Jennine Rexon is a performance marketing and lead generation executive with more than 24 years of experience building customer acquisition businesses focused on compliance, transparency, and measurable results. She is the Founder and CEO of Rex Direct and President of Rex Martech, where she helps brands improve lead quality, reduce fraud, and drive growth through data-driven marketing and technology solutions. Her expertise spans lead generation, pay-per-call, affiliate marketing, and customer acquisition, with a focus on creating sustainable programs that deliver value for both buyers and consumers.

SR: How has your definition of a “high-quality lead” evolved from the early days to today?

JR:

A high-quality lead today needs to be exclusive, real-time, and validated for both accuracy and fraud. Those are now table stakes. The harder piece to measure is intent.

Over time, I’ve also learned that the buyer plays a critical role in defining what “high quality” really means. Ultimately, buyers are measuring sales, not just form fills or calls. That means lead quality is not only about how the lead was generated; it is also about how the lead is handled once it reaches the buyer.

Speed to contact is essential. Buyers need to follow up immediately, not only to work the lead properly for the best possible outcome, but also to build trust with the consumer. A lead may come in at the right time, with the right information, and from the right source, but if the follow-up process is slow or inconsistent, value is lost.

For teams trying to improve lead quality, I would focus on a few practical steps:

• Validate before delivery. Confirm contact accuracy, check for obvious fraud signals, and remove duplicate (pre-ping method is best) or low-quality submissions before they reach the buyer.
• Measure speed to contact. Track how quickly each lead is called, texted, or emailed. This should be treated as a core performance metric, not an afterthought.
• Align with buyers on the definition of quality. Do not assume every buyer values the same thing. Get clear on the metrics they use to define a successful campaign.
• Create feedback loops. Buyers should share disposition data whenever possible so sources can be optimized based on actual outcomes, not assumptions.
• Look beyond the first conversion. A strong lead process should also create future acquisition opportunities by building trust with the consumer.

The best lead programs are not just optimized for delivery but for lifetime value.. They are optimized for the full path from consumer intent to buyer outcome.

SR: Where do you see companies still cutting corners, even if they don’t realize it?

JR:

I think the industry’s move toward branded leads was a positive one. While one-to-one is not required currently, I believe leads perform best when they are sold that way.

Where I still see corners being cut is in the difference between selling true leads and selling data. This is especially common in parts of the co-registration space. A consumer may answer a qualifying question, and then that information is resold multiple times. That may technically create monetization, but in my view, it does not create the same level of consumer trust, buyer value, or long-term sustainability.

At Rex Direct, we do not believe in that approach. We sell co-registration leads once, with proper compliance and transparency.

For companies that want to tighten up their process, regardless of lead type,  I would recommend:

• Be clear about what the consumer is opting into. The consumer should understand who may contact them and why.
• Separate “data” from “leads.” A name, phone number, or email address is not automatically a lead. A true lead should include clear consumer intent and proper consent.
• Avoid over-monetizing the same consumer. Reselling the same inquiry too many times may create short-term revenue, but it can damage performance and trust.
• Review partner practices regularly. Do not assume every source is following the same standards you are. Ask how consent is captured, how traffic is sourced, and how often the lead is sold.
• Document your process. Compliance should not live only in someone’s head. Make sure consent language, source rules, suppression practices, and delivery logic are documented and reviewed.

The companies that win in the long term are the ones that treat compliance and transparency as part of the product, not just a legal requirement.

SR: When balancing cost, volume, and quality, which tends to break first?

JR:

Balancing cost, volume, and quality is a constant optimization exercise, but scaling volume is often the most difficult part.

Once a campaign is dialed in, it can be hard to find additional sources that deliver the same quality at the same price and volume. A source that works well at a smaller volume may not perform the same way when you try to scale it. That is why it is so important to constantly find, test, integrate, and maintain a healthy mix of traffic sources that, together, perform against the buyer’s KPIs.

The biggest mistake is treating scale as a simple budget increase. More spend does not always create more of the same quality. Scaling requires discipline.

A few practical steps I would recommend:

• Do not rely on one source. Even if one partner is performing well, build a balanced portfolio so performance is not dependent on a single channel.
• Scale in controlled steps. Increase volume gradually and monitor whether quality, contact rate, and CPA hold steady.
• Know which KPI matters most. Sometimes the right decision depends on whether the buyer is optimizing for CPA, close rate, contact rate, lead cost, or total customer volume.
• Watch for source fatigue. Performance can decline over time, especially if the same audience is being reached too often.
• Keep testing new sources before you need them. If you wait until volume drops to start testing, you are already behind.
• Use buyer feedback to optimize the mix. The best source on paper is not always the source producing the best sales outcomes.

In lead generation, quality and volume are both moving targets. The job is to keep optimizing the mix so the overall portfolio continues to perform.

SR: Where is AI actually delivering value today, and where is it still creating more noise than signal?

JR:

For us, AI has created the most value in operational areas like quality assurance, analysis, optimization, and sales support. It can help teams spot patterns faster, review data more efficiently, and support better decision-making.

It can also be very helpful in the content creation process, but only when it is used with a clear strategy. AI can speed up work, but it does not replace judgment.

One of the most important lessons is that AI is not a set-it-and-forget-it solution. Human involvement is still essential. You need people who understand the business, the consumer experience, the compliance requirements, and the buyer’s goals. AI can help surface insights, but people still need to decide what those insights mean and what action to take.

That is especially true in lead generation, where small decisions can affect consumer experience, buyer performance, and compliance. We have seen that AI can create value, but it can also create friction if it is not implemented carefully. For example, an AI call routing technology we tested caused consumer discomfort and abandon-rate growth.  This was a good reminder that the technology has to serve the experience, not just the workflow.

For teams using AI, I would suggest:

• Start with a specific business problem. Do not use AI just because it is available. Define what you are trying to improve first.  
• Keep humans in the loop. AI should support decisions, not make every decision without oversight.
• Measure the impact on the consumer experience. Faster is not always better if the experience feels confusing, impersonal, or frustrating.
• Audit outputs regularly. Review AI-generated recommendations, content, classifications, and routing decisions for accuracy and bias.
• Use AI where it reduces manual work without reducing accountability. Quality assurance, reporting, trend analysis, and workflow support are good examples.
• Avoid replacing strategy with automation. AI can help execute and analyze, but the business still needs clear direction.

AI is most valuable when it helps smart people make better decisions faster. Without strategy, oversight, and honest intent, it can create a lot of noise instead of meaningful value.

SR: If you were building a lead gen business from scratch today, what is one principle you would refuse to compromise on?

JR:

I would not compromise on building a small team that truly shares the same core values.

In a fast-moving business, skills matter, but alignment matters even more. You need people who can move quickly, support each other, communicate honestly, and stay deeply committed to clients and outcomes. A small team with shared values can make decisions faster and solve problems better because there is trust.

For me, integrity matters just as much as performance. You should be able to sleep at night and still wake up excited to innovate the next day.

If I were building from scratch today, I would focus on:

• Hire for values, not just experience. Experience is important, but a person’s judgment, accountability, and attitude will shape the business every day.
• Keep the team close to the customer. Everyone should understand how the work affects clients, consumers, and partners.
• Make decisions quickly, but not carelessly. Speed matters, but so does having the discipline to evaluate risk and impact.
• Protect trust. Trust with buyers, consumers, partners, and your own team is hard to build and easy to lose.
• Create room for innovation. The industry changes constantly, so the team has to be willing to test, learn, and adjust.
• Do the right thing when no one is watching. That standard matters, especially in a business where performance pressure can tempt companies to take shortcuts.

