soon be forcing all their lead providers to use one of the exchanges - Root, leadpoint - so they can dictate a market price per lead. This might push out a lot of the smaller buyers and even lead providers - thus hurting the long tail.
Lead Critic | Aug 18, 2007 | Reply
True on many points…I don’t want to defend LeadPoint, so I won’t, but you are a definitely a competitor of LeadPoint. If an aggregator, exchange or any type of provider than can take volume away from you is a competitor.
As far as the rest, I think we are on the same page.
Leads How Fresh? | Aug 21, 2007 | Reply
Juicy Leads supports spam and indirectly an illegal web site “Great Savings” through its associates. I have filled out their lead form a number of times using different addresses and different criteria. Almost without exception I receive a call(s) from a mortgage broker(s). This leads me to believe that the quality of the lead being sold is questionable and that the technology employeed by Juicy Leads is sub par in filtering information. I was even called three weeks after I submitted the information…maybe that was a vintage lead. Their idea of “Fresh” is different than mine. Given that Juicy Leads allows its associates to engage in unethical and most likely illegal activities of spam and false statements, I will look elsewhere if I am in the need of leads.
Brandon | Aug 6, 2008 | Reply
“The easiest way to find these sites is to search Google for the words ’secure rights’ (with quotes). I found over 384,000 results in this search.”
Only a small percentage of the returns for this search have anything to do with the LeadPoint program. Many of them are talking about ways to “secure rights to land” … “secure rights to oil” … “secure rights to [blank]”
I’m not nitpicking. I just think the oversight makes the LeadPoint program seem more widespread than it really is.
Great post though. And nice blog in general. This is my first visit. Keep up the good work.
Brandon
SmartMortgageMarketing.com