Commentary
Do Duplicate Leads Benefit Or Hinder Performance?
- by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, June 7, 2013
Duplicate leads have a higher value than previously believed, according to a new study released this week identifying the characteristics that make them more valuable. The study from Leads360
identifies that those flagged as duplicates convert 167% higher than the average rate. This conversion occurs regardless of how they are handled after they have been flagged.
The more times a lead is flagged as a duplicate, the more likely that it will convert. Leads flagged as duplicates at least four times are more than 200% more likely to convert, compared with other leads. Per the study, the more times a lead is flagged as a duplicate, the higher the likelihood of converting.
The Duplicate Leads: Unrealized Value or Waste of Time? study from Leads360 analyzes the data collected from its customers using the company's duplicate management platform. Some 100,000 leads flagged as potential duplicates were analyzed in the study to compare their performance to those of millions of other leads.
Timing is everything. The study found that timing between duplicates can become a valuable indicator of a lead's potential performance. Duplicates are most likely to convert when they are flagged six or more months after the original lead was created, according to the study. The duplicate lead is more likely to convert as the interval between duplicates increases, but the gain in conversion fluctuates beyond six months.
Weight the findings objectively. Of course, the Leads360 optimization study believes the first step in managing duplicate leads is to identify incoming leads a potential duplicates. The company provides a platform that does just that. Nonetheless, companies should have one reference for leads -- not many. So it is important to determine whether to merge the files or manage them differently.
Laurie Sullivan is a writer and editor for MediaPost. You can reach Laurie at lauriesullivan@gmail.com.
Great to see Leads360 starting to address the issues of "repeat frequency" and of "repetition". W
Much like the first rule of banners and CPA was "last click wins", the internet lead purchasing market has been dogged by the CPL rule that the "first valid lead wins". So much so in fact, that sellers and Provisioners of leads will often suppress and de-duplicate the leads they capture before even sending them to the Advertisers' CRM system.
LOLAGROVE has been providing our Advertisers with both the technology and apparatus to measure both the "repeat frequency" and the "repetition" of records for some time.
Repeat Frequency is a service offering, whereby LOLA can enable Advertisers to pay Suppliers for duplicate records, but a lower prescribed rate.
Repetition is a service offering that counts how many times the same record has been received by the Advertiser.
The study by Leads360 is a good step for the lead generation sector in striving for attribution modelling and pricing. But it is a small step.
Unless Advertisers "specify" that Suppliers SHALL ALWAYS deliver all records captured to Advertisers, and/or agree to pay Suppliers for the supply of duplicate records, then Suppliers will not supply them.
A Supplier who sends 100 duplicate records can only possibly achieve a 1% conversion rate, and the overall conversion rate, cost of processing, and value of revenue, of records received from the Supplier will be the ultimate determinate of the price the Advertiser is willing to pay the Supplier for leads. So Suppliers will still suppress duplicates to aid their overall conversion rates, depriving Leads360 and their clients of getting the full picture.
It will be some years before Advertisers truly "embrace" repeat frequency pricing, repetition scoring and prioritization.
Leads360 suggests that a repeat record or enquiry, that has been received when the original record has decayed more than 6 months, is more likely to convert than a repeat received within 2 days.
This is simply not something to generalize, even in the name of delivering headline statistics. Repeat Frequency value very much depends upon the service offering, sales cycle, purchase behavior and channel from which the initial and second record was secured.
Leads360 appears to have started developing a means to determine whether a record is a duplicate, and has also commenced the process of understanding and educating Advertisers about the chronological aspects of decay, and duplication definitions, which is all commendable.
The area of "lead management" is clearly hotting up, and many lead and CRM companies are staking their claims to better empower their Advertisers.
I hope the above comment is of interest to those working in the field of "establishing the true value of leads".
Robin Caller
CEO | LolaGrove
Robin, thanks for the input--appreciate it.