Intela Global Performance-Based Marketing and Lead Generation Blog

Hello! My name is Ninfa Cabello and I started working with Intela late August of 2009.  I am an Account Manager here and work with advertisers and affiliates.  I really enjoy working with both sides of the industry.  In order to look for and bring in a good offer, you need to know what your affiliates do well with and what they are looking for.

I have been in this online marketing game since April of 2007 and have enjoyed all aspects of it.  I started working for an affiliate that needed a translator, so I translated webpages from English to Spanish and vice versa.  I also handled key accounts for him on the advertiser and affiliate side.  From there, I moved on to work for an advertiser.  I dealt with networks and affiliates while employed there.  Now, I landed here!  The dynamics of the company are incredible and I truly enjoy working with Intela.

By: Ninfa Cabello, Account Manager

My name is Martin and I joined Intela in November as the European Email Deliverability Manager. Prior to Intela, I worked for the main cable ISP in France, for the world leader in B2B email filtering systems (in the UK, Australia and France), and more recently for the largest American ESP.

I have traveled a bit during my life and this has allowed me to speak four languages fluently:  French, my mother language, Italian because I grew up in Rome, English and German where I spent some time as an exchange student.

It is a pleasure for me to join such a fast growing company, and a great opportunity to learn different aspects of marketing and email; mainly lead generation and social networking.

My colleagues, from every single department, have been very helpful and welcoming which has helped me feel very comfortable at Intela already. I am currently in the Boulder office to meet the team and looking forward to meet the UK team later this year.

By: Martin Ebongue

My name is Rita and I have recently moved to London to join the Intela European team as an account manager. This is my first job and my experience so far has been extremely enjoyable!

First of all, I have been learning a lot about the online marketing industry, particularly the three main activities of Intela: lead generation, e-mail marketing and affiliate marketing. The whole market is growing rapidly and it’s great to be involved in such a dynamic, vibrant company.

The team has been very welcoming and each team member has explained their daily activities and how they function within the company.

This has helped me to get a better overview of my future tasks and also to understand how I will be able to make my own contribution.

All this in a very recently acquired office right in the middle of the buzz in one of the most vibrant crossroads in London, Oxford Circus.  I have visited London a few times previously but it’s great to be living and working in the heart of it!

By: Rita Costa

Production is one of those departments in this company that wears several different hats. We’re pretty much the help desk for our network and all offers coming in to and going out of our system. We also insure the quality of the product we put into our system — down to every single detail possible. We insure creatives are coded correctly, links work properly, and pixels are tracking as they should be.

As a CAN-SPAM compliant company, there are a lot of rules and regulations that need to be met along with all the other little things that make an offer succeed. Sometimes these can be missed by one set of eyes so it’s always best to have several checking out every campaign we run. That’s where production comes into play.

Our advertiser reps bring in offers that they then send to production to load into the system. At that point, the advertiser rep has already gone through the assets to assure all components are present. Production then double checks the HTML and codes uniquely for our system. After everything is loaded and both parties have verified a pixel firing in each others’ system, the offer is sent for a final QC – Quality Check. At this point, the offer has gone through at least three if not four to five sets of eyes to insure the quality of the campaign and it’s ready to go live.

Although Production can be the workhorse of the business sometimes, it’s one of the most important components to having a clean, smooth running network that other networks strive to be. It’s a very productive job

By: Colleen Flynn, Production Manager and QC Extraordinaire

In the realm of lead generation, the ongoing debate is quality versus quantity.  When I say quality, I don’t mean non-exclusivity, non-opt in, or false/fraudulent leads.  These unscrupulous tactics are good for no one.  I am speaking specifically about varying levels of custom filtering and post lead generation validation.  The final answer in this quality versus quantity debate, as you might already know is…it depends.  Many lead buyers believe that the only answer is ‘yes please’, but the reality of the marketplace is that there is not a one size fits all approach that is effective in meeting the needs of all lead buyers.  A lead buyer generally wants leads that meet their criteria in quantities that they can process effectively.   The issue of course is that it is rare that multiple lead buyers have criteria that match each other’s exactly and different lead buyers are able to process varying quantities of leads effectively.

To figure out the solution it is necessary to evaluate the individual lead buyers value chain proposition and its place within the value system of that particular market segment (i.e. Finance, Travel, Health and Beauty, etc).  If you are not familiar with the concept of the value chain, here is the quick breakdown.  Michael Porter wrote a book in 1985 called Competitive Advantage.  In that book, he introduced the concept of a value chain whereby products (leads) pass through multiple activities within an organization and each activity adds value to the product until the final end product (sale) is completed.  Each value added activity has costs and the value added less the cost is the margin or profit that the company makes from their activities.  The concept can be extrapolated into a system whereby multiple organizations have interconnected value chains and each one adds value to the product until the final end product (sale) is complete.  The activities that each lead buyer participates in are broken into two categories: primary activities and support activities.  Primary activities are those related to producing the leads and support activities are those related to running the business.  Primary Activities include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service.  Support activities include procurement, human resources, technology development, and infrastructure (finance, accounting, etc.).

