Are you making money with lead generation as an affiliate? Most likely you're sending traffic to CPA offers and getting paid $1.25 per lead, right? How would you like to move up the food chain and handle the leads yourself, and making more money?

I've been asked by a few clients if I can set up lead generation systems for them, so I've started to look into how the industry works.

This business is quite secretive and I might be upsetting some established players with this post, but if it helps grow the industry further by bringing on board more entrepreneurs with fresh ideas, that's a good thing.

This is clearly not a business for just the big players any more. As technology gets more integrated into affiliate marketing concepts, the field is opening up for anyone who "gets it".

Now it's time for you to "get it"

I'll share my findings with you as I get answers to the big questions. I've decided to partner up with a leader in this field, Brett Grow from Burstabit Media, who has offered to help me out as we go on this journey.

As the cofounder of Burstabit Media and the LinkTrust tracking and lead management platform, Brett comes across companies all the time who are eager to start brokering leads and co-registration data rather than just sending traffic from their affiliates to their merchant’s websites.

Many of these companies are looking for a technology solution and consulting to get them started.

There's so much information on this topic we'll probably break this up into a 4 part series. So on we go with Part 1.

The first big question I have is:

 

Why should I broker leads instead of just sending traffic?

Brett: Before knowing anything else, you need to know how to get started, you need to decide if this is for you. Below are the top five reasons I have found that most companies buy and sell leads:

1. Capture leads to use for later emailing and monetization. Internet traffic alone offers no residual value to you as a marketer because once consumers have gone to a merchant’s site, you lose them and never keep any usable marketing data to know who they are. When you capture lead data, you can retain a copy of consumer data which can be used for emailing newsletters, cross advertising etc. i.e. You are building a list for *yourself*, not the merchant.
2. Track and report with 100% accuracy (No cookies). Since you are capturing lead data of consumers and selling it in real-time, you have no need for cookies and pixels for tracking. The actual lead data itself is used as the metric for tracking, thus alleviating the need to use cookies and pixels with their inherent inaccuracies.
3. Create exclusive offers for better market penetration. Everyone knows that exclusive offers are easier to market since that is what affiliates and networks are primarily looking for. Capturing lead data allows you to create and host custom landing pages or entire websites to collect leads. To illustrate this, instead of sending traffic to mortgage company X’s site, have your affiliates send traffic to your own mortgage website where you then collect the consumer data and sell it to buyers in real-time using platforms like LinkTrust.
4. Improve offer longevity and eliminate expiring or pausing ad campaigns. Nothing is worse then having to pause an ad campaign and slow the momentum you’ve worked so hard to create just because a merchant has an issue or you reach a cap. Capturing leads yourself allows you to sell to multiple merchants. Regardless of the status of any one merchant, your campaign is not jeopardized because you have spread the load across many buyers.
5. Increase profits. Having multiple merchants buying leads allows you to negotiate a better price which can be based upon volume, geo-location etc. In addition, you’ll inevitably acquire buyers who can only take leads within certain parameters, so having more buyers allows you to increase your selling coverage and thus increase conversions across the board for your offer.

In the next part, we’ll share with you the basic steps to get started in lead generation.

It’s not rocket science, with the right tools and a little guidance to get started, anyone can start capturing and selling leads in real-time!

To get insider information on this business and other lead gen and affiliate marketing industry tips, subscribe to my free Affiliate Strategy newsletter today.

--- (Edited on 5/7/2008 1:21 pm [GMT-0500] by Peter) ---