• $39 Live Call Transfer
• Targets borrowers whose ARM is scheduled to reset
• We ask the borrower if they would like to learn about more options regarding getting into a fixed product
• Data can be accessed in real-time along with the live call from our client extranet at http://clients.doublepositive.com
• This product is still in development and is currently being tested with an expected launch date of early August 08

Name-Your-Filters — $89

This offering still uses the 5,000-10,000 real-time Internet leads we receive each day but with a twist that will work to your advantage. We are now going to allow clients to apply filters such as:

• Interest Rate
• Interest Rate Type
• Loan Amount or First Mortgage Balance
• Property Value
• Area or Zip Code

Filters may be applied to other data fields but we expect the ones listed above to be the most popular. This program is geared towards the client who is willing to pay a premium of $89 per transfer in order to increase their potential of getting more workable deals.

Name-Your-Script — $150

The “KING” of all transfers! Take everything from the “Name-Your-Filters” Program and apply it to this program, but in addition to that we will let you CUSTOMIZE YOUR OWN SCRIPT AND SCREENING PROCESS for our call center agents to qualify every borrower with. Any borrower that fails your customized screening process will NOT result in a transfer and you will NOT be charged. Screening questions around borrower-expectations, FHA-status, divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, undisclosed liens etc. are all fair game. Of course, the more you screen out borrowers, the fewer transfers you’ll receive, but that’s the point of this program – quality over quantity. The price per transfer is $150 and the minimum to get this program started is $20,000 a month.

Please let me know your thoughts directly or by using the comments below. I look forward to sharing more next week!

Thanks,

Joey

This is definitely not all encompassing but I figured it was
a good start.  What am I missing?

Click Here for Invitation

Join us and 150 of your soon to be closest friends next Thursday, June 12 at the first-ever Lead Gen Mixer held at downtown San Francisco’s Thirsty Bear from 6pm to 8pm.

We’ll do our best to give preference to attendees of LeadsCon and members of the Online Lead Gen group, but now would be a good time to show not just how much fun you are but anti-procrastinating as well!

We are on track to sell out before next Thursday so don’t delay.

Given the limited space, we are charging an RSVP fee of $15 + $0.99 processing fee with Eventbrite so that those who RSVP attend. Come hungry and thirsty as you have two hours of all you can eat and drink. You’ll break even in the first fifteen minutes and drink your way to profitability in no time!

Many thanks to our terrific sponsors - Marin Software, Reply.com, eBureau, and Media Venture Partners who have allowed us to offer this great event at this price.

Lead Gen Mixer San Francisco

Hosted By Jay Weintraub and David Rodnitzky

When
Thursday, June 12, 2008 from 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM (PT)

Location
Thirsty Bear
661 Howard St.
San Francisco, CA 94105

Cheers,
Joey

• Quality
• Quantity
• Cost

These are three absolute pillars of the leads industry and when each is quantified individually, they collectively represent the true and total value of a lead supply channel.

Quality is defined by the total number of leads that will convert into a sale and make money instead of costing money.

Quantity is an indicator of whether or not a lead supply channel is capable of providing enough leads to support the business objectives.

Cost is simply the price paid per lead.

No assessment of any lead supply channel is complete without all three of these dimensions. Here are some examples where only two of the three pillars are favorable:

Example A:

1. Quality – Extremely high-quality leads that (hypothetically) convert into a new sale 100% of the time
2. Quantity – Virtually unlimited volume – thousands of leads available each day
3. Cost – The price is $10,000 per lead

Example B:

1. Cost – Extremely affordable leads – priced at just $1 per lead
2. Quantity – Virtually unlimited volume – hundreds of thousands of leads available each day
3. Quality – Extremely low quality – on average it will take buying and working through 1,000 leads on average in order to make one sale

Example C:

1. Cost – Reasonably priced leads – priced at $30 per lead
2. Quality – On average, one out of ten leads purchased will convert into a sale
3. Quantity – Despite your desire for more, the max volume of these leads is 1 lead per week on average

As you can see from the examples above, it can be really easy to hit a home run with two of the three pillars, but ultimately end up with an unworkable situation on your hands as a result of a failed third pillar. The true lead buying optimization process requires a delicate balance of Quantity, Quality, and Cost, and it’s very difficult to adjust just one of these items without the adjustment directly affecting the other two.