The market will always be competitive. There will always be pressure on cost, volume, and margin. But if the team is aligned around integrity, client outcomes, and continuous improvement, the business has a much stronger foundation to survive the roller coaster ride.

The post Jennine Rexon on modern lead gen and building sustainable growth appeared first on ActiveProspect.

Jennifer Linton is an insurance technology leader, entrepreneur, and the CEO/Founder of Fenris. She leads the development of real-time data and analytics platforms that support millions of monthly insurance quoting workflows across auto, home, and commercial lines. Her background spans 15+ years in startup growth, corporate strategy, business development, and innovation.

SR:
You’ve spent your career building data-driven businesses that challenge the status quo. How has that mindset shaped the way you think about improving the connection between insurers and consumers, especially at the very first point of their action?

JL:

Over the past two decades, whether building startups or working within large enterprises, I’ve observed how crucial data is in decision support. 

Most of the insurance industry has focused on optimizing what happens after intake with better underwriting models, better pricing, better workflows. But if the data coming in at the start is wrong or incomplete, everything downstream is working off a flawed foundation, and that was where Fenris started in 2020 by building its capability to enrich and prefill any application for any insurance product.

Today, we’re at an inflection point. Predictive insights can now be applied as early as the initial ping and continue throughout the quote, sale, and policy lifecycle. This helps insurers and consumers connect more effectively by making the first interaction more informed, more accurate, and more reflective of real risk before the process even begins.

Imagine knowing, at the first touchpoint, whether a prospect could become your best customer. That changes everything downstream. At Fenris, we’re focused on eliminating the gap between intake and insight, to align with what will ultimately yield the best outcome.

Turning insight into action

• Audit where early workflow decisions are being made with incomplete information. Most organizations focus heavily on underwriting and pricing optimization while overlooking the quality of the data entering the process. Identify where intake, routing, prioritization, or follow-up decisions are happening before enough context is available.
• Move enrichment and predictive intelligence closer to the first interaction. Apply real-time data and predictive signals before quote or underwriting so teams can make better decisions earlier, rather than correcting issues downstream after time and resources have already been spent.
• Use first-touch signals to drive segmentation and workflow orchestration. The earliest customer interactions often contain enough information to distinguish high-fit opportunities from low-fit ones. Build workflows that use those signals to influence routing, engagement strategy, and next-best actions from the start.

SR:
With Fenris focused on real-time data and predictive intelligence, how should insurers rethink the role of data enrichment in creating more meaningful and effective customer connections, and not just faster ones?

JL:

There’s been a longstanding push to reduce friction in insurance workflows, often measured by how quickly an agent or consumer can move through a process. But speed alone isn’t enough. The real value comes from validating and enriching the right information at the right time. If you rely on defaults or skip meaningful data fields, you risk undermining both your business and the customer’s experience.

The key is to use real-time predictive intelligence to identify high-potential customers early, then create an optimized journey, and enrich with the necessary data. This isn’t just about moving faster, it’s about making every interaction count. At Fenris, we deliver this through APIs and emerging use cases like agentic workflows, where bots or digital agents can dynamically request only the data that matters.

Turning insight into action

• Validate critical customer data before advancing the workflow. Identify where inaccurate or missing information is creating downstream friction in quoting, underwriting, or servicing, and prioritize real-time enrichment at those points.
• Personalize the workflow based on predicted customer value and intent. Use predictive signals to determine which prospects require additional verification, different routing, or higher-touch engagement instead of applying the same process to every submission.
• Design workflows that request only the data necessary for the next decision. Reduce unnecessary questions and leverage APIs or intelligent orchestration to dynamically enrich information as needed throughout the customer journey.

SR:
There’s a growing emphasis on reducing friction in quoting and underwriting workflows. Where do you see the biggest disconnect today between the data insurers have and the decisions they need to make in real time?

JL:

The biggest disconnect is in the distance between the data and the decisions. Often, data is applied at underwriting that, if known earlier, would have completely changed the outcome for the better. When there is no upfront segmentation, every lead is pushed through the process, regardless of fit. This is inefficient and costly.

There are three main challenges: 

1. Data silos make it hard to connect insights from one system to another. 
2. Models and data sources require constant upkeep; what works today may be outdated tomorrow as new products, campaigns, or markets emerge.
3. Traditional workflows front-load the process with questions and only apply data at the “moment of truth”, the rate call or indicative quote. 

To truly enable real-time decisioning, insurers need to break down these barriers and bring predictive intelligence to the very start of the customer journey.

Turning insight into action

• Identify decisions that are currently happening too late in the process. Review where underwriting, routing, or qualification insights are only being applied at quote or bind, and determine how those signals could improve earlier workflow decisions.
• Break down operational silos between data, distribution, and underwriting teams. Ensure that insights generated in one system can be used across intake, routing, quoting, and servicing workflows instead of remaining isolated.
• Continuously evaluate model and data performance against changing market conditions. Establish a process for retraining models, validating data sources, and adjusting segmentation strategies as products, channels, and customer behavior evolve.

SR:
With ActiveProspect’s acquisition of VMS and Fenris already adding predictive lead scoring, what new opportunities does this partnership unlock for the industry, and where do you see it making the biggest difference?

JL:

Fenris has been a partner of both VMS and ActiveProspect, so we see clearly the potential from bringing these two capabilities together. Every partnership is about scale and synergy. 

With VMS, Fenris’s machine learning platform was enabling them to serve scores in the education and home services verticals, accelerating time to value and reducing the cost of maintaining in-house solutions.

ActiveProspect has been a leader in the lead gen space for a while, across almost every possible vertical exemplifying their strengths in consent, compliance, and lead transparency. As part of our partnership there, Fenris has been delivering its prefill data to enrich leads.

All together, we see lead buyers and publishers will benefit post Active Prospect’s acquisition of VMS, in a way that prioritizes results based on revenue potential, capacity, and predicted outcomes, transforming how leads are purchased, routed, and acted upon.

Turning insight into action

• Prioritize leads based on predicted business outcomes, not just volume. Shift from evaluating leads solely on cost or speed to using predictive intelligence that identifies which opportunities are most likely to convert or generate long-term value.
• Align lead routing with operational capacity and appetite. Use predictive scoring and consent-driven data to direct leads toward the right buyer, team, or workflow based on fit, performance potential, and real-time business constraints.
• Integrate compliance, enrichment, and predictive intelligence into a unified workflow. Reduce fragmentation between lead acquisition, validation, and decisioning systems so teams can act on more complete and trustworthy information from the start.

SR:
In an environment where AI is accelerating everything, how do you decide when sooner is better than better, and when precision still needs to win?

JL:

“Sooner is better than better,” is a reminder that in fast-moving markets, waiting for perfection can mean missing the moment. You need to deliver value quickly.

I have to give credit to my Board member, Larry, former CEO of FICO, for making me see the value in shipping products fast, even if it’s not perfect, because models and data will continue to improve over time.

