It’s the Lead Quality, Stupid!

Thursday, 07. 2. 2009  –  Category: Enversa

To take and slightly alter a phrase from politico James Carville, “It’s the Lead Quality, Stupid!” In the world of direct response marketing, this is the creed of all creeds. It is the foundation upon which all direct response campaigns – online and off – are built, and every affiliate manager, direct marketer and self-proclaimed lead generation “specialist” from Marin County to Lower Manhattan knows it to be true. Companies and agencies won’t suffer long a lead generation provider that delivers a stream of fraudulent, invalid or otherwise non-converting lead data.

Think of it this way – if customers count on a quality dining experience each time they visit a famous steakhouse but over time the steaks and other menu items begin to lose flavor and consistency, it won’t matter that the service is impeccable or the wine list is unparalleled; that there’s an 8 piece band in the corner playing Sinatra; or that there are signed pictures on the wall of every U.S. President since Eisenhower. Paying customers will take their palate and their credit cards elsewhere because taste is the ultimate measure of all restaurants.

Same set of rules in the lead generation industry. Even if you’re providing fantastic value for your clients, doing every thing from building landing pages, banners and micro-sites, to providing strategic consulting and media negotiation services, to showering your account contacts with fruit baskets and theatre tickets; it won’t make much difference at the end of month if your core objective – quality lead delivery – isn’t being met.

This begs the question – what is a quality lead? Well, for starters, it results from a genuine engagement between a consumer and product or service brand offering. In an online or digital context, it’s the outcome of a relevant, compelling advertising unit (email, display, search based, co-registration or textual ad serve) meeting with the receptive eyes of an online user. In a pristine world (the kind with no crime and lots of fairy dust), the user, of his or her own volition, freely engages the ad unit, clicking through to a waiting landing page, where they are presented with persuasive call-to-action messaging that provokes them to submit their primary contact information and consent to being contacted by the advertiser at a later time.
Or so the narrative goes. The truth is that a host of bad actors and online outlaws use any number of shady means to corrupt this process by manufacturing consumer leads (through a variety of underhanded methods) and then presenting them as gospel truth to their end clients, whether they be brand advertisers or intermediary agencies. Ask any affiliate manager, client account representative, direct marketer, or lead generator worth their salt, and they’ll tell you a horror story about lead generation campaigns brought down by a nefarious publishing partner who chose greed and expediency over value and client commitment.

Because of this, brands, agencies and reputable online brokers must maintain meticulous control of their vendor networks, implementing compliance protocols that weed out those dishonest or incompetent vendor publishers who would undermine the lead generation process. Operate without a working compliance regime and an honest company risks its reputation and, most importantly, its client roster. That’s a recipe for disaster, even if those napkins are 100% Mediterranean silk.

Joel Brewer is a Business Development Manager at The Enversa Companies.

Tags: affiliate manager, brand advertisers, direct marketer, James Carville, Joel Brewer, lead generation