Unveiling the Secrets To Lead and Call Verification

In an age where every marketing dollar counts, the relentless onslaught of low-quality leads can cripple your campaigns and drain your budget faster than you can say “ROI.”

The digital landscape is rife with pitfalls – from fraudulent affiliates syphoning off your hard-earned cash to the ever-looming threat of misattributed customer conversions.

It’s a minefield out there, but there’s hope on the horizon. The topic of fraud detection was front and centre during the latest instalment of Phonexa’s Amplify webinar series, “Lead and Call Verification and Validation.”

Hosted by Phonexa COO Jeffrey Schaffer, the Amplify webinar featured IPQualityScore (IPQS) CEO Dennis Weiss and IPQS Sales Engineer Shea Craft as they unveiled the secrets to verifying leads to enhance lead quality.

But why is this topic so crucial? With digital ad fraud projected to cost a staggering $100 billion in 2023, as reported by Statista, advertisers are understandably hesitant to splurge on untested marketing methods as the risk is simply too high.

Let’s dive into the insights shared by the trio of performance marketing experts, from drained budgets and misplaced attribution to reputational damage and compliance issues.

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Evolving Lead Fraud Trends

The conversation kicked off with a discussion on the latest trends related to lead fraud, with Craft detailing how affiliate fraud has evolved through the use of residential proxies.

“A new method of connection [is] using residential proxies, which are clean IPs that are being sold on marketplaces,” said Craft. “[The IPs have] been compromised through malware, or they’re just an ISP leasing bandwidth on this IP.”

Rather than programmatically stuffing an affiliate offer through a data centre IP, fraudsters can now use someone else’s IP, which would work just as effectively.

Weiss then described how this trend has evolved from hijacking or adding malware to devices for the purpose of using someone else’s bandwidth to proprietors giving out residential proxies. This has affected businesses of all sizes, from small companies to top Fortune-ranked companies.

“When we look at other companies – it doesn’t matter the industry, whether if it’s leadgen or e-commerce – we’re seeing that residential proxies are still happening in all of these companies, and most of them don’t even know what it is or how it’s happening,” said Weiss. “It’s ever-evolving and getting harder and harder to detect, so what do we do?”

Weiss then explained that IPQS first infiltrates those residential proxies before using a network of honeypots to connect to these residential proxies and detect them in real-time.

“We’re connecting to these residential proxies and IPs, and we’re able to detect them in real-time, so the freshest data is always coming into us, and no one else has that kind of connection that we do,” said Weiss.

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Implementing a Lead Verification Process

Schaffer then steered the conversation toward lead verification, particularly the tools needed to remain competitive when running an affiliate network.

“The primary concern is balancing advertiser, or lead buyer, relationships with the needs of your affiliates or traffic partners – so, balancing traffic quality versus your campaign’s EPCs,” said Craft.

Craft then stated that when you introduce a lead verification process, there’s a potential risk that the traffic you allow through may create issues for your lead buyers or even your network, as you might end up covering returns while still compensating your affiliates for generating revenue.

“There has been, over time, a general shift [toward] improving the traffic quality because the administrative overhead of managing a lead programme eating those monthly returns is really not feasible, so a lot of people are looking for a solution to that,” said Craft.

In response, Craft shared that more and more affiliate networks are reaching out to IPQS for fraud detection solutions to improve buyer relationships.

“As the affiliate ecosystem evolves toward pushing cleaner traffic, it’s going to be [required] by lead buyers for you to have at least some sort of front-end lead verification protection,” said Craft.

Leave ad fraud behind and unlock profitability with clean lead management.

Detecting Fraud

The conversation then shifted to the common criteria used to detect fraud.

“A clear example would be, if you’re doing email validation, making sure that [an email address] is not temporary and making sure that they’re not using a disposable inbox so if you do any sort of list monetisation – or data monetisation in general – you [ensure] that every piece of data is deliverable,” said Craft. “On the phone validation side of things – which is important because contact rates drive the monetary value of leads as a whole – if you can’t call a customer to install a roof, if you’re calling disconnected lines or VOIPs that nobody’s going to [answer], then you’re just wasting your time, administrative overhead, and expenses.”

The inability to promptly detect fraud ultimately wastes an agent’s time and results in inefficient call centres.

Discover how to counter ad fraud and future-proof your affiliate network.

Advanced Tactics for Lead Segmentation

The conversation concluded with a discussion on advanced tactics related to lead segmentation based on quality and dynamically adjusting the verification process.

“In terms of advanced tactics, we would probably lean on our device fingerprinting – there [is] a lot of insight we can gain from the metrics that we can pull [from] a device fingerprinting session,” said Craft. “Based on those pieces of data – it may be the make and model of their device or even any sort of software inconsistencies – we can dynamically price a lead or reevaluate in such a way that maybe we [identify] higher value projects [coming] from somebody that has called in with maybe an iPhone or signed up with an iPhone versus Android or something in that nature.”

“At the end of the day, you want to make it as expensive for fraudsters as possible,” said Weiss. “So, you can use our tools [for] publisher signups [to] make sure that a legit person is who they say they are. If you make it expensive for them to buy emails or IP addresses and whatnot, then they’re not going to sign up for your platform and go somewhere else.”

The same strategy applies when selling leads.

“If fraudsters are [filling out] your leadgen forms…and you [utilise] tools to prevent that, it’s going to be more expensive for them,” said Craft. “They’re going to waste their bandwidth and they’re going to stop attacking you and they’re going to go somewhere else.”

As a result, affiliates can focus on generating more clean leads and increasing ROI.

Uncover best practises for fraud detection and identity verification.

The importance of reducing lead fraud cannot be overstated. In a world where every lead, every call, and every conversion matters, staying ahead of fraud and maintaining the highest lead quality is a must.

To continue the conversation and learn more about upcoming Amplify webinars, connect with Schaffer on LinkedIn.