Thus, the title (or, question) of today’s contribution: Why mobile; why now?

Because it’s time. And, because before now, it wasn’t. Seriously.

If you’ve attended LeadsCon, Ad:Tech, Affiliate Summit or any other performance marketing event in the past four years, you’ve surely heard the hype on mobile. For years now, soapboxes at major industry shows have been occupied by folks signaling the ‘year of mobile.’ They blogged. They tweeted. They spammed us all on LinkedIn. Some of these zealots even went so far as to don QR-coded T-Shirts that were color coordinated to match their converse sneakers. Indeed, active were the hypesters.

And yet, despite all the hoopla, they were wrong. That’s right – flat wrong. At least in the context of the Cost-per-Lead media ecosystem. Mobile has been unworkable and unnecessaryuntil fairly recently. It’s taken Publishers, Advertisers, Networks and Consumers time to find the right way to play. We just weren’t ready, yet. Mostly, this was on the consumers and the publishers. It’s taken adoption rates skyrocketing, Apple’s stock booming, the Android market maturing, bandwidth levels rising and a whole host of other factors to get consumers ready for this at scale. For mobile publishers, the question has never been if – it’s been how and when. As in, ‘how and when can I make as much money selling leads as I do selling impressions and clicks.’ These groups needed to converge and align. It took help, muscle and risk. And, again, time. But now, it’s clear to me that it’s happening: mobile lead generation is alive and growing.

Ok. Before we get too far, I’m coming clean: I get the irony. In writing the above, one could argue that I’m now guilty of the same soapboxing I’ve just poked fun at. The argument is pretty linear, actually: I just said the people who announced the era of mobile lead-gen were wrong. And yet this post’s thesis is that the era of mobile lead-gen is, in fact, now here. Thin ice, right? Totally. Except I’ve got the in-house data to support this, and I see the interest on the advertiser side mounting: we introduce a new major advertiser to the mobile web weekly.

Last month, MobilePositive facilitated over 25,000 inbound phone calls to our early advertiser clients. These were direct, net-new customers, each happily dialing in. And, a considerably high number of them bought the services our clients were selling. These advertisers include leading brands in the Education, Mortgage, Insurance, Home Services and Identity Protection vertical markets. So far, the proof is the campaign performance. We see cost-per-sale figures that consistently perform on target and our budgets are growing. The publishers are happy, too. Both sides (buyers and sellers) see long-standing, steady campaign growth and an exciting new mix of partnerships as a big part of the upside to mobile.

So, why mobile? And, why now? Because – like I said, it’s time.

That’s all for today, gang. Thanks for reading. Next week, we’ll get more tactical with a piece on why publishers should love the pay-per-call format.

I’ll be blogging here fairly frequently.  I’m excited to share with you a bit about our growing work in mobile, how we plan to add value and show first-hand how easily the mobile web can drive alignment in a performance marketing format.  I’ll also make it a consistent point to emphasize that this growth comes from a very solid foundation of connecting sales teams with live, interested customers on the phone.  Indeed, I think it’s fitting that game-changing mobile marketing developments would come from the industry leader in delivering LIVE Hot Transfers.

I’ll spend most of my ‘air time’ describing our mobile product offerings and musing on the industry on large.  The mobile web is quickly transforming the way advertisers connect with consumers, and MobilePositive is helping to lead the charge.  As such, we’re learning a lot – and I have every intention of sharing these learnings with the reader along the way.  With major Advertisers in the mortgage, EDU and insurance verticals already participating, our platform is driving tens of thousands of inbound calls monthly.  We see lots of data, and we talk about this stuff all day.  Just ask my wife.

So please, dig in.  Follow us, and share with others that there’s a new player in mobile.  And, don’t miss next Tuesday’s followup: Why mobile; why now?

This position reports to the Vice President, Mobile Marketing in Tempe, Arizona. Salary and bonus structure to be discussed upon completion of the first interview.

Responsibilities

• Identify, recruit and acquire key mobile publisher (affiliate) relationships.
• Develop strategic solutions to achieve Publisher Revenue Targets.
• Communicate with key Publishers daily to ensure performance objectives are achieved.