At Fenris, we balance speed with our three pillars for machine learning: 

• Transparency
• Explainability
• Fairness

If a model meets these criteria and delivers value, we deploy it, knowing it will learn and adapt as more data flows in. With over 100 million outcomes informing our algorithms, we’ve seen firsthand how rapid iteration leads to better results. When the data is right, you don’t have to choose between speed and precision, you can have both. That’s the future we’re building.

Turning insight into action

• Launch models that deliver measurable value, even if they are not fully optimized. Focus on transparency, explainability, and business impact first, then improve performance over time through iteration and additional outcomes data.
• Build feedback loops that allow models to continuously learn and improve. Capture downstream outcomes such as bind, conversion, retention, or churn so predictive systems can adapt to changing customer and market behavior.
• Define governance standards before deploying AI into production workflows. Establish clear expectations around fairness, explainability, and monitoring so teams can move quickly without sacrificing trust or accountability.

The post Jennifer Linton on turning early insurance data into better customer outcomes appeared first on ActiveProspect.

Today marks a defining moment for ActiveProspect – and an important step forward for the future of consent, identity, and trust in digital marketing.

See press release.

We have acquired Verisk Marketing Solutions (VMS) from Verisk Analytics, Inc., bringing together two organizations that have spent decades solving different sides of the same fundamental problem: how businesses connect with consumers in a way that is transparent, compliant, and effective.

VMS, formed primarily through the combination of Infutor and Jornaya, adds deep expertise in identity resolution solutions and consumer insights, along with a portfolio of enterprise customers. Together, we are building something bigger than either company could have created alone: a complete platform for consent-based marketing combined with a consumer identity graph.

A shared origin story

More than fifteen years ago, we launched TrustedForm to establish trust and transparency in the online lead generation ecosystem. Around the same time, another company, then known as LeadiD, was tackling the same challenge from a different direction.

We approached the problem as a software company. They approached it as a data company. We competed. We learned from each other. And over time, our paths diverged as the market evolved.

LeadiD became Jornaya and ultimately the foundation of Verisk Marketing Solutions, while ActiveProspect expanded its platform, took on strategic investment, and acquired LeadsBridge. Along the way, Verisk Marketing Solutions added Infutor, assembling one of the most respected identity and marketing data offerings in the industry.

What never changed was the shared belief that trust is not optional—it is foundational.

Over the years, I developed deep respect for the VMS team, the products they built, and their impact in the market. I believe our companies have significantly improved the level of trust and transparency in the online lead generation ecosystem. When the opportunity emerged to unite our companies as one independent organization, it felt less like a transaction and more like a convergence.

Building the next era of marketing infrastructure

Today, ActiveProspect and VMS become one company – united by a common mission, expanded by complementary strengths, and positioned to lead the next era of marketing infrastructure.

Our vision has always been to build a trusted ecosystem where consent, transparency, and privacy are embedded into how businesses grow. With VMS, that vision now extends well beyond lead generation to serve data providers, software platforms, and marketers across the broader advertising ecosystem – including those who never buy or sell leads at all.

This combination allows us to move from point solutions to platform – connecting identity, consent, compliance, enrichment, and performance into a single, coherent system of record for customer acquisition.

What this means for the future:

• A broader, more powerful platform
  We now bring together SaaS, identity, and data intelligence to solve complex challenges across marketing, analytics, and customer acquisition at scale.
• Faster and more efficient innovation
  By unifying our teams and technology, we can move more quickly to deliver products that help customers adapt to regulatory change while improving outcomes.
• Smarter identity and data foundations
  Data enrichment and validation are no longer optional, they are essential. Integrating VMS’s identity resolution capabilities enables businesses to make better decisions, pay the right price for leads, and maximize ROI from a single platform.
• A higher standard for the industry
  With greater scale, infrastructure, and expertise, we can deliver more reliability, stronger performance, and an elevated customer experience -while setting a higher bar for how identity and consent are handled across the ecosystem.

I am incredibly excited to welcome the VMS team to ActiveProspect. Together, we are not just expanding a company, we are shaping the future of how brands, publishers, and partners connect with consumers in a world where trust, privacy, and accountability matter more than ever.

This is the work ahead of us. And this is only the beginning.

For media inquiries regarding the acquisition, please email media@activeprospect.com 

The post ActiveProspect Has Acquired Verisk Marketing Solutions appeared first on ActiveProspect.

The digital advertising space is loaded with fraud. Ad fraud comes in many forms and needs to be combated with solutions specific to each type. While fraudulent impressions and clicks are all common forms of ad fraud, this post is dedicated to a type of fraud unique to online lead generation – we refer to it as “lead fraud,” or “lead generation fraud.”  

If you acquire leads from partners that host the form collecting the lead, you are at risk. It doesn’t matter if you are buying web leads for your outbound sales process or opt-in subscribers for your email newsletter, if someone else hosts the form and sends you the data, you could be the victim of lead fraud. The company that hosts the form has total control over how the lead is collected, so the challenge is you must hope they do what they promise. 

What is lead generation fraud?

Lead generation fraud exists when a lead provider misrepresents how they collect a lead. There are many aspects of the lead generation process that can be misrepresented to the lead buyer that will benefit the seller and hurt you, as the buyer. 

They can misrepresent the lead authenticity, site origin, lead age, offer presentation, collected data, and more. Any one of these factors can dramatically affect the value of the lead you are buying. Let’s review these aspects in more detail:

Lead Authenticity

This refers to whether the lead was created by an interested consumer filling out a form. It is common for fraudsters to try and pass off lists as opt-in leads. If a provider can buy cheap lists for pennies per record and pass them off as expensive opt-in internet leads, they can make a lot of money. How do you know whether the lead you just received actually completed a form? 

Another common variation of this type of misrepresentation is to sell “opt-out” leads as “opt-in” leads. Pre-checking the opt-in box for an offer will greatly increase the number of leads while also reducing the quality. There are many other variations of misrepresenting the authenticity of the lead, but these two examples illustrate the basic problem. 

Site Origin

The site URL is the website address where the lead was collected. It is a critical piece of information because the site controls the consumer experience. Since the biggest driver in lead quality is the intent of the consumer, you obviously want the leads where the consumer is truly interested in your product or service. Yet many lead buyers have no idea where their leads originate. 

It is very common for lead vendors to misrepresent the sites where the leads are collected. They might show a buyer a site that looks great, and then buy or generate the leads elsewhere.

Lead Age

The general rule in online lead generation is to contact the lead as quickly as possible. There are several published studies demonstrating that the quicker the contact, the higher the conversion rate. What if your lead vendor is providing you with aged leads? If so, these leads are less valuable because they will likely have a lower conversion rate. 

Some vendors sell aged leads at a discount. These leads could pass through a middleman and be offered as real-time leads. Often, buyers put daily volume caps on the number of leads they will receive. A lead vendor that hits their cap might simply hold the excess leads they captured until the following day. How would you ever know?

Offer Presentation

Offer presentation refers to what is being shown to the consumer on the form. One way to increase form completion rates is to make the offer more attractive to the consumer. There are many ways to do this. One way to do this is to minimize or remove the components of the offer that might be perceived as negative by the consumer – the costs, required contracted term, legal disclosures, etc. Was your privacy policy and the proper legal disclosures (TCPA) displayed on the form? 

