Lead Overflow: Two Strategies to Maximize Profitability
Have you ever found yourself with a surplus of leads but limited bandwidth to connect with them? Or, perhaps you generated leads outside of your typical consumer profile. This is lead overflow, and it can elicit some initial panic. That is…until you discover its lucrative upside.
Developing a proactive strategy to automatically manage and monetize excess leads is essential to expanding profit margins and opportunities.
CAKE’s robust affiliate marketing and lead distribution technology enables marketers to not only generate leads but also increase the earning potential of every lead. With 53 percent of marketers allocating half of their budget to lead generation, wasted ad spend is simply not an option.
In this blog, we’ll explore two tried-and-true strategies to handle excess leads, real-life examples of how different industries tackle lead overflow, plus how CAKE’s software automates the lead distribution process to maximize revenue.
Strategy #1 – Sell real-time, excess leads to buyers at a premium
The most profitable method marketers can use to optimize lead revenue is to sell surplus leads to buyers in real-time at a premium. There are a myriad of scenarios in which a marketer might lack the resources to respond or simply offer a different product or service than what the lead is searching for.
Thus, the best option is to sell the lead to the highest paying buyer who can more effectively work the lead. Without this strategy, lead generators must absorb lead acquisition costs and worse, miss out on revenue.
To ensure maximum profitability with your lead overflow, the path to success involves using CAKE’s flexible lead distribution solution to:
Grow revenue – Enable real-time, automated lead routing to buyers according to their lead data requirements, respective bids, budgets, and availability in order to sell leads for the highest profit.
Expand partnerships – Onboard additional buyers interested in purchasing leads that align with their business offering.
There are countless ways to use CAKE’s technology to sell excess leads in real-time across every vertical. Let’s dive into two examples.
Real estate leads
In this scenario, a lead generator is delivering exclusive real estate leads to realtors, who serve as lead buyers, interested in boosting home sales in specific zip codes. The lead generator’s efforts continue to result in an excess of leads falling outside of their realtors’ defined zip codes. So, where does the generator go from here?
The lead generator can connect with their existing buyers to see if they are interested in purchasing leads from neighboring zip codes. Eager realtors might be open to buying leads in a new, yet geographically close zip code to expand their business. In this case, the lead generator can use CAKE’s Zip/Distance Buyer Filter to input a zip code and specify the distance within which that buyer is willing to purchase leads.
If the lead generator brings in a lead within a buyer’s radius, CAKE will automatically route and sell the lead to that buyer. If the lead matches two or more buyers’ zip distance filters, CAKE prioritizes the buyer who is willing to pay more for the lead.
Debt consolidation leads
This highlights a debt consolidator leveraging affiliates to drive traffic to their portfolio of debt reduction offers. The primary focus is to identify individuals seeking help to reduce their personal debt.
The affiliate traffic not only generates leads that match the debt consolidator’s audience, but also results in additional tax relief and student loan reduction leads. The debt consolidator must compensate the affiliates for the leads generated, even if they don’t directly service tax or student loan leads.
A proactive solution to manage the excess leads is to find and onboard new buyers in CAKE that are interested in purchasing real-time tax relief and student loan reduction leads. In this instance, the debt consolidator is doing more than covering their acquisition costs. They are also creating new revenue streams and growing their partnerships by consistently selling leads that would otherwise have gone to waste.
Strategy #2 – Bulk sell aged leads to buyers at a reduced price
An alternative approach to manage lead overflow is to bulk sell aged leads (also referred to as vintage leads) to buyers, typically at a fraction of the price of real-time leads.
Aged leads are a result of a large influx of leads and limited bandwidth to follow up on them fast enough. The amount of time that determines an aged lead’s likelihood to close is industry-specific. For example, a 30 day-old payday loan lead, which represents an individual seeking instant access to a short-term, high cost loan in advance of a paycheck, is unlikely to result in a sale. While a relocation lead that is 60 days old, indicating an individual’s upcoming move to a new area, holds considerable potential.
Without a real-time strategy to handle a significant surge in leads, aged leads begin to accumulate in bulk. These leads can quickly clutter a marketers’ database and erode profit margins.
Through CAKE’s Bulk Seller feature, users have the ability to:
Control margins – Sell aged leads to recoup initial acquisition costs and ensure you can potentially earn a percentage profit on the sale of each lead.
Organize the database – Offload leads in bulk to maintain a clean and organized database that ensures reporting transparency.
Let’s look at an opportunity of when to bulk sell leads and why speed matters, even with aged leads.
Payday loan leads
In this case, a lead generator is generating payday loan leads through their website. Ideally, all of the generated leads would be handled, however they don’t have the bandwidth available for the amount of leads that their marketing efforts pulled in.
The lead generator does not have a plan to proactively route the excess leads in real-time to buyers willing to pay a premium. As a result, their next best option is to now bulk sell the aged leads. With payday loan leads every second matters as these individuals are looking for immediate access to cash.
Leveraging CAKE’s Bulk Seller feature, the lead generator can quickly and efficiently offload the now aged leads to a buyer for a reduced price. This ensures the lead generator can still cover lead acquisition costs and earn a profit.
Want to learn more about the Bulk Seller feature? Connect with us here.
Unlocking profit potential: Start your journey
When it comes to lead overflow, the primary objective is to ensure revenue is generated by routing leads to the right buyers. We’ve provided you with two key strategies to achieve this.
Now, ready to explore this further and embark on your lead distribution journey? Reach out to our team here.
Or, maybe you just want to learn more! Master the art of lead distribution in our ebook: Keys to Successfully Launch and Grow a Lead Distribution Program