LeadsCon 2010 West Recap
A couple of weeks ago I attended the 2010 LeadsCon West conference at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, NV. LeadsCon is the premier national conference dedicated to the Lead Generation industry which with 1800+ attendees is growing at at tremendous pace.
It was a great show and absolutely worth every penny - a special big thanks is in order to Tree.com and AllWebLeads for throwing down and sponsoring the festivities.
At the end of the VIP party outside Tryst, I had a chance to catch up with and thank Jay Weintraub and chat about some different types of sponsorship opportunities we may be able to help with next year (perhaps more on that idea later). Jay is such genuine, down to earth guy. I’m really happy to see him experience the growth that LeadsCon has seen over the last couple of years.
I’ll try to quickly overview the events that the WebproLeads team attended.
Keynote
Ex-Googler Douglas Merrill thought that he can apply Google-mentality to a the record industry and fails. Lesson learned? Ways in which specific organizational structures that work for some companies may not work for others. One key takeaway was is to be careful of putting innovation ahead of revenue - if you’re not making money, it doesn’t matter how cutting edge and innovative your company may be.
Industry Leaders Panel
In a nutshell: 2009 was a rough year with many lead buyers pulling their budgets back, but a few verticals performed well, including insurance and debt settlement. Matt Coffin seemed the most informed and interesting of the panel, and discussed the impact of pending legislation coming out of Washington in which the FTC will over-correct in their efforts to protect consumers best interests. The results could have a very negative impact on the way leads are generated. Also, be on the lookout for acquisitions on a smaller scale.
Investors Panel
This was one of the discussions I was really looking forward to as venture capital and private equity in the lead gen space is something I’m always interested in. Unfortunately the discussion started getting way too technical (discussing multiples of public companies and other points irrelevant to the broader session discussion) until Mark Suster (GRP Partners) saved the day by ad-hoc moderating the panel. He later apologized for this stint, but I think it was totally justitified given how tuned-out the audience seemed to be at this point.
I bumped into Suster later that evening and had chance to say thank you. If you’re not familiar with Mark’s blog, do yourself a favor and check it out.
Bottom line from an investment perspective is to expect lots of consolidation, mergers, rollups and acquisitions in 2010. Managing dozens or even hundreds of lead sources is getting to be a headache - lead buyers and advertisers are looking to simplify their lead aggregation sources.
Death of the Short Form? Impact of Google Comparison Ads
An interesting discussion, only because an early-stage Google Comparison Ads (mortgage) lead buyer was on the panel. His feedback in a nutshell is that quality from Google comparison ads has been fairly good, but with such low quantities it may be too early to tell. Basically companies on the generation / selling side don’t need to be concerned yet. Also, Google still needs to address problems with lead transparency.
Launch Spotlight: Tree.com
Tree.com’s CEO Doug Lebda came out and announced the launch of a snazzier Tree.com that seems to be Yahoo! Answers meets Squidoo meets LendingTree. Essentially, lead buyers are encouraged to claim “profiles” and are worked into the lead gen model when consumers engage themselves and interact with the site. It’s an interesting concept to be sure, but noticeably absent from this model are lead generators, except for tree.com of course, which seems to be an odd announcement to an audience that is mostly lead-generators. Either way, it’s an interesting play that the entire industry will be watching closely.
Future of Education Lead Generation
The EDU lead gen space will become increasingly difficult to enter, as schools are become less willing to adopt even more lead aggregation sources. Transparency will be rewarded with regard to marketing methods, traffic sources and branding. Additionally, we may see some accreditation standards for advertising put in place.
EDU lead generation may need to move away from a CPL pricing structure toward a sponsorship model based on some pending FTC laws that may make selling a prospective students information illegal. That legislation is still being written/discussed but it may have a very big impact on the industry.
There will be a continued high-demand for EDU leads in 2010 with a greater focus on quality. Lead generation companies can help improve quality by sharing additional demographics with the school such as programs searched for, as well as possibly prepping the prospective student for what to expect during the admissions process.
We’re primarily engaged in the Education space and it will be interesting to see how it continues to evolve.
LeadCouncil
(The?) LeadCouncil was unveiled at LeadsCon and I think it’s a great idea. If the performance marketing industry doesn’t self-regulate, somebody else will. Enter LeadsCouncil. From their website:
The LeadsCouncil is an independent association, whose members are companies in the online lead generation space from buyers to sellers, technology solution providers and investment professionals. All members are united in a common goal of promoting best practices and fostering trust regardless of vertical. LeadsCoucil was created by the industry experts and evangelists Jay Weintraub and Dave Wengel whose ongoing mission both through LeadsCon and LeadsCouncil is to increase the size of the market and number of companies who leverage lead generation online.
Hopefully the concept picks gains steam and they are able to assume some authority in this space. Check out their website for more information at LeadCouncil.com.
Conclusion
There were a few more sessions attended but it’s already a blur by now. With any good show, the real value is in the conversations, networking and deals that are done in the hallways and happy hours. LeadsCon continues to raise the bar for itself.
If the growth of the industry and conference attendance is any indication, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another leads or performance marketing based conference pop up in the next few years. Already looking forward to the NYC show in just 4 short months.
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About Me
President & CEO of WebproLeads, a Twin Cities based technology-driven performance marketing company. We specialize in providing customer acquisition services built on first first and only lead generation campaign management platform.