The first step in conducting this analysis is to break down each of the key activities of the lead buyer according to the activities in the value chain framework.  For our purposes and simplicity, lets assume that all companies in our value system are run similarly on the support side and evaluate them strictly on primary activities.  Inbound logistics encompass the activities related to lead acquisition and storage within the company.  You may ask these questions: How efficiently is a lead is processed?  Do leads queue up and get processed on a weekly basis or are they processed in real time?  Operations covers any enhancements made to the lead while it is with the company.  For this activity ask if the lead buyer has systems in place to evaluate lead quality and duplication in real time.  Does the lead buyer have systems that clean the data from the format that they acquired it to the necessary format?  If so, can any of that information be shared to identify potential quality issues sooner?  Outbound logistics are those activities related to lead delivery.  This is not as relevant when you are working directly with the end lead buyer. If you are working with a broker, question how quickly the lead will get into the end buyers hands.  Question how your leads will be aggregated with other lead providers and how will that information be relayed to the end buyer?  Delays in outbound logistics and blending from multiple sources will change the perceived quality of the leads.  Marketing and sales are the activities related to either closing leads or marketing the company itself.  When you are working with a lead broker most of this is in corporate marketing, but when you are working with the end lead buyer the value is in them closing the leads to sales and this activity is crucial.  Determine how competent the sales force of the lead buyer is?  Are alternate distribution channels set up should the lead ultimately not meet the initial criteria?  Determine if the lead buyer is familiar with their target cost per sale metrics and derive, based on your lead price, the target conversion ratio for your leads.  Determine how transparent your lead buyer can be about their sales and if you can monitor those costs per sale closely.

Once you have answered these questions, you need to evaluate the potential for adding value into the existing system.  This can be through cost advantage or differentiation, but your value has to match needs of the end lead buyer and the constraints of the system.  For example, if you can generate leads at a lower cost than your competitors, but a broker or an agency turns around and sells your leads to the end buyer at full price then that value is stripped and the proposition doesn’t fit into the system.  If you provide leads at a lower cost to an end buyer who can not add value on the inbound logistics and operations side, each lead may end up being more expensive to them in the long run as they must ramp up those other activities to effectively process your leads.  On the other hand, if you provide those same leads to a lead buyer that is proficient in the inbound logistics, operations, and sales activities they ultimately will achieve a lower cost per sale and you have added value in the system.  If you can differentiate the leads by adding value on the operations or sales side with added data verification and validation for a lead buyer that is not set up to do so then you may have added value to the system.   If, however, you provide these same add-on services to a lead buyer that is already proficient at them, then you will introduce overhead into their value chain as you reduce the value of their like activities.  Both lead providers and lead buyers need to be aware of the dynamics of these value systems if they are going to optimize the lead acquisition system.

In summary, the solution to the quality versus quantity debate lies in fit.  A lead provider’s product must fit into the end lead buyer’s acquisition process and add value to their system.  If the fit is not right, the quality and the quantity of the leads can be assumed irrelevant.  If the fit is right, then delivering the correct quantity of an acceptable quality of leads to the right end buyer results in a long term and profitable partnership between lead provider and lead buyer.

Contact Intela’s Lead Generation Group for more information about tiered lead rates on value added services such as call center verification, second tier human verified leads, PAF validated addresses, ofcom allocation validation on phone numbers, and/or auto-responders for co-registration offers.

Ryan Wilson
VP Lead Generation, Intela

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Isn’t this basically what social media has boiled down to?  When Facebook calls the main page the “News Feed” it is really saying “stuff your opted-in friends want you to see”?  I, for example, shamelessly publish my blog stories to my news feed in a quest for more readers (and more ad revenue).  I promote my puppy in the Cutest Dog Competition and try to convince friends to vote for her (for my own financial gains).  I organized a college football tailgate event (resulting in a net yield of 68 beers more than I started with).

So really we’re all social media advertisers.  We advertise our businesses and websites, our feelings and interests.  We advertise ourselves in a newspaper classified-type way and through voyeuristic photo albums.  I’m a single male, age 24 looking for friendship, networking, dating, and “whatever I can get”.  Our friends are just the people who are willing to subscribe to our Ad feed.  They like me, so they put up with reading my banter… suckers.

My opt-in network is smaller than that of an affiliate marketing company, but I don’t pay anything for my traffic.  My revenue is 100% profit and I can work odd hours.  But where do I cross the line from friendly updates to creepy Facebook pusher?  If I linked an Acai diet offer to my feed, would anyone click on it?  Would anyone purchase it?  Would there be consumer backlash?  My guess is no, no, and probably some quizzical comments on that post.  But if the product is my own, my network of friends will click.  If someone can figure out how to harness that aspect of social media with profitable offers, then they’re on to something!

Not that it’s any big surprise, but NYC is one of the best places to attend a show! Intela had a great time meeting new people and catching up with old industry friends. It was nice to mingle with the large amount of international attendees that were there too. The sponsored parties were particularly useful for networking and making connections. All in all, it was a successful, fun show to be a part of. We thank everyone that came by the booth to chit chat with the team. We look forward to working with all of you!