Lead Bidding: In-Depth Technology Guide [+ Best Lead Bidding Software]

In an affiliate lead marketplace, every player pursues one goal: sell leads to a matching business at the highest possible price or get the purchase-ready customers at the lowest price. And if you’re an active Phonexa user, you know the drill: master lead bidding, and you’re there.

However, when it comes to lead bidding, there are so many different systems and nuances that even seasoned affiliates may not know all the ins and outs of the software they use. And they may not need to know – Phonexa grants unprecedented quality on all fronts, delivering qualified leads to the right business at the best price, so both parties get the longer end of the stick.

via GIPHY

But what if I told you that you could possibly get a better price for your leads—or more quality leads at your current price—if you knew how lead bidding software works and the key differences between the most popular bidding models?

via GIPHY

Without any further ado, let’s explore lead bidding software and how the right lead bidding model can help you acquire or sell leads at a better price.

What Is Lead Bidding?

Lead bidding is, in fact, a competition for a lead between the buyers who want to purchase this lead. A successful lead bidding, however, is not necessarily when you outbid other marketers but when you can drive profits from this lead that exceed the costs.

Here’s where lead bidding stands in the context of affiliate marketing:

1. First, leads are generated by affiliates and are put into the bidding system, with affiliates indicating their price per lead and other conditions (for example, affiliates can prohibit specific advertisers from buying their leads).
2. Once the lead is offered to a matching advertiser, they can view its key details – for example, a zip code – and decide whether to buy or decline the offer.
3. If the best-matching advertiser declines the offer, it goes to the second-best-matching advertiser, and so on until the lead is sold. At the time, the price cannot be lower than the minimum price indicated by the affiliate, and the advertisers who are offered the lead must also fit the affiliate’s criteria.

 

Once the lead is delivered to the buyer – for example, phone calls might connect directly to the advertiser’s call center; leads might be delivered to the advertiser’s CMS – they try to convert this lead and get some performance insights to update their acquisition campaigns.

Lead Bidding vs Direct Lead Distribution

The one line to draw is the line between lead bidding and direct lead distribution, as these are related yet completely different parts of lead acquisition:

➥ Lead bidding is a competition between advertisers, which means one lead is sold to one winner, with the price being undetermined before the end of bidding. On the contrary, direct lead distribution is usually the provision of a lead to one or several advertisers at a predetermined price and of a predetermined quantity.

Obviously, direct lead distribution without competition suits businesses that want a predictable flow of leads and are willing to pay a higher price for the leads they buy. On the other hand, lead bidding is a riskier endeavor that promises cheaper leads of higher quality to crafty bidders – or the leads unavailable via lead distribution.

As an affiliate, you might choose lead bidding simply because there’s always a chance some of your leads are sold at a high price. In high-ticket niches like insurance, home services, finance, or solar, exclusive leads might cost hundreds of dollars – imagine selling dozens or even hundreds of these leads daily.

Lead Bidding vs. Lead Distribution – What May Cause the Confusion

In different contexts, lead distribution can mean two things:

• Lead distribution – direct lead distribution – supplying leads directly to a partner advertiser according to the pre-arranged schedule and conditions. For example, sending 100 solar leads from New Jersey within a month to the advertiser’s CRM system.
• Lead distribution is a way of distributing leads to the buyers, depending on the buyer’s bids and the configuration of the market system. In this context, lead distribution describes how the bidding works and how leads are delivered to this or that advertiser.

No worries, though. In the following paragraphs, I will explain how different lead distribution systems affect lead bidding and what you can do about it to increase your income and optimize lead acquisition (if you’re an advertiser) or sales (if you’re an affiliate).

How Lead Bidding Works with Different Lead Distribution Systems

First, it’s worth noting that most lead marketplaces – Phonexa included – use mixed lead bidding systems that factor in multiple bidding criteria so advertisers and affiliates can buy or sell leads the way they want (you can’t configure the system, though – just use the available features).

Here’s how lead bidding works with different lead distribution systems:

Ping Tree – A Hierarchical Stack of Campaigns

Within a lead market, a Ping Tree is a stack of campaigns – lead selling criteria – that organize how leads are distributed among buyers, with the default model being selling leads to the highest bidder among the bidders that satisfy all parameters of the campaigns.

How to win the bidding with Ping Tree software: since the leads aren’t offered in real-time to all buyers but the most relevant buyer first – the one that is at the top of the Ping Tree, which is usually the highest bid – it makes sense to put the bid that reflects your desire to buy the leads.

 

If you want to win the leads on the first try at all costs, just put the highest bid you can – within reasonable limits: remember, you should stay in profit – and if you are okay with the leads of lower quality, you may reduce the price.

One important nuance to note is that you don’t have access to the bid sizes of other buyers – you just know whether the lead was accepted or rejected. This affects your and the others’ bidding strategies, as you don’t know what bid you have to make to win the lead.

How Ping Tree Affects Bidding and Acquisition Strategies

Depending on the Ping Tree, there may be dozens of bidding strategies, but the rule of thumb is that you have to increase the bid to get high-quality leads faster. At the same time, you can use more elaborate bidding strategies to maximize your ROI. For example, if you re-engage customers effectively, you might benefit from aged leads bought at lower prices.

Ping Post – a Sneak Peek into the Lead Data Before Buying

Ping Post is a lead distribution system that provides advertisers with partial information about the lead before bidding. In Phonexa, Ping Post lead distribution is combined with Ping Tree, so all buyers can get an idea of the quality of contacts they’re buying before committing to a purchase.