Another approach is to offer incentives to the consumer to fill out the form. Was the consumer offered an incentive, such as points or a chance to win a sweepstakes, to complete your form?  It’s important to verify how your offer is being presented to the consumer to make sure it meets your requirements.

Collected Data

Collected data refers to the information that is input by the consumer on the form itself. As the lead buyer, you want to receive authentic data as submitted by the consumer. However, this information can be manipulated. Typically, the more fields collected on the form, the lower the form completion rates. One way to increase completion rates is to minimize the data collected by the consumer and falsify additional data required by the buyer. 

For example, let’s assume your offer collects the consumer’s shopping preference (favorite retailer). The lead vendor could leave that field off the form and randomize fake responses. It would be difficult to catch this type of behavior without seeing exactly what the consumer saw on the form. 

TrustedForm can help companies mitigate lead fraud

TrustedForm gives companies a reliable way to spot lead fraud before it reaches their pipeline. Instead of taking a partner’s word for how a lead was generated, TrustedForm independently verifies the session where the lead was created. This protects you from common forms of lead generation fraud, including fake submissions driven by bots, recycled data, or misrepresented website of origin. 

With TrustedForm’s bot detection, you can identify fraudulent lead generation attempts in real time by flagging patterns that don’t match human behavior. The result is simple. You get proof that a real person completed the form, on a real device, on the page you expect. This level of transparency helps you cut out bad leads, reduce wasted spend, and protect both your team and your customers from the downstream impact of lead fraud.

Final thoughts

In summary, there are many variations of lead fraud, many more than the variations mentioned above. Even if you work with a trustworthy partner, they might be sourcing some of their leads from companies that employ some of these tactics. 

The best protection is to verify what you are buying. You should be able to verify when and where a lead was collected, what was presented to the consumer and how the consumer interacted with the form. We created the concept of independent lead certification so that lead buyers could protect themselves from lead fraud, and recently introduced bot detection technology to add another layer of protection.

The post What is lead fraud? appeared first on ActiveProspect.

By Steve Rafferty, CEO of ActiveProspect

In the lead generation industry, we’ve talked for years about the growing problem of bots. Bot-submitted leads are another form of lead fraud. While these non-human submissions quietly erode the performance of your campaigns, the biggest risk is the compliance risk. The problem is that you don’t have prior express written consent if the form wasn’t completed by a human.  

So, every bot-submitted lead you call is a TCPA compliance risk and can cost you $1,500 per violation. To understand the full extent of this risk, you need to know how many of the leads you are buying and calling were submitted by bots.

Breaking down the misconception about bot-submitted leads

There is a common misconception that bot-generated leads are basically junk leads that won’t convert. Marketers assume these can be weeded out with standard validation and verification filters. The truth is that bot-submitted leads are typically submitted with real consumer data. This means that they will pass all of your filters because it is real contact information. This also means these leads may still convert in your sales process, just at a lower conversion rate. It is effectively like cold calling a purchased list versus calling an opt-in lead that requested your call.

Where does this data come from? In some cases, it might be purchased on the dark web via data breaches or it could be purchased as low cost aged co-registration data. Regardless of the actual source, the fact is that it is inexpensive to obtain real consumer contact information. 

However, opt-in leads are expensive. That is the arbitrage opportunity being exploited by the fraudsters who are employing bots to submit forms. Buying a record for pennies that you can sell for $50 is a very tempting business model.

The bot detection challenge for purchased leads

There are a number of excellent fraud detection services on the market that can detect bot traffic on your website. These services rely on you installing their script on your website that will analyze your traffic to make a real-time determination if it is fraudulent or not. This is effective for the leads you generate on your own website, but what about the leads you purchase from partners?  How can you determine if the leads you are buying were actually submitted by bots?  

For years we have recommended that you capture the IP address and user agent via a TrustedForm Certificate, and send that data to the API of a fraud detection service so they can assess whether it is fraudulent. While this is still a good approach, the challenge is that the IP address and user agent is very limited information for these tools to make that assessment.

By incorporating IP lookup functionality, you can enrich the data with geographic and network details, offering a more precise understanding of potential fraud. They need a lot more information to be really effective.

The TrustedForm approach

Since the TrustedForm script is present on the forms where leads are generated, it is able to look at information about the site visitor and how they interact with the form and determine if it was submitted by a bot. Since TrustedForm captures every user event including mouse movements, clicks, and form inputs, we have access to a rich and unique dataset for analyzing bot activity. We make this assessment in real time so that you can check if a lead was generated by a bot before you actually buy it.

We provide the bot detection data point as part of our TrustedForm Insights offering. This means you can use the TrustedForm API (on ping or post) to find out if a lead was generated by a bot. If you are buying leads in a real-time (ping-post) auction, we strongly recommend checking for bots on the ping so that you can avoid buying them, versus rejecting on post.  

How effective is TrustedForm at detecting bots?

We have been investing in this area for a couple of years now. When we identify a bot, we are 100% confident that it was a bot. So we are confident there will be no false positives and are willing to guarantee that. However we also know that we are not catching all of them. We continue to invest in this area and the service will continue to improve. We don’t share our actual methods for detecting bots for obvious reasons – if that was public knowledge, the fraudsters would simply adjust their methods. It is an endless game of cat and mouse.

If you are already using a fraud detection service, we don’t recommend replacing it. We recommend using both. When comparing our results with other fraud detection services, we have found that we detect things that they don’t, and vice versa. You should use all effective weapons at your disposal in this battle. 

How can you verify you are identifying the bot leads?

Given that bot-generated leads will sometimes convert, you can’t rely on conversion rates. The best way to confirm if the lead was generated by a bot is to ask the consumer directly if they submitted that form.

This is where a TrustedForm Certificate can be very helpful in the sales outreach process. Your sales rep can reference the site name captured by TrustedForm in the call script. For example, your sales outreach should include a more personalized outreach like: “We are calling you because you requested that we contact you by submitting a form on XYZ website. Is that correct?” If the answer is no, the form was either completed by a bot or a different person (using their information). 

Working with your vendor partners

If you buy a lead that was generated by a bot, your first reaction might be to immediately blame the vendor that sold you the lead. Please, don’t do that.

The lead generation ecosystem is complex with many layers of relationships. The company that sold you the bot-generated lead might also be a victim of fraud. Just because the lead was submitted on their website, doesn’t mean they were involved with the fraud. Website owners work with lots of companies to drive traffic to their website. These providers are typically getting paid on a performance basis, so they have financial incentive to engage in nefarious activities. It is best to have an open discussion with your partners. A good partner will want to eliminate these bot-generated leads. 

On a few websites we have seen almost 100% bot-submitted leads. In these cases, the website owner must be aware of the activity. Again, we recommend having an open discussion with the vendor about how they generate leads. 

The reward

It is always a little scary to limit the number of leads you are buying. However, it is worth it. Eliminating bot-submitted leads will dramatically reduce your TCPA compliance risk. The added bonus is that you should see an improvement in performance as well.

The post A challenging type of lead fraud: Real consumer data submitted by bots. Are you protected? appeared first on ActiveProspect.

If you are buying TrustedForm Certified leads, you understand the importance of independent lead certification. The TrustedForm Certificate provides confidence about the authenticity of the lead as well as the required documentation for prior express written consent to comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). 

