Richard Kahn
Lead generation companies have one goal: to gather and deliver qualified leads to their customers. What happens when they deliver leads that are fraudulent?
It doesn't take long for clients to discover those leads aren’t converting into customers. Worst case scenario: they find themselves being accused of violating TCPA compliance, which penalizes companies with hefty fines. Clients don't particularly enjoy being hit with large fines, so now clients are angry and dissatisfied, which harms brand reputation and bottom line.
Here’s why lead generation companies need an ad fraud solution, too.
Lead Generation Is Vulnerable to Fraud
Leads are the third stage in the marketing funnel. Here, prospects have been qualified as leads, and hopefully, are prime to be converted into customers.
Source: Quora¹
The main methods for lead generation include landing pages, forms, and lead lists. The problem lies in fraudulent, or fake, leads. While the hope is that purchased leads are ready to be converted into customers, fake leads are just that - fake. They are either stolen from other websites, so those leads don't know who you are or why you're calling, or they're bots. Bots don't answer the phone, much less become paying customers. The reality is that 25% of all traffic is fraudulent - that's a big chunk of your leads, draining resources with no hope of a return on your investment. While lead generation methods are designed to gather qualified potential customers, these lead generation methods are not 100% secure and are vulnerable to ad fraud.
Related Post: What Are Fake Leads and How To Identify Them?
Let’s say you have a landing page that prompts users to fill out a form including their name and email address. It's assumed that only humans would fill out the forms, but that's not true.
Source: Wistia²
Internet bots are becoming advanced enough to act like real people and fill out forms, causing advertisers to believe they’ve found a new lead. However, as a bot isn't a real person, it can't make a purchase and become a customer. This is misleading, and fake leads and impressions skew your business’ data, tricking you into thinking you’re getting more leads than you really are.
For fraudsters, ad fraud has a low-risk, high-reward potential, and the problem is only getting worse. This is why you need an ad fraud solution to protect your campaigns.
How an Ad Fraud Solution Can Help
Fraudulent leads cost a lot of time and money spent trying to convert to a customer. With the help of an ad fraud solution, you can mitigate fraud, save money and spend your time gathering real leads to sell to your clients.
Let’s say you sell a lead list that includes stolen names and email addresses. If a person on that list didn't consent to be contacted, not only does your client have a TCPA compliance violation on their hands, you do, too! This can cost anywhere between $500 and $1500 per call. TCPA violations add up exponentially and can bankrupt your business.
Related Post: Are You Paying for Fake Leads? Stop Lead Gen Fraud Now!
Let’s say you sell a lead list that includes stolen names and email addresses. If a person on that list didn't consent to be contacted, not only does your client have TCPA compliance violation on their hands, you do, too!
Using an ad fraud solution that looks at the user, not the ad, can help keep you TCPA compliant. By evaluating the user, you know the lead is real, so there’s no chance you’ll be contacting those pesky bots or getting scraped contact info again.
Conclusion
Lead generation plays an important factor in growing a business. But selling phony leads to clients can quickly derail that growth. By using an ad fraud solution that can support lead generation companies, you will be able to focus on verified leads without wasting time with false leads. If you don’t already have one in place, carefully consider getting one.
Updated: November 2021
1. https://www.quora.com/What-is-lead-generation
2. https://wistia.com/account/signup