Using Telephony API's to verify leads - how i'm doing it

[rgordon83]

a few updates:

After over a month this solution continues to be awesome and cheap. Our credit requests are WAY down and customer satisfaction is up. A few minor drawbacks:

1. sometimes people put in a fake number that is really someone elses number and for whatever reason (not home) that person does not opt out so the lead gets sold. This rarely happens, maybe a few a month, and we just credit for them.

2.When a user submits the form we show them a screen that says we are about to call them. Some people who may have entered a number they are not near quickly click Back and re-submit with a different number, resulting in a duplicate lead that get's matched and charged twice.

The way around this is to use the email address as a unique identifier and if a lead is submitted a second time with another number, instead of making a new lead, it should update the original lead by adding an "alternate number" so the person you sell two doesn't get the same lead twice.

 

[kingfish]

The catch is you gotta find many many buyers v.s just selling to one company that resells them. Then you have to manage all those accounts, provide customer service, credit for bad leads, and all the admin associated with that stuff. Plus you need to build (or lease) a system to distribute your leads.

So it's basically lots of work. Some people would just rather sell leads to one place (like a bigger network) and just not worry about anything else. That's how i started; as a direct affiliate for a few companies. Then i started growing and started finding people to sell directly to. Now i sell to both larger networks and to my own buyers.

Could you say who some of the bigger networks like those who buy leads are?

 

[johnysc430]

Could you say who some of the bigger networks like those who buy leads are?

Leadpoint and wisdom, you can find advertisers that will buy your leads if you go to leads con and shows like that.

It's a tough racket, selling leads. I wasted a lot of hours on the phone with annoying people explaining how the internets work.

 

[rgordon83]

Could you say who some of the bigger networks like those who buy leads are?

I won't talk about my niche, but i know for example in the EDU space there are many big companies who sell leads to all the colleges. Thos are the one's who have offers on most networks. So many affiliates think the next level is to go direct with that company than through the network. And that is the next level. but the NEXT level would be to sell to colleges direct and BE one of those companies.

That's what I'm talking about. You can find the bigger companies to sell leads to through the networks, just approach them to go direct (if this is a route you wanna go. With all the networks not paying these days if advertisers don't pay, it may be worth it to go direct depending on your situation...)

 

[kingfish]

I won't talk about my niche, but i know for example in the EDU space there are many big companies who sell leads to all the colleges. Thos are the one's who have offers on most networks. So many affiliates think the next level is to go direct with that company than through the network. And that is the next level. but the NEXT level would be to sell to colleges direct and BE one of those companies.

That's what I'm talking about. You can find the bigger companies to sell leads to through the networks, just approach them to go direct (if this is a route you wanna go. With all the networks not paying these days if advertisers don't pay, it may be worth it to go direct depending on your situation...)

Cool thanks not sure if I want to get into the lead business yet but it's nice to have an idea how it works.

 

[SeanW]

And that is the next level. but the NEXT level would be to sell to colleges direct and BE one of those companies.

It's nice to say that, but as someone who works at one of those companies, I see two problems:

1. It's a craptonne of work. They all have different lead delivery mechanisms, and a lot want final say over landing pages and copy. We need a fleet of account execs to do all the client hand holding and approvals. We have custom systems to handle all the lead delivery and people to monitor and fix up leads when it all goes bad. One of my biggest surprises upon moving into this industry was seeing the amount of overhead involved.

2. We're seeing clients wanting to deal with fewer lead sources, not more.

Sean

 

[rgordon83]

It's nice to say that, but as someone who works at one of those companies, I see two problems:

1. It's a craptonne of work. They all have different lead delivery mechanisms, and a lot want final say over landing pages and copy. We need a fleet of account execs to do all the client hand holding and approvals. We have custom systems to handle all the lead delivery and people to monitor and fix up leads when it all goes bad. One of my biggest surprises upon moving into this industry was seeing the amount of overhead involved.

2. We're seeing clients wanting to deal with fewer lead sources, not more.

Sean

RE 1: Def a lot of work, but i'm not in Edu, so it may be diff in that niche, but in almost all other niches i know of the lead buyers could give a crap about the landing pages as long as the lead quality is good and they are making money off your leads. But perhaps Edu is different.

2. Again, it's probably a niche thing. In my niche and many others the buyers are looking for as many good sources of leads as possible as long as they are quality and they are making money from them.

 

[brentdev]

congrats on finding ifbyphone.. they, tropo.com and twilio all have that functionality. but at least with twilio and tropo you don't have to have them necessarily enter in their pin #.... they just have to CALL IN at that number to verify the account... lemme give you a non-evasive way to go about it. give them your number and say to get your password, call in to verify the account and the automated system can either tell them their password or signal the function to shoot off the email.

welcome to two years ago

 

[rgordon83]

congrats on finding ifbyphone.. they, tropo.com and twilio all have that functionality. but at least with twilio and tropo you don't have to have them necessarily enter in their pin #.... they just have to CALL IN at that number to verify the account... lemme give you a non-evasive way to go about it. give them your number and say to get your password, call in to verify the account and the automated system can either tell them their password or signal the function to shoot off the email.

welcome to two years ago

Not exactly sure what you are talking about. I am not doing anything with PIN numbers...