However, how do you know if that certificate corresponds to that lead?  How do you know that the lead data you received was the same information that was submitted by the consumer in the form? 

Why does lead matching matter?

If the certificate doesn’t match the lead you just purchased, you could be the victim of lead fraud, where a lead vendor misrepresents how they generated a lead. While the obvious consequence of this is that you are probably buying a worthless lead, there are also much more serious consequences. 

If the certificate doesn’t match the lead, you also don’t have consent documentation for that lead. This means you could be liable under the TCPA for calling on that lead. That exact scenario has played out in some court cases. 

Per Attorney Eric Troutman on TCPAWorld.com, “The fascinating thing, of course, is to see how a single downstream affiliate…can get everyone in the funnel in huge trouble.”

Obviously, this is a situation you want to avoid. So, how do you protect yourself from this happening?  Fortunately, there is a simple solution – automatically validate that the certificate matches the lead using our lead matching feature. 

TrustedForm Lead Matching

TrustedForm Lead Matching is a built-in feature that validates whether a lead’s contact information—specifically their phone number or email address—matches what was entered during the original form submission. This match is made using secure SHA1 hashes of the data, ensuring privacy and accuracy.

How it works:

• When a user fills out a form on a site using TrustedForm Certify, the system scans for phone numbers and email addresses using advanced pattern recognition and consent tags.
• These values are normalized (e.g., stripped of formatting or capital letters) and stored as secure hashes.
• When you receive a lead, TrustedForm checks whether the lead’s provided email or phone matches the one captured in the certificate.
• Matching can be done automatically through LeadConduit or directly via the TrustedForm API.

Benefits of lead matching

• Reduces fraud: Flags leads with mismatched info, helping you reject suspicious or non-compliant leads.
• Protects your business: Reduces legal risk by ensuring your records match what the consumer actually submitted.
• Improves trust with vendors: Enables you to hold lead sellers accountable by demanding consistent data.
• Enhances data quality: Strengthens the integrity of your lead data, leading to better ROI and cleaner pipelines.

This layer of validation transforms TrustedForm from just a compliance tool into a defense mechanism against lead fraud helping marketers, compliance teams, and data buyers make smarter, safer decisions.

Watch this short video below to see how to set it up!

Final thoughts

If you are using TrustedForm within LeadConduit, we do this automatically for you, so you are covered. However, if you are using the TrustedForm API, you must set this up using the operation to match leads.

Protect your business from compliance risks and bad leads by matching lead data to its TrustedForm Certificate. It ensures the certificate truly belongs to the lead, giving you more confidence in your campaigns and the partners you work with. It’s a simple yet powerful way to add another layer of trust and transparency to your lead buying process. 

Explore the power of TrustedForm now.

If you have any additional questions, get in touch with us!

The post Make sure your TrustedForm Certificates match your leads appeared first on ActiveProspect.

At ActiveProspect, we’ve always believed in transparency, accountability, and putting consumers in control of their data. That’s why we’re excited to share a major legal victory that reinforces those values – and clarifies an important question that’s been looming over modern marketing practices.

The legal backdrop: Wiretapping laws and modern marketing tools

Over the past few years, California courts have seen a wave of lawsuits targeting website owners and vendors for allegedly violating Section 631 of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). This decades-old “wiretapping” statute has been applied in new and aggressive ways, with plaintiffs suing companies simply for using common online tools like:

• Website analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics)
• Session replay tools (e.g., Hotjar, Fullstory)
• Chat services
• Tracking pixels (e.g., Meta Pixel)
  

Unfortunately, even our own TrustedForm – built to support privacy and compliance – was pulled into this legal gray area. A small number of lawsuits wrongly claimed that TrustedForm’s session replay feature amounted to illegal “eavesdropping.”

Torres v. Prudential & ActiveProspect: TrustedForm is cleared

We’re pleased to share that the final major case, Torres v. Prudential Financial, Inc. and ActiveProspect, Inc. (formerly Hazel v. Prudential), has now been resolved in our favor. On April 17, 2025, the Northern District of California granted summary judgment for both ActiveProspect and Prudential.

The court unequivocally concluded:

“Nothing in the record plausibly indicates that ActiveProspect reads or attempts to read the contents of the communication while they are in transit.”

That’s the key legal standard under CIPA’s Section 631. The law is intended to prohibit third parties from intercepting communications in real time. The court agreed that TrustedForm does not intercept anything. It acts more like a passive recorder – not a wiretap – capturing a session replay of a consumer’s interaction with a web form, after the interaction has occurred.

This win came after months of rigorous legal discovery, expert depositions, and in-depth technical analysis. And it brings long-awaited clarity to our customers and to the broader consent-based marketing ecosystem.

Why this matters

This ruling is more than just a win in court. It’s a win for:

• Marketers who want to build smarter, more respectful customer journeys.
• Consumers who want transparency and control over how they’re contacted.
• Technology providers who are building tools with compliance at their core.
  

It’s also a validation of our long-standing position: TrustedForm enables consent-based marketing. It does not violate privacy.

What you still need to know

Even though the court ruled that TrustedForm doesn’t qualify as a wiretap, the legal landscape remains complex. Here’s what we recommend to stay on the right side of compliance:

1. Provide prior notice

It’s required by the TrustedForm EULA and ActiveProspect Terms of Service to provide visitors with clear disclosure that session replay technology is in use on your website. We’ve made this easy with a customizable TrustedForm Privacy Notice you can copy and use.

2. Work with your legal team

Privacy regulations evolve quickly. Collaborate with your legal, privacy, and UX teams to ensure that your site meets requirements for:

• Website disclosures
• Consent language visibility
• Consent timing and documentation

3. Stay committed to consent

This ruling affirms the foundation of our approach: contact only those who want to hear from you. Consent-based marketing isn’t just about legal compliance – it’s about building trust, improving lead quality, and protecting your brand.

Looking ahead

We’re proud of the legal clarity this ruling provides, and we remain committed to leading the industry in consent-based innovation. We also extend our sincere thanks to the court for thoroughly reviewing the facts and reaching the right decision – and to our customers for standing with us.

To learn more about the case and its implications, we recommend reading this in-depth analysis.

Thank you for being part of the ActiveProspect community and helping us build a better, more compliant digital ecosystem.

Update as of May 18, 2025:  The Plaintiffs in the Torres case have now filed an appeal of the case with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Don’t be discouraged, however! ActiveProspect will continue to defend itself against these baseless accusations and we remain confident that we will prevail on the appeal. Stay tuned.

The post Big win for consent-based marketing appeared first on ActiveProspect.

The phrases “lead generation” and “lead acquisition” are two closely related terms with different meanings that are often conflated. While they both fall under the “customer acquisition” category, each refers to different parts of the customer acquisition process. 

Because it is common for these terms to be used interchangeably, and I’ve never read an article differentiating the two, I’ll explain the differences here. After all, understanding the difference is critical to building a scalable, efficient marketing funnel. 

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the process of attracting potential customers and encouraging them to share their contact information, typically through a web form (since the term “lead” is used in many ways, I’ll limit the scope of this article to digital marketing and define a lead as a consumer who has filled out a web form requesting to be contacted about goods or services). In some B2B contexts, this can be complemented by prospecting tools such as a Linkedin email finder that help identify accurate contact details for outreach.

