CPA Ad Networks can be leveraged to maximize the return on your  lead generation efforts and reduce dependence on Pay Per Click (PPC) strategies. With the Google Adwords pricing sky rocketing in recent times and Google enforcing strict rules for quality assessment of websites and landing pages, it is critical that you diversify your leadgen practices, tools and strategies.

There are dozens of Ad Networks in the marketplace and hence you have a wide selection to choose from depending on your budget, nature of business and industry vertical.

How the Ad Networks operate?

The ad networks are basically centalized portals acting as intermediaries for publishers and advertisers. As an Advertiser you can submit your advertisements to one or more networks. Web site owners or operators (known as Publishers) choose the advertisements based on their specialization and preference and run the ads on their sites.

Typically you have to specify a rate per action performed, which is nothing but a lead acquired. This is referred to as CPA or Cost Per Action. You have to provide a suitable landing page to which the advertisers will drive the traffic from their websites. When the web visitors submit their information successfully, a thank you page need to be displayed. The thank you page will include a tracking pixel so that the ad networks can track the successful conversions and invoice you accordingly.

Importance of Landing Pages in Lead Generation via Ad Networks

As mentioned above, the Landing Page is the most important component of the lead acquisition process. Even if you get a ton of traffic to your site, if the landing page does not convert (i.e. visitors do not submit their info) you are not going to get any value out of the traffic. Make sure that the landing page is designed to convert and tested well.

You may take a look at the blog post on landing page design and optimization for lead conversion.

If you are using third party media planning / buying / ad agencies, they should be able to help you design the landing pages, negotiate the offer rates, choose suitable ad networks and track the ad performance.

CPA Ad Networks

Start with a small budget, test out the results and then ramp up your leadgen efforts with a network. Note that some offers (i.e. your advertisements) might work well with some networks and may not work with others. Also, the same ad might produce results at one time and might fail to perform at another point time. Since there are so many variables in play, it is very difficult to generalize and rate the networks. However, you should be able to evaluate their business practices, support levels, etc. over a period of time.

Here is some of the popular and not so popular networks listed not in any particular order. Note that there are dozens of networks operating in the marketplace and hence this is not a comprehensive list.

• Ad Canadian
• AdMedia
• Adjuice
• Adjump
• Admax Media
• Adscend Media
• Axon Media Group
• Clickbooth
• Click Fusion
• Commission Monster
• Commission River
• Commission Junction
• Convert2Media
• Copeac
• CPA Underground
• CPaway
• CXDigital
• DirectLeads
• eComLeads
• FluxAds
• GetAds
• HybrydAds
• Hydra Network
• Leader Markets
• Lead Expose
• Market Leverage
• Max Bounty
• NetPartner
• NeverBlue
• Offer Fusion
• PeerFly
• Pepperjam
• Revenue Ads
• Revenue Loop
• Revenue Street
• UniBlue Systems
• Unique Leads
• Y Multimedia
• Zeno Ads

Advantages and Disadvantages of using CPA Ad Networks for Leadgen

Just like any other mode of lead generation, using CPA Ad Networks has its own advantages and issues. If you understand the issues, you can plan and reduce the impact. Let us reserve this discussion for another post.

Have you heard stories about becoming overnight millionaires by launching an internet lead generation business? Sure, tons of stories. Succeeding in an internet lead generation business takes time, consistent practices and continuous improvement. While it is easy to scale up and grow, it is easy to lose money  quickly and bite the dust too! Here are 10 tips gathered from the industry experience and insiders that will lead you in the path of success.

