The point that unites every player within an affiliate lead marketplace is selling leads at the best possible price or getting high-intent customers at the lowest price. And if you’re a Phonexa client, you already know the drill: master lead bidding, and you’re there.
However, with lead bidding, there are so many peculiarities that even seasoned affiliates may not necessarily know the ins and outs of the lead bidding software they use. And they may not need to know — Phonexa guarantees unparalleled quality along all avenues, delivering high-quality leads to businesses at the best matching price.
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But what if I told you that you could get a higher price for your leads if you understand just how lead bidding software works and the principal differences between the popular bidding models?
Let’s dive right in!
This article will explore lead bidding software and how the right lead bidding model can help you buy or sell leads at the best price.
What Is Lead Bidding?
Lead bidding is a form of competition for a lead between buyers who want to buy this lead. However, a successful lead bidding does not necessarily mean you must outbid your rivals. The end result is what matters—driving profits from the purchased lead that exceed the costs.
Here is how lead bidding works within affiliate marketing:
- First of all, leads are generated through affiliates and enter the bidding system, where an affiliate can communicate their price per lead, amongst other conditions.
- Once the lead is offered to an advertiser, they can access the lead data and determine whether to accept or decline the offer.
- If the best-matching advertiser declines, the lead passes to the next best-matching advertiser and goes down the line until the lead gets sold. At this point, the price must not be lower than the minimum price initially indicated by the affiliate.
When this lead is delivered to the buyer — for instance, phone calls can connect directly to the advertiser’s call centre, or leads may be delivered to the advertiser’s CMS — they attempt to convert this lead and glean some performance insight to update their acquisition campaigns.
Direct Lead Distribution vs. Lead Bidding
The one line that should be drawn is the line between lead bidding and direct lead distribution. While both are related to lead acquisition, these are completely different parts of the lead acquisition process:
➥ In lead bidding, there is some form of competition between the advertisers. That means that leads are sold to a single winner with prices not predetermined before the end of bidding. In contrast, direct lead distribution is the delivery of a lead to either a single or multiple advertisers at a predetermined price and quantity.
Naturally, direct lead distribution without competition is suitable for companies looking to establish a predictable flow of leads while being ready to pay a higher price. On the other hand, lead bidding implies greater risk, offering an opportunity to get cheaper leads of higher quality or leads that marketers couldn’t get through lead distribution.
As an affiliate marketer, you might opt for lead bidding because there is always a possibility some of your leads will be sold at a high price. Exclusive leads could cost several hundred dollars in high-ticket niches like home services, solar, financial services, and insurance. Imagine now selling dozens or hundreds of leads every day.
Lead Distribution vs. Lead Bidding: What May Cause the Confusion
Lead distribution, in different contexts, can have two meanings:
- Lead distribution — a direct lead distribution — supplies the leads directly to a partner advertiser following a pre-agreed schedule and terms. For instance, sending 100 solar leads from London within a month to the advertiser’s CRM.
- Lead distribution is a method of distributing leads to the lead buyers, depending on the buyer bids and the settings of the market system. In this context, lead distribution explains how the bidding process works and the principles of lead delivery to advertisers.
But there’s no need to worry. In the following article sections, I will explain how different lead distribution systems affect the bidding process and what you can do to raise your income or optimise lead acquisitions if you’re an affiliate.
How Lead Bidding Works With Various Lead Distribution Systems
First, most lead marketplaces use mixed lead bidding systems, factoring in several different bidding criteria for an advertiser or an affiliate to be able to buy or sell the leads the way they want. Of course, a user can use all the provided features but not configure the system.
Here’s how lead bidding works on various lead distribution systems:
Ping Tree – A Hierarchical Structure of Campaigns
A ping tree is a set of campaigns or lead selling criteria determining how leads will be distributed to buyers in a lead market. By default, the model sells leads to the highest bidder amongst those bidders who satisfy all parameters of the campaigns.
How to win a bid using the ping tree software: because the leads are not offered to all buyers in real-time but to the most relevant buyer first, which is at the top of the ping tree — usually the highest bid — it would be sensible to place a bid reflecting your desire to buy the lead.