Some direct marketers will make the mistake of focusing exclusively on the “Acquisition Cost” or Total-Cost-per-Sale/Start, and the lower the better. However this measure can be misleading in the grand scheme of things. Here is an extreme example to demonstrate this premise:

• Company A purchases 10 leads @ $100 per lead and converts 1 out of every 10 leads on average into a sale, thus experience an average acquisition cost of $1,000 per sale.
• Company B purchases 500 leads @ $1 per lead and converts 1 out of every 500, thus experiences an average of $500 per sale, half that of Company A.

So the leads purchased by Company B are a better deal right? Probably not, as the human time/cost of pounding through 500 leads in order to close one sale make the entire formula counter-productive. This human time/cost is your time as a sales professional and/or sales organization and is extremely valuable, thus it is not surprising that many originators that understand this formula always lean toward the highest Quality (and thus highest priced) leads as they are ultimately a better value and require less time to “sort through the noise.”

A new type of lead has emerged in the past few years that has gone farther and deeper into the lead quality spectrum than has ever been available in the past – LIVE Hot Transfer Lead of double-confirmed and double-verified consumers. In other words, instead of just paying for a lead that represents a single expression of interest by a potential borrower, the lead is contacted, qualified, and then transferred live to a sales professional. This is typically the highest priced, highest quality, and highest converting lead available on the market today, and sales professional often prefer this approach as they ultimately spending more time selling and less time chasing down consumers, leaving messages, scheduling call-backs, sending emails, etc.

Below is a chart of options that will help clarify the spectrum of Quality choices in lead buying in virtually any major lead-buying industry. In order to keep the chart simple and not three-dimensional, we will assume that all the choices below represent sufficient volume for your specific business needs.

The chart re-affirms that referrals and networking will always be the preferred marketing strategy for sales organizations, but if buying leads are needed to supplement referrals while the referral channel is be developed and nurtured, finding the right balance of Quality, Quantity, and Cost are the keys to finding the right options for you or your organization.

If you are an individual sales representative for a company, we hope you will become an internal champion for LIVE Hot Transfers in your organization, but we cannot bring you on as a new customer as an individual. Owner/operators and marketing execs are always welcomed.

SPF

Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s (increased) offer.

Microsoft pulled the deal.

There are no more negotiations.

I am curious, however, why none of the rumored proxy bid fight?

I guess the play is to go even longer on GOOG.

<sigh>

The one hyplerlink in this post should explain why. 

SPF

DoublePositive is just shy of four years old.

Always a stellar track record with the Better Business Bureau, customers, partners, and everyone in between.

The Ripoff Report site and the site’s practices are controversial up and beyond any one individual report, but you should make your own decision:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripoff_Report

Nonetheless, in the last eleven days, we were suddenly attacked by two bogus reports on this controversial site: www.ripoffreport.com.

I’m a huge consumer advocate, a huge fan of David vs. Goliath, and constant supporter of the free press.

That said, this situation is just plain wrong.  The system broke.

I suspect the DoublePositive blog readers will form their own opinion, but I wanted to be on record with mine.

SPF

• LeadsCon Highlights — Day 1 — Wednesday, April 2
• LeadsCon Highlights — Day 2 — Thursday, April 3
• LeadsCon Highlights — Day 3 — Friday, April 4
• Final Thoughts – LeadsCon 2008
• Other Blog Coverage of LeadsCon

__________________________________________________
 

So, I’m writing these blog posts on the plane returning from the first annual LeadsCon 2008 and I’m feverishly trying to capture all my reflections of this great show.  Jay Weintraub exceeded everyone’s expectation with this fantastic gathering, and he was thanked at some point during almost every panel.  A first-year conference with over 600 attendees is remarkable.  I would not be surprised to see it double or even triple next year.

Now keep in mind as you read through that I was a hungry and eager deal-making CEO with my biz dev hat on while I was attending this conference, but I still made a deliberate effort to observe almost every panel session and presentation.  But as you can imagine, I was often distracted by potential deal-making and related activities.  I guess I say this as a disclaimer that these blog posts are intended to be just some highlights that I witnessed through my own eyes, and it is not intended to be comprehensive news article covering every detail and fact-checking every reference.  However, if any LeadsCon attendees see anything significant that I may have not witnessed or presented here, please by all means add to the discussion in the comments.  If I unintentionally got anything dead wrong, please contact me and I can change it.

