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It’s no secret marketers are sounding the alarm over the upcoming FCC update, especially those buying or selling leads and making robocalls. Come 27 January 2025, all leads will become exclusive: you will have to obtain individual consent from every customer you contact.
In practice, this means lead generators, brokers, and software companies will no longer be able to sell leads to multiple advertisers but will have to choose the businesses for which they want to request consent. Lead flipping might become borderline impossible or at least much harder.
So far, it’s crystal clear: obtain consent, and you’re good to go.
However, it becomes significantly more difficult when it comes to joint ventures. For example, while “robotexts and robocalls must be logically and topically associated with the website where the consumer gave consent,” it’s unclear what degree of association is enough.
Here are some burning questions to answer:
Read on to learn what the 2025 FCC update means for joint venture business and how to adjust.
In the 1930s, when telemarketers bombarded customers with calls, the US government first tried to protect customers by passing an amendment to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), then known as the Communications Act. Since then, the consent requirement has gradually been toughened to reflect the emerging technologies and acquisition strategies.
However, lead generation has never evolved as rapidly as with the advent of AI technologies. Robo-texts and calls have inundated the business landscape so quickly that they have become almost unbearable for consumers.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reacted with an update to the TCPA requirements, obliging businesses to obtain one-to-one consent before contacting the customer. The rule applies to robotic texts and calls.
Here’s how the TCPA consent update changes the game:
Before the TCPA Update | After the TCPA Update | |
Consent | One-to-many consent | One-to-One Consent |
Do-not-call (DNC) list | Does not apply to text messages | Applies to text messages |
Topical relevance | Related products can be promoted | Agreed-upon products can be promoted |
Consent revocation | Limited to specific revocation methods | Consent can be revoked using any method: call, text, email, etc. |
Consent record keeping | Not strictly enforced | Detailed consent records are required |
To understand the possible implications of the FCC update, it’s worth understanding its main objective: preventing customers from unsolicited marketing contacts and fostering relationships between customers and advertisers. These changes are expected to benefit customers who are concerned about businesses selling or stealing their private information or tracking their actions.
Here are some major FCC regulations pertaining to joint ventures:
“The TCPA and the Commission’s implementing rules require callers to obtain consumer consent for certain calls and texts sent using an automatic telephone dialing system (autodialer) or made using a prerecorded or artificial voice. If a robocall or robotext includes or introduces an advertisement or constitutes telemarketing, the prior express consent must be in writing.”
For joint ventures, this means two things:
Relying on your co-venturer is no longer an option; if they’ve done all the job for you previously, now it’s time to think how you are going to obtain consent on your own or how you want to be represented on your partner’s form to ensure TCPA compliance.
“First, we require terminating mobile wireless providers to block text messages from a particular number following notification from the Commission unless their investigation determines that the identified text messages are not illegal. Next, we codify that the National DNC Registry’s protections apply to text messages.”
The DNC Registry protections – ones allowing customers to block calls from unwanted numbers – now apply to text messages, which makes joint venture partners even more dependent on each other. If the marketing messages are blocked on one side, the other partner may not get these leads.
In practice, this means you should coordinate DNC compliance with your co-venturer or lead generator, making sure they do not generate leads who are in the DNC Registry.
“We propose to require, rather than simply encourage, providers to make email-to-text services opt in.”
Aside from phone calls and text messages, the FCC also recommends providers block unwanted email-to-text messages – emails converted into SMS and then delivered to the customer’s mobile phone. Naturally, this change limits the co-venturers’ email-to-text marketing potential.
“We also require that the consent must be in response to a clear and conspicuous disclosure to the consumer and that the content of the ensuing robotexts and robocalls must be logically and topically associated with the website where the consumer gave consent. Clear and conspicuous means notice that would be apparent to a reasonable consumer.
We believe that texters and callers are capable of implementing this standard and, when in doubt, will err on the side of limiting that content to what consumers would clearly expect. As a result, we decline to adopt a definition of “logically and topically” at this time as some commenters suggest.”
While it’s pretty clear about disclaimers, the “logical and topical” part is a bit fuzzy:
But then again, the room for maneuvering for joint venture companies won’t be large since the requirement for one-to-one consent remains intact, forcing both partners to receive explicit consent for their marketing calls and messages.
It’s almost inevitable that the lead price will grow. Lead generators that rely heavily on Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems (ATDS) will have to choose for which advertisers they want to obtain consent and find a way to provide the request in a way that the lead agrees.
As I’ve mentioned in the beginning, the TCPA compliance update, in fact, eliminates lead sharing, or at least limits it to the extent that it would only be reasonable to share one lead with no more than several companies (otherwise, the consent form will be too unappealing to the customer).
Whether a joint venture company or an individual marketer, you can benefit greatly from Phonexa’s proprietary consent branch technology that collects individual consent for your advertiser using customer or generic consent language.
Custom Consent Language | When a user fills out a form, they get individual consent language for every offered advertiser. Custom consent language on your lead generation forms ensures ironclad TCPA compliance, enabling ATDS calls for the selected businesses. |
Generic Consent Language | When a user fills out a form, they get generic consent language for all offered advertisers and can choose the brand they give consent to. Generic consent language is less granular, but it’s also TCPA compliant. |
Here is how Consent Branches work in practice:
First, affiliates send non-PII pings – generic customer data without identifiable information: country, device type, etc. – to Phonexa. At this stage, personal data like the customer’s name, phone number, or address isn’t sent, so advertisers cannot identify them and contact them out of the system.
Once the non-PII pings are sent to Phonexa, the system finds matching advertisers and offers these advertisers to the customer (this may only be a single advertiser or many advertisers, depending on how many matches are found). On the customer’s end, they receive checkboxes and some general information about each advertiser: name, logo, and how the advertiser wants to contact them (via SMS, email, ATDS, etc.).
The brands given permission to contact the customer receive the previously hidden customer details, like their name, phone number, and email. Now, these brands can compete for this customer.
Learn more about Phonexa’s FCC-compatible Consent Branches.
For affiliates and advertisers of any scale, Phonexa provides a unique opportunity to manage heterogeneous marketing campaigns with a single software suite, from a single dashboard. Uniting eight proprietary solutions under one roof, Phonexa grants exhaustive coverage for email, social media, SMS, affiliate, and referral campaigns.
Here’s how Phonexa can elevate your performance marketing:
Here are the eight proprietary solutions you get at a single price starting at $100 a month (online price calculator):
LMS Sync | Lead tracking & distribution software |
Call Logic | Call tracking & distribution software |
E-Delivery | Email & SMS marketing software |
Cloud PBX | Cloud phone system |
Lynx | Click tracking software |
Opt-Intel | Suppression list management software |
HitMetrix | User behavior recording & analytics software |
Books360 | Automated accounting software |
Get your all-in-one performance marketing software suite now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa.
A joint venture is when two separate businesses put their heads and resources together to pursue a specific marketing goal, like developing a new product, expanding to a new market, or synergizing their core offerings. For example, BMW and Toyota entered a joint venture to develop the BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra; Sony Ericsson created innovative mobile phones, etc.
The FCC is a U.S. government agency that regulates TV, radio, wire, and satellite communications nationwide, including by enforcing the TCPA, a federal law that protects customers by imposing limitations on telemarketing or robotic calls and texts.
The new FCC rules will apply to old leads if they are contacted after January 27, 2025.
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