1. Do the ground work: If you are in the planning / launch stage, this is the time to take a re-look and assess the plan. Even if you are already in the business and trying to ramp up, revisit the basics and make sure that the plan will work. Some of the key factors to be taken into account are: Lead verticals, Customer segments,  Competition in your vertical(s), Lead acquisition strategies, Lead pricing, and Quality Issues. Every lead vertical has its own unique advantages and issues.
2. Deploy suitable lead generation methods: Leads can be generated in a variety of ways. What would be the right method for your vertical and customer segment? Research and select from: Media buying, own lead generation sites, PPC / SEO mix, affiliates, etc. Thorough market research will help you decide the right combination. For instance, there are lead companies who use thousands of their own websites. Some others use exlcusively media partners and digital marketing agencies.
3. Plan multiple Lead Delivery modes: Each lead customer will demand their own formats, interfaces and data conversion. Do not under estimate the customer requirements. Unless the lead buyers are able to reach the prospects within minutes, there is no value in the lead! You may have to deploy multiple delivery modes such as email, SMS text messaging, fax, SOAP based API, form POST, etc.
4. Choose a right Lead Distribution Software system: Many lead providers make costly mistakes in this sphere. If you are generating thousands or even a few hundred leads a day, imagine the complexity involved in capturing the leads, distributing leads to buyers, delivering leads in real time, processing payments and applying credits for bad / invalid leads! Even if you are a business person, educate yourself and see what you can and cannot do with your lead collection, distribution and management software system.
5. Right Source to Right Partners: Whether in lead generation, distribution or lead delivery, choose the right tools and partners. The operations and maintenance are time consuming and costs money. Again, do not under estimate the improtance and costs in this area.
6. Manage Customers Proactively: The lead buyers can easily switch from one provider to another lead vendor. Unless you manage their expectations, requirements and operations, the lead buyers will learn from you and move on. Retaining customers is the most important aspect, as you do not have any hold on them unlike other traditional businesses.
7. Focus on Lead Quality, not Quantity: Unless you are passionate about lead quality, it is very difficult to survive. Because, in the internet lead generation segment there are so many variables on which you don’t have any control! For example, you might depend on the media partners and affiliates to generate leads; unless you have carefully selected them and established relationship, there is no gurantee that they will provide consistent quality leads. You can also provide valued added service such as third party Lead Verification services integrated with your lead delivery system.
8. Educate yourself: You need to keep abreast of the technology development and industry issues such as legal compliance. Research and update your knowledge in the lead generation business and the verticals you are operating. Attend relevant webinars and conferences in the Leadgen domain. Even if you don’t do programming or build software, become technology savvy. Knowledge is power in this internet era!
9. Be prepared for the long haul: Invest for the long term and be prepared for the pot holes on the way. Probably you need to invest more of your personal time than the traditional businesses. The internet does not sleep; you cannot start at 9 AM and close at 5 PM. Your customers will be in all time zones and need to be ready to support them.
10. Measure, evaluate and improve: All internet centric businessese share one common thread: it is continually changing at rapid pace. Using the right tools, measure your operational effectiveness and end results. Improve the processes in an on going basis.

And finally, here is the good news. As mentioned earlier, the lead generation business can be quickly ramped up and scaled. Some leading internet lead companies have grown from zero to 50 million business in 3 or 4 years.

Now that the internet lead generation practice has gained critical mass, website landing pages have become the core components of the online marketing and demand generation process. Unfortunately many online marketers, professionals and businesses treat the landing page as just that – a visitor-landing page. And they keep driving the traffic to these landing pages and losing boat loads of money in the process! Whether you are B2B or B2C lead company or an independent marketer, this holds good for everyone.

Landing Pages

The very purpose of landing pages is to convert the web visitors into leads (or prospects). While it serves as a funnel to attract the web site visitors, unless the visitors are converted to leads with contact information there is no meaning in attracting the traffic. In others words, landing pages should be treated as conversion pages.

Typically web site traffic (for lead generation) is generated via one or more of the following practices and visitors are sent to the lead capture pages:

• PPC (Pay Per Click)
• SEO / Search Engines
• Email Marketing
• Blogs and Web 2.0 sites
• Social Networking Media
• Direct Mail (with web URL)

All of these traffic sources costs money and significant efforts. While some may term traffic from social media and SEO as free, it is really not free. Search engine optimization and social media maintenance is a time taking and long term process.

Lead Conversion Pages

How to convert the money loosing sign-up pages to profitable lead-conversion pages? While every step of the page design, development and deployment is a candidate for improvement, the following key factors are to be taken into consideration.