Now, onto the highlights…

• LeadsCon Highlights
• LeadsCon Highlights — Day 1 — Wednesday, April 2 (below)
• LeadsCon Highlights — Day 2 — Thursday, April 3
• LeadsCon Highlights — Day 3 — Friday, April 4
• Final Thoughts – LeadsCon 2008
• Other Blog Coverage of LeadsCon

__________________________________________________

Must Know Advances in Lead Quality

Moderator: Dave Wengel, GM, Interactive Markets, TARGUSinfo

Alex Baydin, CEO, PerformLine, Inc.
Dave Behn, Partner and Director of the Performance Marketing Group, Cole & Weber United
Matt Coffin, CEO, Coffin Capital and Board Member at eBureau and Mahalo.com (founder and former-CEO of LowerMyBills.com)

This panel was almost exclusively focused on lead scoring and lead segmenting, which was probably the single biggest buzz concept of the conference.  I’m torn on this one.  Let me start by saying that I’m a huge fan of lead scoring using regression analysis.  At DoublePositive, we have been using lead scoring for over three years to determine which leads to send to which call center and when, and it has yielded significant value for us.  I know there are top-tier lead buyers that do the same and make for great case studies for companies like eBureau and TARGUSinfo. 

On the other hand, however, I believe it is probably the most over-hyped concept as of April 2008 give the reality of the lead buying universe.  The VAST majority of lead buyers are just not there yet.  They’re not even close – they’re still working on 101-level practices such as using a Lead Management System and considering Hot Transfers instead of raw Internet data leads for their sale professionals.  Lead Scoring and segmenting is not rocket science, but it is high science.  But this reminds me of my recent post regarding the Art vs. Science of Leads and Lead Generation.

Here’s where I am bullish, however.  Many lead buyers will ask companies that provide lead scoring services, “OK, if I start scoring leads today, what do I with the information tomorrow.”  Business process re-engineering can be extremely valuable, but it’s typically slow and risky as well.  However, a company can glean IMMEDIATE value by putting leads into three scoring bands.  The top-tier scores should go directly to the sales professionals immediately – they will convert the best and allow sales professional to remain extremely productive.  The bottom-tier scores should go right into the trash can.  Their probability of converting into a sale is so low, that there’s no sense in anybody even touching them.  Perhaps the lead buyer would ask the lead seller for credit on those leads, but my instincts is that the credit policies of most lead sellers today is definitely not ready for those conversations yet.

The middle-tier scores (those that aren’t quite good enough to go directly to a sales professional, but better than a trip straight to the trash can) should go to DoublePositive in real time.  In real time, we will attempt to make contact with the consumer, ask them up to three qualifying questions, and then transfer the live, genuinely-interested, and qualified consumer to a sales professional.  We would charge the lead buyer on a per-transfer basis.  DoublePositive is able to “squeeze more juice” from these middle-tier leads through the use of technology, process, and much lower-cost labor than the valuable sales persons’ time.

DoublePositive has some terrific case studies of our customers using this exact approach to lead scoring and segmenting, including a unique relationship we have with Cole & Weber.
 

Short Presentation by David Wengel (GM of Interactive Markets at TARGUSinfo)

Dave Wengel provided a brief presentation on TARGUSinfo, mainly to announce their new lead scoring and lead segment platform offering, LeadAdvisor.  
 

In the Spotlight – Company Showcase

Moderator: Saar Gur, Partner at Charles River Ventures

This was a great idea by Jay to have fresh-idea startup companies submit their short pitches to judges.  I was in an out a bit and did not catch every company’s full presentation but the one that had me scratching my head the most was Glam Interactive.  Sorry ladies, maybe I’m missing something, but it looks to me like you setup a social network of females working in the interactive space using the Ning platform and it’s now up to 600 members.  I’m not sure that’s a business.  At least I’m not sure I heard what the business model is.

AdReady, on the other hand, blew me away (and many others as well).  They gave a fantastic live demo of how to setup a display advertising campaign with the same ease and elegance of setting up a Google Adwords campaign, with the ability to name your price (CPM) and your network (currently limited to RightMedia, Yahoo, and Google (presumably the Adsense publishers that have enabled display ads)).  I’m going to watch these guys very close.  What they’re doing is really slick and is an excellent complement to the slew of display ad exchanges and meta exchanges that are cropping up everywhere.