Qualifications and Experience

• 3+ years of experience in online, affiliate marketing.
• 1+ year in mobile marketing preferred.
• Knowledge of the lead generation and performance marketing space
• Bachelor’s Degree or related experience, MBA a plus
• Comfortable in a start-up environment
• Passionate
• Analytical
• Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously

Position has full company paid benefits including:

• Family Health
• Family Dental
• Family Vision
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance

It’s all about the people at DoublePositive Marketing Group, Inc., the undoubted leader in live telephone transfers and online marketing. And now, it’s all about MORE people. The company strengthened its online marketing team recently by making some key executive hires from powerhouses like AOL/Advertising.com and One-to-One Global, as well as others with deep experience in the space.

The recent hires—and their ability to deliver superior performance-based services—broaden the company’s industry reach and position the company to service new customers formerly unable to take advantage of live telephone transfers. Search engine marketing, display advertising, mobile marketing and advertising, and social media advertising round out the company’s online services suite.

Trent Walter, DoublePositive’s new vice president of national sales and former director of regional sales for AOL/Advertising.com, is enthusiastic about the offering. “Our technology is designed for real-time advertising. And, unlike others, our system, by design, aims to satisfy the performance goals of the advertiser, not the publishers or the networks.”
JT Benton, DoublePositive’s new vice president of mobile marketing, adds “we are committed to making a serious impact on the mobile web. Our mobile marketing division has a simple, vital mission: connect advertisers, publishers, and consumers on the mobile web. We will add value to every inquiry.”

Two years ago the company committed to the online marketing space, and soon after hired Paul DiDonno, current vice president at DoublePositive and former strategy manager at AOL/Advertising.com, to manage their flagship education account. Brian Tomasette, current vice president of media products at DoublePositive and former director of product sales and agency partnerships at AOL/Advertising.com, was hired shortly after DiDonno.

“I came to DoublePositive to continue my passion for performance marketing in the education space, and for the people,” says DiDonno. “The (then) small team, everyone passionate about what they did, trusting each other, and everyone working for one goal—we made serious progress in a short amount of time.”

“It was an amazing opportunity to apply my experience and knowledge in online marketing. In the last two years, we have developed technology that surveys the marketplace, scores and optimizes bids based on our client’s performance goals, and then automatically adjusts those bids based on performance. That’s industry leading, and we continue to innovate.”

To support these initiatives, account management, delivery, media analysts, quality assurance, and sales teams are all in place lead by the industry’s most experienced and staffed with dozens of the industry’s brightest.

“We are really excited,” says Tomasette. “We are creating the future of online advertising, and are armed with all of the tools and people to make it something memorable.”

So last month at Leads-Con East, I am chatting with this guy who says he’s a big leads buyer.  He likes our LIVE Hot Transfer concept, and wants his enrollment officers to receive live, interested leads on the phone, but …

“Can’t you guys qualify them more?”

This comment shows how times have changed.  In the old days, companies were simply handing a fat pile of leads over to sales, and asking them to call them all.  It was like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Then DoublePositive came along and found the needle in the hay stack.  We patented the LIVE Hot Transfer process, so that companies could receive phone calls from live consumers who were ready to talk with a salesperson.

Now this guy wanted to know if we could take it a step further and thread the needle for him.

“We do some simple qualifying,” I cautioned.  “But in my opinion, you should be careful what you ask for.  You might do yourself more harm than good.”

He said, “Why?  If I’m talking to people I can’t help, I want to filter those people out.”

“I understand,” I said.  “But you need to be careful who you filter out, or you will filter everybody out.”

“Not sure I follow,” he said.

I tried again.  “Think of it this way.  What if they have a family member you could help out? What if you discover there is another service or product you could provide?  You never know unless you talk to them.”

He shrugged.

“You are basically asking the call center agent to make that decision for you,” I said.  “That’s not wise.  What you should do is, let us eliminate those consumers who really had no interest of ever speaking to you about your product or service.  Let us take away that work for you.  And the rest?  Those who have raised their hand and said they want to talk to you?  You should take those calls as fast as I can transfer them to you.”

“I don’t know,” he said.  “There’s got to be an easier way.”

I gave him one of Sean’s great lines: “There’s nuggets of gold in the hills.  Finding them is the hard part – that’s our job.  It’s your job to work them.”

“Well, I need someone who will do all the work for me,” he said.

At this point I just had to laugh, shake his hand, and wish him luck.

So I’m writing this post to help folks understand.  There is a right way to use a LIVE hot transfer service and a wrong way.

If you want us to call your leads and transfer back only those that are ready to talk business, that’s the right way.

But you want us to call, qualify the lead, sell for you, close the deal and just send you the money …

Booth babe says, “Good luck.”