It begins with media buying (such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or native advertising), supported by content creation and landing page optimization. Alongside these methods, many B2B companies actively scrape Google for leads by extracting public data from sources like Google Maps to build highly targeted prospecting lists. For example, if you buy search traffic on Google with the goal of convincing those site visitors to submit a form on your site, you are generating leads. 

Similarly, buying pre-qualified leads for a specific vertical, like real estate or insurance, falls under the broader lead generation umbrella, even if you’re not generating them directly.

This process involves targeting the right audience, driving traffic, and converting that traffic into leads. It’s a specialized function requiring roles like media buyers, affiliate managers, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) experts who fine-tune every element to increase form submissions and reduce cost per lead.

A lead can also be a consumer requesting contact by a salesperson, an email newsletter subscriber, or someone downloading marketing content in exchange for their contact information. These are also known as internet leads or web leads.

In this modern context, where platforms like TikTok and chatbot for TikTok play a significant role in digital marketing strategies, understanding how to effectively get TikTok followers can also be seen as a form of lead generation, encouraging users to engage more deeply with your brand. 

To qualify creator partnerships on TikTok, marketers can use a free TikTok engagement rate tool to check influencer performance, assess authentic interactions, and predict potential lead quality before investing in sponsored content or whitelisting campaigns.

This adds a new dimension to the lead generation process, reflecting the evolving nature of customer interaction in the digital age.

For nonprofit organizations, Google Ad Grants offer a powerful lead generation channel, providing up to $10,000 monthly in free Google Ads credit.

However, maximizing this opportunity requires navigating strict compliance requirements and performance standards. Digital Tabby specializes in helping nonprofits optimize their grant campaigns to generate high-quality leads while maintaining program compliance.

What is lead acquisition?

Lead acquisition is about what happens after a lead is generated on a form. It covers the process of capturing, filtering, enhancing and delivering leads to your various systems. This includes, but isn’t limited to, the practice of purchasing leads from third-party lead vendors. 

For example, if you buy a mortgage lead from LendingTree, you acquire the lead. LendingTree is the company that generated the lead. The goal is to make sure the highest quality leads from any source make it into the appropriate conversion process, while blocking those that don’t meet your criteria.

Digivate for conversion rate optimization focuses on refining that process, ensuring that once leads enter the funnel, they’re guided through a seamless experience that maximizes the likelihood of conversion.

Think of a lead acquisition strategy as the infrastructure that only allows the right leads into your funnel.

How to build a lead acquisition strategy

Creating a solid lead acquisition strategy means building the processes and systems to help ensure every lead you acquire is usable, compliant, and routed efficiently. Done right, it can also amplify your lead generation by improving conversion readiness from the very first touchpoint. Here’s how to do it:

1. Map your lead sources: Identify where leads are coming from: paid channels, organic traffic, referral partners, or vendors.
2. Implement real-time validation: Use tools to confirm contact info, detect duplicates, and block junk leads the moment they enter your funnel.
3. Score and prioritize leads: Apply lead scoring models to prioritize leads most likely to convert. Use custom rules based on demographics, behaviors, or fit.
4. Maintain compliance: Track consent to stay compliant with regulations like TCPA. Use proof-of-consent tools to protect your brand.
5. Route intelligently: Send leads to the right destination in real time, whether that’s a cloud-based CRM system, call center, or email platform, based on rules you define.
6. Measure and optimize: Monitor source performance, lead quality, and downstream outcomes to fine-tune your acquisition efforts.

To further clarify the difference between these two areas, let’s look at some key differences:

Lead generation vs. lead acquisition

Understanding lead generation vs. lead acquisition requires examining their distinct roles in the marketing stack.

Lead generation

• Primary goal: Attracting potential customers and converting site visitors into leads
• Key activities: Media buying, landing page optimization, SEO, AI content marketing
• Lead source: Typically refers to the media channel (traffic source) that generated the lead (attribution is a big challenge as it’s not always clear which source drove the lead).
• Conversion rate: % of visitors who become leads
• Tech stack: Ad platforms, analytics, website CMS, form builders
• Example metrics: Click-through rate (CTR), form fills

Lead acquisition

• Primary goal: Filter, enhance, and deliver leads to internal systems
• Key activities: Lead validation, scoring, routing, consent verification
• Lead source: Usually either the flipbook/website/ landing page where the lead was captured, or the lead vendor that provided it. I prefer to distinguish these two by differentiating between traffic source and lead source.
• Conversion rate: % of leads who become customers
• Tech stack: Lead management software, API integrations, verification tools
• Example metrics: Lead quality score, acceptance rate, compliance status

In short, lead generation is about getting people to raise their hands, while lead acquisition is about making sure those hands are worth shaking.

How TrustedForm and LeadConduit power lead generation and lead acquisition

ActiveProspect offers two powerful tools that enhance both lead generation and lead acquisition:

TrustedForm

TrustedForm helps document and verify consent for TCPA compliance while providing transparency into the consumer experience, origination, and authenticity of leads. TrustedForm is an essential tool for lead generation and lead acquisition. 

With TrustedForm, lead generators can protect their brand, reduce legal risk, and provide a competitive edge when working with lead buyers or downstream partners. For those acquiring leads, TrustedForm lets you reject non-compliant leads and mitigates TCPA risk when buying leads from third-party sources.

LeadConduit

Our LeadConduit platform is an example of lead acquisition software and acts as the central nervous system of any successful lead acquisition operation. 

LeadConduit integrates with various other services involved in the lead acquisition process, like: lead verification/validation, lead scoring, data append services, and lead certification (to verify and document proof of consent for TCPA/CASL compliance). 

It also enables data enrichment to provide deeper context on each lead, improving qualification and routing.

Final thoughts

Understanding the difference between lead generation and lead acquisition remains vital to assembling the appropriate marketing stack for your entire customer acquisition process. Using technology designed specifically to handle each step of the process enables marketers to easily iterate and optimize existing and future campaigns.

By clearly defining and optimizing each phase and leveraging tools like TrustedForm and LeadConduit, you can build a comprehensive, high-performance strategy.

Optimize your lead generation/acquisition efforts today.

The post Lead generation vs. lead acquisition: What is the difference? appeared first on ActiveProspect.

Written by Steve Rafferty, originally published December 3, 2020; updated January 30, 2025.

Consent-based marketing is the practice of only contacting consumers that have given their prior express written consent to be contacted. The objective is to ensure that only “active prospects,” or those who have actively expressed interest in hearing from you, make it into your funnel.

With this form of marketing, you have the added benefit of verifying that the prospect meets your criteria before you contact them. With many marketing partners, you only pay for the prospects that meet your criteria – a huge advantage over other marketing channels.

Consent-based marketing vs. permission-based marketing

Although they might seem similar, there are a few substantial differences between these two marketing practices.

What is permission-based marketing?

The concept of “permission marketing,” also referred to as “permission-based marketing,” was introduced by marketing expert Seth Godin in 1999. It centers on the principle of obtaining consumer consent before sending promotional messages. However, the issue often lies in the clarity and explicitness of this permission.

How is consent-based marketing different from permission-based marketing?

While they are similar, consent-based marketing is a higher standard. True consent-based marketing hinges on a legal definition of consent that must be clearly expressed and comprehensible to the consumer. The challenge with permission marketing is that everyone has a different definition of “permission.”