I tried not to pay much attention to technologies that connected two parties who are un-known to each other at the moment using just software.  While tempting for our DoublePositive business from a cost-containment standpoint, we’ve never quite figured out how to make 100% of consumers or hot transfer-buyers warm up to computers talking to them.  I hope that we do some day, but it’s probably not this decade.  Companies such as eStara, Voicestar, Who’s Calling, etc. would probably agree with me when compared to performance of live human contact.

Ed Ojdana, Former CEO, Experian Interactive
Jordan Rohan, Founder, Clearmeadow Partners (formerly Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets)

Thursday’s sessions began with a PowerPoint presentation from Jordan Rohan (who announced that he moved on from RBC just three weeks ago to start his own thing called Clearmeadow Partners).

It was a very detailed presentation that juxtaposed the market dynamics in the Lead Generation ecosystem in 2000-2001 to that of current day.

Jordan instantly became my hero when he addressed the misleading nature of the IAB’s reporting on Lead Generation in their breakdown of Online Advertising.  IAB claims that “Lead Generation” is just $1.3 Billion in 2007.  Although they call it the fastest-growing segment, I’ve seen with my onw eyes P&Ls from companies in this spaces that add up WAY beyond $1.3 Billion.  Jordan accurately explained that when LowerMyBills.com buys display advertising on Yahoo! for the purpose of generating leads, that money is credited to display advertising.  When Nextag buys clicks from Google with the intent of generating a lead, that money is credit to paid search marketing, and so on.  Thus, Lead Generation INFLUENCES well-beyond the $1.3 Billion that the IAB reports.  Thank you, Jordan.  That one drives me crazy every year.

After the presentation, Jordan sat down for a fireside chat with Ed Ojdana.  This format was very similar to the TARGUSinfo Summit, where Ian Smith presented and then sat down for a chat with Matt Coffin. Ed provided some wonderfully colorful insight in the timeline and strategic-insight of the acquisitions he made for Experian Interactive.  He also acknowledged that he was helped significantly with those acquisition evaluations and transactions by Steve Krenzer (he had Steve raise his hand in the audience to be acknowledged).  Ironically, Steve Krenzer evaluated my previous company TheLoanPage.com very closely, but ultimately decided we were too small for their scope and decided to buy LowerMyBills.com instead. 
 

Mergers and Acquisitions, Exits, and Investment Landscape

Moderator: Ken Sonenclar, Managing Director, DeSilva + Phillips, LLC 

Lou Doctor, Managing Director, Arbor Advisors, LLC
Bruce Eatroff, Partner, Halyard Capital
Chris Moore, Managing Director, Redpoint Ventures
Rick Wolfgram, Managing Director, Head of Media Investment Banking, Think Equity Partners

Having been through three rounds of venture financing with DoublePositive, including an excruciatingly painful process on our third round last year, I had asked Jay if I could sit on this panel as the voice of the entrepreneur, but Jay needed me on the Hot Transfers panel, so I grudgingly obliged.

It was painful for me to hear all the issues again as to why an investor or a buyer would NOT pull the trigger on any company in the Lead Gen ecosystem…

It’s just an arbitrage…

It doesn’t scale…

To much focus in one industry…

It’s just an execution play…

There’s no IP/it’s not defensible…

There’s too much margin compression…

I like businesses that do NOT have COGS…

And so on.

The panelists did an excellent job of pointing out that these are all valid concerns, yet they also pointed out that the biggest and the best players will overcome these objections and sell for handsome multiples.  Speaking of multiples, moderator Ken Sonenclar set expectations to the audience that he would not answer the oversimplification-question “What are the multiples in this space,” arguing it has much more to do with the individual company than it does for a standard in the space.

I agree.

We’ve seen plenty of lead gen companies get acquired in the 1-1.5X range, and other companies like LowerMyBills.com get acquired for over 3X their top line revenue, Lending Tree over 5X, and Nextag in the 6-10X range.

The panelists also emphasized scale (and profitability).  Companies buying clicks from Google and Yahoo! and arbitraging CPC to CPA with $1M-$5M in revenue and are in one particular vertical are not particularly attractive acquisition candidates, and if they are, probably at low multiples.

It was particularly interesting to hear the comments from Bruce Eatroff if Halyard Capital, since he has become the biggest buyer in the space, in order to create the powerhouse EDU rollup with the new name Education Dynamics.
 

Lead Buyers’ Perspective

Moderator: Rick Natsch President at Potrero Media

Todd Davison, President of Bulldog Solutions
Jordan Drew, Chief Revenue Officer, FindaLocalAgent.com
Adam Graff, Senior Media Director, Career Ed
Chris Meerschaert, Director of Client Services, Adchemy, Inc.

