Everyone Has Been Ripped Off In Lead Gen - Tell Us Your Story

At Lead Generation World London 2022 we invited the speakers to come and record a podcast with us. The format was simple, we picked a random question out of a hat and got them to answer it - with the camera rolling.

In this episode we spoke to Ryan Berry from Cornerhouse Media and asked him the following question: Everyone has been ripped off in Lead Gen - Tell Us Your Story.

Check out his answer:

The following article is adapted from the latest episode of the B2C Lead Generation Podcast. Links to listen to the entire podcast can be found at the bottom of the page. 

Ryan, Everyone has been ripped off in Lead Gen. Tell Us Your Story!

Ryan Berry: Interesting. So as a lead seller, I’d be looking at this from an advertising standpoint. I think historically the lack of transparency, particularly on a display network, native network, non-search basically. Anything that’s not search or social. And the lack of visibility there was shocking.

I remember once, we launched a marketing campaign and the ads that we were showing were on a mobile app. This was a game, and as the levels changed up to the next one the button to say Next was in exactly the same place where the ad would then be inserted. We didn’t catch this for days and probably thousands and thousands of pounds.

So yeah, there have been many issues on that side. But I’m sure that lead buyers have their own stories of being ripped off! It’s a strange world sometimes isn’t it, lead generation? 

It’s something that is overlooked. Lead generators (sellers) can also get ripped off by lead buyers, right?  

Yeah, I think it can be a lack of the ethics behind the business  side. Not what we’re normally thinking, but if you are a company for example where you are buying leads and the product that you have has inflation. So every year the price is upped to the consumer.  Four years later you still refuse to pay more for the leads from your lead supplier.  But you are receiving more in line with inflation - which I accept has completely changed over the last few months - but there is a little bit of a rip off there as well. 

So, going back, have you had display networks work for lead gen? And do you do it now still? 

We don’t do it now. That is not because it doesn’t work. Basically, there are two problems for that. It’s back to this very siloed view of “we only wants search leads” or “any specific channel.”  When we start talking about a more sophisticated model across multiple areas, multiple channels online, buyers can freak out a little bit. Historically there was probably a reason for that. But, not any more. So we had to stop doing it even thought it worked. If you segment your data and you show it to your buyer and say “Look, we are getting a 30% higher lead quality here because the audience is so very relevant.” But they will still not be persuaded, what do you do? 

I think 2022, for many companies on both the supply and buying side, is now more open to this. That is no siloing and adopting a wider strategy. 

Why not check out the full podcast with Ryan? You can listen on Apple, Spotify or watch on YouTube NOW!