• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 16, 2007

Amid continued controversy surrounding the business of lead generation, the Interactive Advertising Bureau stepped in Wednesday with a list of best practices to help standardize the transfer and receipt of data between advertisers and lead-generation service providers.

First on the IAB's list of priorities is security, imploring that all lead-generation data--the detailed information consumers give marketers online--should be transferred and received in an encrypted format.

Secondly, the IAB is stressing common format and setup, so all data is transferred in a common format through secure Web technologies.

"The committee encourages advertisers and publishers to implement these best practices and comply with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations," said Gayle Guzzardo, senior vice president of product management at Q Interactive and an IAB Lead Generation committee chair.

Trading in customer leads has become big business in recent years. Marketers spent $1.3 billion on lead generation in 2006--more than doubling the $753 million spent in 2005, and making up 8% of all online ad dollars spent last year, according to the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Still, marketers are questioning the legitimacy of many of the leads being generated--particularly those attained through incentives like marked-down iPods. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has expressed its concern over potential privacy violations and false advertising claims.

Of note, one of the companies endorsing the IAB's new initiative is ValueClick Media--which has seen its stock fall nearly 40% since May, in part due to its involvement in incentive-based lead generation. In May, ValueClick acknowledged that the FTC was conducting an inquiry into the company's lead-generation activities.

The IAB has tried its hand at regulating lead generation before. Most recently, in March, in conjunction with its Lead Generation Committee, the group released the "IAB Marketer & Agency Guide to Lead Quality," which reviewed the definition and aspects of Internet lead quality, as well as lead quality's impact on advertisers' marketing strategies. The guide also provided a ranking system for marketers to use to assess the overall quality of leads based on specific industry benchmarks.