• Layout and Design are primary components to attract and convert visitors. Make them simple, clear and precise.
• Avoid distractions and unwanted links on the page. Address the specific product or service.
• Provide Clear Call to Action. If you want them to fill up a form, tell them clearly what to do and why they should do so.
• Include a Compelling Offer. Whether it is a Whitepaper, Quote, or a Free Trial, make it compelling.
• If you are using Advertising (such as PPC) to drive traffic, make sure the Ad and the Landing Page talk about the same offer
• Page content should be relevant, short and to the point.
• If you are using Lead Capture form on the page, make it as short as possible, unless all the data fields are required to fulfill the offer.
• Let the sign-up form be above fold on the page.
• If required, make multiple lead capture pages for different  purposes and different target audience, so that the content will be relevant.
• Validate all sign-up form fields for required content and type, ideally using JavaScript (rather than separate error pages)
• Capture the meta data such as source web site, publisher, key words, etc. which will help in the sales process.
• Provide a meaningful Thank You page with relevant information. This will set the right expectation for the prospect and will help in closing the sale.
• Lastly, do not forget to use a good lead management and tracking database system in order to track the entire conversion process.

Online Lead Verification is the most valuable and intensive quality assessment and improvement process which comes to the aid of online lead generation companies and lead distributors. Lead Verification can be employed in both B2C and B2B scenarios, though it is most useful in consumer lead scenarios. You may take a look the primer / my earlier post on Lead Scrubbing, Validation and Verification processes.

Again, this is a post-lead-capture process and hence you can not prohibit the bad leads hitting your marketing / leads database. However, by deploying a suitable Online Lead Verification Service you can verify the lead parameters and then make a decision whether to pass on the lead to the lead buyer or your sales team.

The lead verification is carried out generally online and hence it can be used in real time lead generation and distribution situations. Once the lead information is received from the landing pages, the lead management system will subject the key data elements to dozens of tests and determine the quality of the lead.

Lead Verification Properties

The following lead profile parameters are used to verify the lead. Obviously, if the lead captured does not contain all these data elements, then the quality assessment results will be less accurate.

• First name
• Last name
• Email Address
• Address
• Phone Number
• Gender
• Date of Birth
• IP Address

Based on the input values, the verification process will return the corrected values as well as a set of useful quality parameters (which may vary from system to system).

Most of useful results from Lead Verification process will be:

• Overall Quality score
• Overall Quality Result
• Type / technology of telephone numbers

It may also provide alternate telephone number and address.

At the highest level, the Overall Lead Quality Score can be used to take an instant decision and treat the lead accordingly. For example, if the score is less than 50, probably the quality may not be very high and hence you may avoid selling it to your high value customers.

Benefits of Lead Verification

Adding a Lead Verification service feature in the lead capture and tracking system will be a great boon to those dealing with mortgage leads, debt settlement leads, financial services and other consumer (B2C) leads. There are several advantages and benefits of using an online lead verification process in your demand generation and distribution efforts. Here is a check list. These benefits are self explanatory. However we will revisit these in future posts.

• Increased Customer Satisfaction
• Increased Lead Conversion Rate
• Decrease in Wasted Time and Efforts by your Buyers / Sales Team
• Decrease in Lead Cost in the long term
• Identification of poor quality lead sources and providers
• Increased ROI
• Decrease on Price (for Lead Buyers)

Verification Services

Since Lead Verification involves comparision and mathcing with millions of public and proprietory database records, the verification services are generally provided as a per transaction fee based service. The typical cost per transaction varies from 25 cents to 35 cents based on volume of leads verified on monthly basis.

There are a number of verification service providers in the market place. The services include TargusInfo, ServiceObjects, LeadQC, and AccurateAppend among others. You may directly contact the data service provider and request your technical team to establish the interface for online verification.

On the other hand, Lead Distribution and Management service providers, such as LeadPro247, include Lead Verification as an optional service in their lead management and distribution platform. These services use one or more of the database service providers as their back-end partners and hence you can not only get the same benefit as going to the primary provider but better service and more choices. Choosing such a lead management platform might solve a lot of technical issues and maintenance efforts for your team. And your lead buyers and sales team will be happy that you addressing their pain points!