Often “permission” is buried in a privacy policy that the prospect did not read when signing up or requesting more information about a product or service. This could be sufficient for meeting the legal definition of “prior express invitation or permission,” but this is a lower standard of consent and may not be sufficient for your planned telephone or text message outreach campaigns. In contrast, consent-based marketing is based on a more strict legal definition of consent, per regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Consent must be clear and conspicuous to the consumer. Brands that truly respect the relationship with their consumers show that respect by only reaching out with consent. A simple test is to ask: “Is the consumer expecting this outreach?”

Consent-based marketing key components

Prior express written consent

As defined by the TCPA, “prior express written consent” is “A signed, written agreement between the consumer and seller, which states that the consumer agrees to be contacted by this seller and includes the telephone number to which the calls may be placed.”

This form of consent requires a clear, written, and signed agreement from the consumer, along with a prominent language indicating that the consumer can withdraw their consent at any time. Businesses can gather consumer consent through different methods, including online forms, paper documents, and in some instances using text message responses.

Learn more about prior express written consent here.

Consent documentation

Both lead buyers and sellers must obtain and store records of consent documentation. Additionally, the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) mandates that businesses engaged in communication outreach preserve these records for five years following the date of consent and outreach.

Such documentation is crucial for defending against regulatory investigations or legal challenges, serving as evidence of the consent transaction.

Consent revocation

It is essential to make it unmistakably clear that the consumer retains the right to revoke their consent at any time and through any reasonable means.

Learn more about revocation of consent here.

Consent-based marketing best practices

Capture consent of interested consumers

Consent-based marketing begins with an interested consumer. When that consumer provides their contact information, typically responding to some sort of offer from the marketer, they are asking to start the conversation. That is the start of the relationship. 

Document consent for record-keeping

There are a variety of regulations that govern contacting consumers with marketing messages, in particular the TCPA. If you have documented prior express written consent, you can contact consumers on their cell phones, via SMS, or using automated dialing technologies. Documented consent allows you to demonstrate compliance and protect yourself from liability. 

Identify the best prospects and pay accordingly

Once you have received the opt-in lead with documented consent, you could use the information submitted by the consumer to help you identify the prospects most likely to become your customers. Typically, this involves first checking if you have an existing relationship with this consumer (is this a duplicate of an existing record?). Using real-time data services to enhance your lead data, you can identify more qualifying information about the consumer.

Filter & reject unwanted leads 

Inevitably you will receive leads that, for a variety of reasons, will never become customers. They might be fraudulent, uncontactable, duplicates, or simply not qualify for your product or service. You should also use data services to help determine if the individual is on the national Do Not Call (DNC) list, individual state DNC registries, or the Reassigned Number Database (RND) service for recent phone number changes. 

It’s important to have a system in place that will filter out, in real time, any leads that don’t meet any of your qualifying criteria. Many cost-per-lead marketing partners won’t charge marketers for leads that are rejected in real time. 

Contact the consumer promptly

After requesting contact, consumers expect to hear from you promptly. It is important that the lead data is delivered into your CRM, database, or call center in real time. For example, every form submission should be followed up by a real-time confirmation email. This is standard practice. In fact, there have been a number of studies on lead follow-up that show the quicker the follow-up, the higher the conversion rates.

Our mission: Making consent-based marketing the best channel for customer acquisition

Despite laws like the TCPA, the Telephone Sales Rule (TSR), and the CAN-SPAM Act, aimed at curbing unsolicited consumer outreach, non-compliant or illegal high volume outreach continues to be a strategy used by some risk-taking marketers, as it apparently yields some successful sales. But is it worth the growing legal risk?

At ActiveProspect, we are committed to offering a more respectful alternative by promoting consent-based marketing as the premier channel for customer acquisition. We believe that by enhancing the success of this channel, we can significantly decrease the volume of unsolicited outreach consumers face.

Consent-based marketing solutions

Consent-based marketing solutions are tools and strategies that enable businesses to obtain and manage consumer consent for marketing communications. These solutions help ensure that businesses comply with legal regulations, build trust with customers, and improve the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. 

Benefits of consent-based marketing solutions

Here’s why businesses should rely on consent-based marketing solutions for their marketing campaigns:

• Regulatory compliance: With the increasing emphasis on TCPA regulations, businesses need to ensure they are compliant to avoid hefty fines and legal issues. Consent-based marketing solutions help achieve this compliance seamlessly.
• Enhanced customer relationships: By focusing on consent and preferences, businesses can tailor their marketing efforts to meet the specific needs and interests of their audience, leading to stronger customer relationships and better overall customer experience.
• Ethical marketing: Adopting consent-based marketing solutions aligns with ethical standards and promotes responsible use of consumer data, which is becoming increasingly important to consumers.
• Competitive advantage: Businesses that prioritize consent-based marketing can differentiate themselves from competitors who may still use intrusive or non-compliant marketing methods, thereby attracting more customers who value privacy and respect for their choices.
• Operational efficiency: Automating consent management and integrating it with existing marketing platforms can streamline operations, reduce manual workload, and improve the efficiency of marketing efforts.

ActiveProspect offers consent-based marketing solutions to help you keep compliance at the forefront of your marketing efforts.

LeadConduit

LeadConduit streamlines your cost-per-lead (CPL) acquisition process to efficiently acquire customers at scale. Custom lead flows automatically enhance and filter leads in real time to deliver the highest-quality prospects to your CRM or lead buyer.

LeadConduit helps thousands of brands increase their ROI, reduce fraud, and increase their efficiency by streamlining lead acquisition and distribution processes. Eliminate error-prone manual work to normalize, maintain, and sync data between different lead vendors and tech stacks.

TrustedForm

TrustedForm is the ultimate compliance solution for the lead generation industry. TrustedForm documents TCPA consent on digital lead capture forms, offering a number of different products:

• TrustedForm Certify issues certificates of lead authenticity that can be retained for your own use and/or shared with others.
• TrustedForm Retain guarantees certificate availability for up to five years.
• TrustedForm Verify optimizes the consent capture process by enabling users to identify and categorize TCPA consent language for different lead vendors. 
• TrustedForm Insights allows you to make informed decisions to optimize lead-buying strategies and maximize your ROI.

LeadsBridge

LeadsBridge automates your customer acquisition process by seamlessly integrating major ad platforms with your existing marketing technology. With over 380 integrations, you can drive new revenue and increase efficiency by syncing leads in real time, tracking online and offline conversions, and targeting custom audiences.

LeadsBridge partners with the top global advertising platforms, including Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and TikTok to provide unique benefits to users. 

Unlike many integration platforms out there, we offer highly specific integrations to make your advertising and marketing experience seamless and headache-free. Our platform is designed specifically for marketing and advertising integrations, ready at the click of a button.

Book a free demo now to see how LeadsBridge works!

Final thoughts

With the right processes and technologies in place, consent-based marketing can be the best channel to efficiently and safely acquire customers who truly want to be contacted by your brand.

Consent-based marketing solutions are essential for modern businesses to ensure compliance with regulations, build trust with customers, and enhance the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. By relying on these solutions, businesses can foster positive customer relationships, improve engagement, and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

To learn more about how consent-based marketing could benefit your business, contact us today.

The post What is consent-based marketing? appeared first on ActiveProspect.