Put in the highest possible bid if, at all costs, you want to win the lead on the very first try — within reasonable limits, of course — you should not forget that staying in profit needs to be paramount. If lower quality leads satisfy you, a price reduction would be possible.
But here’s an important nuance: you do not have access to the bid sizes of the other buyers; you simply know whether the lead was accepted or rejected. This would naturally affect your and your rivals’ strategies, as you cannot know what you need to bid to win the lead.
The Impact of Ping Tree on Acquisition and Bidding Strategies
Depending on the ping tree, there could be hundreds of bidding strategies, but a general rule of thumb is you need to raise your bid if you want high-quality leads to flow in more rapidly. You can unleash more advanced strategies for optimising ROI at the same time, such as buying older leads cheaper will be useful for you in case of proper customer re-engagement.
Ping Post – A Glimpse Into the Lead Data Before Purchase
Ping post is a lead distribution system that allows an advertiser to see part of the information from the lead before they place a bid. In Phonexa, ping post lead distribution is used in conjunction with ping tree so that all buyers may judge the quality of contacts they’re buying before committing to a purchase.
How to win a bid using ping post software: In ping post, you can set the bid amount per your lead quality assessment. Let’s say it perfectly matches the profile of your ideal buyer – age, zip code, income, etc. – you may get interested in accepting the lead and maybe even raising the bid for further leads to get them.
Push Bidding – Where the Speed of Decision-Making Counts
After ping real-time, ping push-driven is the second competitive bidding system in which partial lead information is simultaneously presented to all qualified buyers. The first buyer to accept the lead wins the lead.
How to win a bid with push bidding: With the first-come-first-served ping push system in operation, the fast decision-makers will have an edge. Learn to make your decisions faster because, with push bidding, the lead is pre-set before the bid, and quality leads can come cheaper if you’re quick enough.
On the other hand, buyers might become impulsive and accept leads that are not duly evaluated, reducing conversion rates and ROI. If you believe that lead freshness is of prime importance – for instance, you call immediately after buying fresh leads – Ping Push could get you the best shot at closing sales on the spot.
Reverse Bidding – Where Buyers Are in Full Control
Reverse bidding might be the most straightforward way for advertisers to get the leads they need in the real-time, competition-free course of exactly what matches their buying criteria: location, income, age, gender, and much more. In reverse bidding, an advertiser needs only to set the qualifications of the leads and place his bid until he is offered, through the system, a matching lead.
How to win a bid using Reverse bidding: While reverse bidding, you would first have to fill in the whole spectrum of buying preferences you’re allowed to set and then evaluate the price you are ready to pay for your leads.
The only possibility in which price can be a factor is if other advertisers set the same buying criteria – for example, two businesses buy leads from the same city, the same income level, among other similar scenarios – or your price comes lower than the minimum price the affiliate accepts: this, too, won’t come through the offer.
Note: Some reverse bid systems will submit the same lead to multiple buyers if that lead matches the multiple buyer qualification parameters simultaneously. Find out how your software conducts lead bids to avoid any surprises.
Real-Time Bidding – The Best of Bidding Wars
Real-time bidding seems to be similar to push bidding at first glance, except that it carries one major difference: the bidding is done in real-time after the advertisers have received information on the lead in question. This is the most competitive lead bidding system, but it is still great for the affiliates since they will always sell the lead at the current market price.
How to win using real-time bidding: You actually compete with other buyers, so you must make your bid higher than their quoted price but still business-wise reasonable. You need fast decision-making combined with analytics to outcompete others.
Views of Advertisers on Various Lead Bidding Systems
Views of Affiliates on Various Lead Bidding Systems
Choosing the Best Bidding Software: The Checklist
Now that you understand how all these lead bidding systems work, you should have an idea about the type of lead bidding software you need for given campaigns and generally for business models. But then again, such factors as integrations, system capacity, reporting, and more should also be considered.