This was a helpful session in the conference, since lead buyers were in the minority overall.  I thought the most provocative moment occurred when a member of the audience asked Chris Meerschaert (who formerly was one of the biggest lead buyers in the mortgage industry when he was with QuickenLoans) what he knows now on the sellers’ side (with Adchemy) that he never knew from the buyers’ side.
 

Lessons from the Mortgage Market

Moderator: Sandy Kory, VP, Director of New Media & Technology, Media Venture Partners

Steve Horton, GM of LeadPoint
Paul Knag, Mortgage Marketer, MortgageLoan.com
David Schneider, Founder & CEO, ZipSearch

Between Paul and David, there was a lot of experience to reflect back upon during this panel.  That said, I don’t think the lessons learned were mortgage-specific.  We continue to see the exact evolutionary process play out in non-mortgage verticals.

First early adopters come in, establish economic baselines around mortgage leads (and they’re usually great).  Next, big players and big money become to pour into a space.  Next, the cost of leads and media begin to go up and the conversion rates and quality begins to go down.  Finally, the market goes into a frantic sequence of corrective measure.  We’ve certainly seen that same process play out in EDU, and Insurance could be next.

Short presentation by Payam Zamani (CEO of Reply.com)

Payam gave a nice short history of performance-based advertising from CPM to CPC to CPA.  I have a slide I should’ve given to Payam that I use all the time that would’ve fit beautifully into his deck.
 

Proper Role of Affiliate Marketing in Lead Generation

Moderator: Noel Collins of Leads360, LLC

Thomas Bruck, Vice President of Business Development, Find Your Customers, Inc.
Jeff Molander, CEO, Molander & Associates
Paul Moss, Affiliate Channel Manager at Insurance.com
Shai Pritz, CEO of Unique Leads

I’m going to oversimplify the summary here, but this was a good panel.  I think the spirit from everyone is that, yes, there are still plenty of bad affiliates, and yes, there are plenty of good affiliates.  What a lead generator gains by using affiliates (and thereby not having to take on CPC or CPM media buy risk) is not a free lunch.  Constant mentoring and vigilance is key.  Noel did a nice job of getting good audience involvement during this panel.

A good number lead generators in the audience do not sell leads per se, but rather sell traffic on a CPA or CPL basis.  This panel was particularly good for them.
 

Understanding Lead Exchanges

Moderator: Chris Moore

Marc Diana, Chief Executive Officer, LeadPoint
Anik Ganguly, Board Member, Detroit Trading Exchange
Jane Lindner, GM, Exchange Place
Payam Zamani, CEO of Reply.com

Unfortunately, I missed this entire panel.  I was meeting with Jamie McDonald of Sparkroom trying to put a deal together.

I don’t know if it was discussed or not, but I hope the panel settled on a definition of an exchange.  In my mind, the archetype of an online exchange is eBay.  However, I keep noticing a disturbing trend of blocking the buyers’ transparency to the sellers on the exchanges (presumably to prevent circumvention?).  When that occurs, is it really still an exchange?  All I know is that I would never buy anything on eBay if I did not know who the seller was.
 

Incentive-ized Marketing – Is it More Harm than Good?

Moderator: Scott Rewick, CEO or LSF Publishing 

Rob Deichert, SVP, Operations, Platform-A (AOL/TW)
Jere Doyle, CEO of Prospectiv
Ross Sandler, Co-Head Global Media Research at RBC Capital Markets
Matt Wise, CEO of Q Interactive

This was an excellent panel.  Matt Wise and Jere Doyle were particularly compelling speakers, describing in exact detail where incentive-ized marketing fits into the ecosystem (and, oh yes, it absolutely has a place).  Jere (in the past) and Matt (in the present) have worked hard with organizations like the IAB and OLGA to establish strong and literal industry standards in order to eliminate the slippery slope of shades of gray.

There was a healthy discussion amongst all the panelists regarding the nature of an incentive, and that not all incentives are created equal.  I forget the exact examples, so I’ll my own (but capture the same spirit).  An “incentive” for a 20% discount or a free trial of a specific product or service is a significantly different “incentive” when compared to potentially winning a plasma TV (which may be completely unrelated to the offer).