The online lead generation industry collectively breathed a sigh of relief on Friday, January 24th, after the FCC’s new 1-to-1 Consent Rule for the TCPA was vacated by a successful petition from the Insurance Marketing Coalition. This dramatic turn of events came just one business day before the rule was scheduled to go into effect on Monday, January 27th.

The industry spent the past year preparing for this change, which required a massive collective effort. It was the most significant change I have witnessed in this industry in over 20 years. It has been the primary topic of industry conversation for the last year. Businesses were forced to rebuild their operating models entirely, effectively reworking how their websites and systems functioned. The FCC’s announcement of the new rule, made right before Thanksgiving 2023, sent shockwaves through the industry. It essentially rendered the standard practices of many comparison websites illegal.

Take LendingTree, for example, one of the most well-known comparison sites and a pioneer in this industry. Their business model allows consumers to receive multiple quotes from lenders, helping them find the best option. You’ve probably heard their slogan: “When banks compete, you win!” A consumer would fill out a form that referenced potential lenders, give prior express written consent, and their information would be shared with up to four lenders who would contact them. However, under the new rules, this model was no longer acceptable because the consumer lacked control over which specific lenders contacted them. The FCC’s new TCPA rules required consumers to give consent individually to each “seller” (in this case, each lender). Imagine having to change a business model that’s been in place for 20 years and doing it within just 12 months!

The FCC’s Good Intentions

Why did the FCC propose this change? Their intentions were valid – they want to reduce unsolicited calls and provide consumers with more control over how they give consent to be contacted. While the FCC specifically references going after “robocalls”, I don’t think most consumers really care what technology is used to contact them. People just don’t like unwanted calls. They describe the issue they are trying to address as the “lead generation loophole.” The practice involves consumers giving consent on web forms that references a hyperlink to a marketing partner list, often containing thousands of companies. The FCC considers it inappropriate for consumers to give blanket consent to so many companies at once, as it often leads to abuse. The FTC even referred to such websites as “consent farms,” sites that mislead consumers into giving consent to numerous companies simultaneously.

The FCC’s concerns were justified. Many websites have abused consumer trust. But would this rule have stopped the barrage of robocalls we all receive? Likely not, as most robocalls originate from overseas companies and scammers who disregard U.S. laws or from companies who are the victims of forms submitted by bots or fraudsters. Would it have improved the experience for consumers using comparison websites? Yes, by giving consumers more control over who contacts them. I fully support the spirit of the new 1-to-1 consent rule. As a consumer, don’t you want more control over who gets your data and who calls you?

The Problems with the New Rules

The issues with the new rules were twofold:

1. They were ambiguous and left much open to interpretation. I won’t go into detail here as there are plenty of articles about the new rules highlighting questions and concerns.
2. The TCPA includes a private right of action provision, which fuels a cottage industry of TCPA plaintiffs’ attorneys who make a living suing companies for even minor mistakes. With penalties reaching up to $1,500 per call or text, this creates massive legal risks for companies.

This combination of ambiguity and legal liability meant that the rules would inevitably be clarified in court, at great expense to responsible U.S.-based companies, while benefiting plaintiffs’ attorneys seeking quick settlements. For perspective, my company, ActiveProspect, hosted over 20 webinars last year with industry experts to discuss the implications of the new rules. All were well-attended, reflecting the industry’s confusion and concern.

These rules introduced significant new legal risks for any companies who contact consumers on their mobile phones by phone or text. Meanwhile, overseas scammers who are the primary source of unsolicited robocalls would remain unaffected, as they operate outside U.S. jurisdiction. Since TCPA attorneys can’t target these overseas entities, they instead focus on U.S. companies, many of which are unaware of the massive legal liability they face when contacting consumers on their mobile phones.

The Industry’s Response: Adaptation and Innovation

Faced with these risks, the industry adapted quickly. Many companies, including ActiveProspect, contributed ideas on how to comply with the new rules. In December 2023, we published content explaining how the traditional “Ping Post” lead distribution model would need to be replaced by a new methodology called “Ping Pick Post.” This approach added a step allowing consumers to select the specific company they wanted to contact them. While the terminology varied, this model was widely adopted across the industry.

I continue to be amazed by the online lead generation industry’s ability to adapt and innovate under pressure. However, concerns lingered about the broader effects of the new rules. Would lead volumes drop? Would lead prices rise? Would smaller advertisers be able to compete when presented next to nationally recognized brands? While the rules never officially went into effect, anecdotal evidence suggests that lead volumes did decline, lead prices increased and lead-to-customer conversion rates improved. Most importantly, at least in some cases, customer acquisition costs decreased. This suggests the new model could benefit everyone: consumers receive fewer unwanted calls, publishers earn higher prices per lead, and advertisers achieve lower acquisition costs.

Was the industry fully prepared for Monday, January 27th? Not entirely. While most major lead vendors updated their models to comply, the majority of lead buyers had not implemented tools to verify whether they had the proper consent required under the new rules. From this perspective, it was fortunate the rules didn’t go into effect as scheduled, as many companies would likely have faced costly lawsuits for non-compliance.

The Best Possible Outcome?

Upon reflection, I believe this outcome was likely the best-case scenario. The industry was forced to make consumer-friendly changes to comply with the new rules but ultimately avoided the additional legal risks these regulations would have introduced.

Regulations are sometimes necessary to push industries to adopt consumer-friendly practices and maintain a level playing field. Companies are often pressured to prioritize profitability over what’s best for consumers. I’ve had countless conversations with lead generation companies suggesting more compliant, consumer-friendly changes that can’t be enacted because the changes might reduce conversion rates or make them less competitive in the marketplace.

Well-written regulations can drive positive change and create an even playing field, but only if they are simple, clear, and easy to follow. Wouldn’t that be nice?

The question now is whether the industry will build on this progress or revert to old practices? The reality is that all of the factors that pushed the FCC to enact this rule are still present today. The FCC still wants to close the lead generator loophole, the FTC still wants to shut down consent farms and state AGs are still actively pursuing firms that mislead consumers. Regardless of the regulations, we have to address these issues. I hope we move forward with the 1-to-1 consent model as a best practice. Ultimately it will be up to the lead buyers to push for it and pay more for it. By adopting consumer-friendly approaches, we can improve the customer experience, enhance engagement, and avoid being regulatory targets.

Call to Action

I believe in the principle of “doing well by doing good.” In this context it means prioritizing the consumer’s experience and needs. If we treat consumers well, we all benefit. Conversely, if we abuse consumer trust, we harm the industry as a whole. I’m reminded of this every time I hear someone say, “I’m never filling out a lead gen form again!” after a poor experience. The 1-to-1 consent model is simply a better model for consumers.

Let’s not waste the industry’s collective efforts over the past year. Instead, let’s strive for best practices that ensure a positive experience for consumers while fostering a sustainable and compliant future for the lead generation industry. We need to move on from “generating leads” to a true consent-based model where marketers only call/text consumers who have requested it. A model where consumers happily answer your call/text because they are expecting it. Lead buyers, please push for 1-to-1 consent for your leads and pay the higher price for higher quality. It will benefit you, consumers, and the industry as a whole.

The post The FCC’s 1-to-1 Consent Rule is Gone: Why the Lead Generation Industry Should Still Move Forward with 1-to-1 Consent. appeared first on ActiveProspect.