Following are some essential factors you must consider to make your choice about lead bidding software:
| Bidding Variety | You already know how crucial choosing the right lead bidding system is, so I won’t get into that again. Just make sure the bidding system and lead flow you want are available.For example, when you want to receive leads of a certain demographic without competing with other advertisers in real-time, you should opt for the Ping Reverse bidding system. |
| Lead Qualification | The most important feature of lead bidding software is its ability to define what leads you need at a granular level. Precise targeting and filtering ensure you get the leads you want while not wasting time on irrelevant, low-intent leads. Example: If you only offer solar installations in one city, you must filter leads by zip code. Otherwise, most of the leads will come from other irrelevant locations. |
| Lead Validation | For call campaigns, you need some extra verification of phone numbers to sift out undesired calls: in other words, reject a call lead that can’t pass through the verification criteria; the very algorithm works here like with the web leads. |
| Bidding Customisation | Whether you purchase or sell leads, you will want the opportunity to improve or even change the strategies concerning your performance, both strategically and on the fly. Here’s where your need for a lead bidding platform lies, and one that could let you regulate acquisition or selling strategies based on real-time performance of leads.Example: If you have no problem acquiring all the leads you want, you can likely decrease the per-lead pricing rapidly and save. Conversely, if you simply cannot acquire leads, it would make sense to increase the price, change targeting, etc. Adaptive lead bidding software can analyse your performance and make recommendations on optimal acquisition strategies. |
| Lead Market Capacity | For larger affiliates and advertisers, moving into markets that aggregate a significant volume of partners will be important. Without doing so, selling or purchasing leads for the desired price may be impossible. Example: If an enterprise requires 1,000 leads a day that meet specific qualification requirements, they might find themselves needing to look into other markets should their initial one fail to supply this volume. |
| Performance Reporting | For further optimisation of the sales and acquisition campaigns, the key points one should have a sight: at what price sold, the number of calls or web leads sold/acquired, rejected leads, and in which touchpoint of the campaign – for example, was there an error or a timeout, did the IVR reject them, etc. Example: If you have noticed some patterns in performance – what’s worked most in your favour, including the most profitable traffic channels, days, and customer pathways – you can double down on those while removing unprofitable flows and funnels. |
| Integrations | Call bidding software is never truly in a silo-at the minimum; it is combined with call distribution software – so you must easily integrate your acquisition or sales campaign into an overall marketing environment.Example: If you purchase leads and generate them yourself, then free data flow between paid and organic campaigns might reveal some interesting marketable insights about the two categories of customers. |
Comparative Analysis of Leading Bidding Software Providers
 |  | |
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5 out of 5 |
4.6 out of 5 |
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4.9 out of 5 |
4.2 out of 5 |
| Bidding Variety▼ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Bidding variety shows how many bidding models are supported in the marketplace. The more bidding models, the more flexibility and control advertisers have over their acquisition campaigns. | 7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 3.7 between these providers | |
| Score | 4.5 out of 5 | 3.7 out of 5 |
| Lead Qualification▼ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Lead qualification shows the depth of lead qualification before leads are sold to advertisers. Advanced lead bidding software qualifies leads by location, age, gender, income, and other factors, assigning scores to these leads so advertisers can quickly get an idea of the offered leads. | 5 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4 between these providers | |
| Score | 5 out of 5 | 4 out of 5 |
| Lead Validation▼ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Lead validation is a checking algorithm that sieves out low-quality, irrelevant, and potentially fraudulent leads from reaching the advertiser. Advanced lead bidding systems enable scrupulous lead validation for web and phone call leads. | 7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.3 between these providers | |
| Score | 5 out of 5 | 4.3 out of 5 |
| Bidding Customization▼ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Bidding customization shows how quickly and deeply you can change your bidding strategies. Advanced lead bidding systems allow advertisers and affiliates to change their bidding strategies on the fly so they can instantly react to changes in demand, supply, quality, or price. | 7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.1 between these providers | |
| Score | 5 out of 5 | 4.1 out of 5 |
| Market Depth▼ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Market depth shows how many affiliates and advertisers are in the market, translating into the number of leads you can buy or sell at once at your target price. | 7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.4 between these providers | |