Matt Wise walked through a sample sales conversation he might have with a customer when he’s trying to determine their quality, quantity, and cost objectives.  The sample customer would ask Matt to not go on ANY promotional sites.  Matt would answer, OK, that’s fine, I can get you 10,000 leads at $10 per lead.  The sample customer would say, “but Matt, I need 100,000 leads at $1 per lead.”  Matt would say, “no problem, we can do that too,” and all of a sudden, the customer would be much more liberated to placing their offer on promotional sites. 

The one thing I felt was missing was a clearer sub-categorization of what a “lead” is.  During the panel, I heard at least three different categories being discussed, but they were all discussed under the umbrella of a “lead.”  In the case of advertisers such as Columbia House, Net-flix, or Book-of-the-Month club, they would only pay out if an online sale (with credit card) was transacted.  Guys, this is really not a “lead.”  This is a Cost-per-Sale deal.  Those advertisers are not going to complain about lead quality – they only pay if they made money, and that’s a beautiful thing.  Another category was what I call “marketing leads.”  Brands such as Pfizer, Budweiser, Nike, or Colgate may all buy marketing leads.  Marketing leads are not cost-per-sale, but at the same time, they are not putting the lead into the hand of a Budweiser sales professional and have them call the consumer and sell them Budweiser.  Rather, they function more like consumer registrations, and coupon offers are often congruent with these marketing leads.  Even though they are not cost-per-sale (you can’t buy Budweiser online anyway ;-)), the only risk is the price per lead.  There is no additional DIMENSION of risk to manage, which is absolutely the case with “Sales Leads.”  Sales leads are leads that do indeed come offline and are put into the hands of a live human sales professional.  Industries such as Mortgage, Debt, Insurance, Education, and Automotive buy Sales Leads.  With Sales Leads, risk management extends beyond the price paid per lead, because at even at extremely low price points (i.e. $1 per lead or even less) they can become such a waste of a salesperson’s time that any sale that is made is an unprofitable, once the time of the sales person is factored into the equation.  The sales persons’ time is the additional DIMENSION of risk managed.

Not surprisingly, the sales lead management industries I have mentioned have almost entirely eliminated incentive-ized lead supply channels for the exact reason I described above.  However, incentive-ized lead generation of Marketing Leads and Cost-per-Sale campaigns is healthy and growing like a weed.

A theme that kept recurring is that there is no such thing as “bad leads,” but rather there is only “mis-priced leads.”  By and large, I completely agree with that premise, with the exception of the Sales Leads I describe above where conceivably even $0 per lead could  still be unprofitable because of the time consumed.

My good friend Rob Deichert could played many roles in this panel, but decided to take the role of the publisher (AOL/TW).
 

Compliance and the Legal Landscape

Moderator: Sanj Goyle, Sr. Director, Business Development - Lead Generation at Yahoo! 

Steve Atlee, Partner, Winston & Strawn, LLP
Paul Cleveland, CEO, EDebitPay, LLC
Linda Goodman, Founder of The Goodman Law Firm
Mark Mecklar, General Counsel & COO of Unique Leads

I’m sorry guys, but as a sales- and hyper-growth-oriented CEO, I hated this panel discussion.  It’s not that I hate the spirit of compliance, quite the contrary.  What I hated was the lack of rules, guidelines, and hard lines.  What I heard was a lot of shades-of-gray, with lawyers tending to become extremely risk-averse based upon technicalities instead of common-sense realities. 

I also did not appreciate the smug attitude towards the relationship of tele-sales to Internet (data) lead generators.  One panelist who I will not mention glibly stated that “Telemarketing is a word that is NOT in our vocabulary.”  What this person was failing to acknowledge is that Internet sales leads have NO VALUE unto themselves.  Rather, they need to be called by the lead buyer in order to make a sale and it is THAT value that flows back downstream to Internet lead generators.  I certainly do not mind deal where lead aggregators wish to feel insulated from the practices of their lead buyers, but nobody should dismiss the need for it in the ecosystem.

There was also a lot of scary discussion about how when a company believes it is doing the right thing, it could be argued from a different perspective that what the company is doing is downright evil.

We’re coming off a period of time where industry stalwarts such as ValueClick and Adteractive have been hit with heavy fines from Federal agencies, but the answer is not to fearfully handcuff deal-making and innovation with over-burdensome legal fears.  Draw the lines, and tell us the rules.  We’ll play by them.  But don’t get upset if someone is “too close” to the hard line that has been drawn.