| Score | 5 out of 5 | 4.4 out of 5 |
| Performance Reporting▼ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Performance reporting shows the availability and depth of reports, which you can use to optimize your lead sales and acquisition campaigns. Likewise, performance reporting displays how well different reports complement each other to create an overarching business picture. | 7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.7 between these providers | |
| Score | 5 out of 5 | 4.7 out of 5 |
| Integrations▼ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Integrations show how many lead management, CRM, and other software and systems you can use together with a particular lead bidding solution. The more integrations, the easier you can build a comprehensive marketing management system. Phonexa’s software offers a flexible Ping URL integration, supporting authorization, headers, and a twig engine that allows customers to build literally any integration they require.The integration list includes but is not limited to the following integration options:
| 7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 3.1 between these providers | |
| Score | 5 out of 5 | 3.1 out of 5 |
| Value for price |  |  |
| Total Score | 49.4 out of 50 | 41.1 out of 50 |
Ping Post Calls 2.0 by Phonexa: When Five Lead Flows Become a Single Solution
Few lead bidding systems support multiple lead flows, while Phonexa Ping Post Calls 2.0 provides an advertiser and an affiliate with the best conditions for securing a deal at a better profit. Moreover, partial information disclosure about a lead allows an advertiser to decide upon a suitable purchase, though an affiliate also gets the right to bid for the best attribute of call data in the market.
Here are some of the lead flows supported by Ping Post Calls 2.0:
- Data captured via IVR
- Data pinged before the call was made, with the caller’s phone number
- Data pinged before the call without calling the party’s phone number
- Call for applications with no bidding
- Pinging based on the agent’s availability
But best of all, Phonexa offers more than just a lead marketplace; it weaves together an entire performance marketing ecosystem, coordinating affiliate and organic marketing campaigns at scale across departments through its proprietary lead bidding software.
Get the All-In-One Performance Marketing Software Suite
Marketers know that juggling systems and reports in an attempt to coordinate heterogeneous marketing campaigns just doesn’t work. With Phonexa, you won’t have to do that since everything an affiliate marketer or business owner might need comes within this single operating solution for partner and performance marketing.
Phonexa brings together eight proprietary performance marketing solutions, covering top-to-bottom marketing on all avenues that exist, including but not limited to affiliate, referral, email, social media, on-site, and influencer marketing. Seamless data exchange between distinct systems turns on the right vision for your business so you won’t lose the forest for the trees.
Here are the eight proprietary solutions you can get at a single price (online price calculator):
| LMS Sync | Lead tracking & distribution software |
| Call Logic | Call tracking & distribution software |
| E-Delivery | Email & SMS marketing software |
| Cloud PBX | Cloud phone system |
| Lynx | Click tracking software |
| Opt-Intel | Suppression list management solution |
| HitMetrix | User behaviour recording & CRO software |
| Books360 | Automated accounting software |
Build your plan today, or book a demo and learn about Phonexa in more detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most effective lead bidding strategy for generating leads?
The strategy to take leading bidding completely depends on your type of lead bidding software, the quality and quantity of the leads to be bought, the level of competition, and what price per lead one is ready to pay for. The simplest strategy could be raising the price per lead to win the competition, but that will depend on the variables at play because many other effective strategies apply to those variable variations.
Some of the most popular lead bidding strategies include setting very detailed lead qualification criteria, determining why other advertisers decline certain leads, increasing or reducing the price based on the competition, and so on.
Which is the best lead bidding platform?
Phonexa offers the most comprehensive lead bidding software suite, which is extendable to a much greater performance marketing ecosystem. You can sell or buy any type of leads at any quantity for several hundred dollars per month and know who they are, where they originated, how they interacted once sold, and scores of other deep details.
Which of the features of lead bidding software is the most critical?
It depends on what features your business strategy will require. If you are an affiliate, you may want the bidding system ping post or ping real-time, because these types of sales lead to the highest bidder, allowing you to maximise earnings.
Of course, it is not only about the price per lead that you could get but even the amount of leads you would want to sell, the velocity at which you can sell those leads, and the advertiser loyalty that may or may not be accepting leads from you in the future, dependent on how well they convert.
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