How to win the bidding with Ping Post software: Within Ping Post, you can set your bid amount depending on your evaluation of the quality of the lead. For example, if the lead perfectly matches your ideal buyer’s profile – zip code, age, income, etc. – you might be interested in accepting the lead and possibly increasing the bid for further leads to get them.

Push Bidding – Where Decision-Making Speed Matters

The ping push-driven bidding system is the second most competitive one after ping real-time, offering partial information about the lead to all qualified buyers at the same time. The first buyer who accepts the lead gets the lead.

How to win the bidding with Push bidding: The first-come, first-served ping push system benefits fast decision-makers, so you should learn to evaluate the information quickly. With push bidding, the lead is pre-set before the bidding, so you can get quality leads at a reduced price if you’re quick enough.

On the other hand, buyers may act impulsively, accepting leads without an accurate evaluation, potentially leading to a reduction in conversion rates and ROI. But if you prioritize lead freshness – for example, you call the newly bought leads immediately – Ping Push might be your best shot at closing sales on the spot.

Reverse Bidding – When Buyers Are in Full Control

Reverse bidding is arguably the easiest bidding model for advertisers because it allows them to acquire the leads that accurately match their buying criteria – location, income, age, gender, and more – while avoiding real-time competition. With reverse bidding, advertisers simply set the lead qualification criteria, put their bids, and wait until the system offers them the matching leads.

How to win the bidding with Reverse bidding: The most important thing with reverse bidding is to use the full spectrum of purchase preferences you are allowed to set and then estimate the price you’re willing to pay for your leads.

Price can only be a factor if other advertisers have set the same buying criteria – for example, two businesses are buying leads from the same state and of the same income level – or your price is lower than the affiliate’s minimum price (in this case, you will not receive the offer).

Important: In some reverse bidding systems, the same lead may be offered to several buyers at the same time as long as the lead matches their qualification criteria. Find out how your lead bidding software works to avoid being caught off guard.

Real-Time Bidding – Bidding Wars at Their Best

Real-Time bidding seems similar to push bidding at first glance, but it has one substantial difference: the bidding is done in real time after the advertisers receive the information about the lead at stake. This is the most competitive lead bidding system, but it’s great for affiliates because it always sells leads at the highest market price.

How to win the real-time bidding: You bid against other buyers, so you have to make sure your bid is higher than their bid yet still makes sense business-wise. To beat the competition, you need a combination of quick decision-making and analytics.

Advertiser’s View on Different Lead Bidding Systems

Affiliate’s View on Different Lead Bidding Systems

How To Choose Your Best Bidding Software: the Checklist

Now that you know how different lead bidding systems work, you might have an idea of what lead bidding software you need for specific campaigns and business models in general. However, there are also factors like integrations, capacity, reporting, and more.

Here are the most essential factors to consider when choosing your lead bidding software:

Bidding Variety	You already know about the importance of choosing the right lead bidding system, so I won’t repeat myself. Just make sure the bidding system and lead flow you need are there. Example: If you want to get the leads of specific demographics without competing with other advertisers in real time, you can choose the Ping Reverse bidding system.
Lead Qualification	Defining what leads you need at the granular level is arguably the most important feature of lead bidding software. Accurate targeting and filtering allow you to get the leads you want—an increased chance of converting them—while not wasting time on low-intent and irrelevant leads. Example: If you provide solar installation services in one city only, you need to filter your leads by zip code. Otherwise, most of your leads will come from irrelevant cities.
Lead Validation	For call campaigns, you may need additional phone number validation to exclude unwanted calls. In practice, this means rejecting the call lead that doesn’t pass the verification criteria – the same algorithm as with web leads.
Bidding Customization	Whether you buy or sell leads, you want to be able to optimize or even change your strategies based on your performance – not only strategically but on the fly as well. This is why you need lead bidding software that allows you to adjust your acquisition or sales strategies based on real-time lead data. Example: If you easily acquire the leads you need, you can try to reduce the price per lead quickly to save – or you may want to increase the price or change targeting if you cannot get enough leads. Adaptive lead bidding software can analyze your performance and suggest optimal acquisition strategies.
Lead Market Capacity	For bigger affiliates and advertisers, it’s necessary to enter markets that unite a high number of partners. Otherwise, you may not be able to sell or buy our leads instantly at the desired price.Example: If a company needs 1,000 leads a day that satisfy detailed qualification criteria, they may need to search for additional markets if their initial market doesn’t provide the volume.
Performance Reporting	Knowing how many calls and web leads you’ve acquired or sold at what price, how many leads were rejected, and how they moved across touchpoints – for example, did the IVR reject them, was there an error or a timeout, etc. – is paramount for optimizing your sales and acquisition campaigns. Example: If you’ve noticed common performance patterns – the most profitable traffic channels, days, or customer pathways – you can double down on these while eliminating unprofitable flows and funnels.
Integrations	Call bidding software is never isolated – at the very least, it comes together with call distribution software – so you should be able to seamlessly integrate your acquisition or sales campaigns into your overarching marketing ecosystem. Example: If you buy leads and also generate leads on your own, free data flows between your paid and organic campaigns can unlock marketable insights about both categories of customers.

Lead Bidding Software Providers — Detailed Comparison

	5 out of 5	4.6 out of 5
	4.9 out of 5	4.2 out of 5
Bidding Variety	✅	✅
Bidding variety shows how many bidding models are supported in the marketplace. The more bidding models, the more flexibility and control advertisers have over their acquisition campaigns.		7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 3.7 between these providers
Score	4.5 out of 5	3.7 out of 5
Lead Qualification	✅	✅
Lead qualification shows the depth of lead qualification before leads are sold to advertisers. Advanced lead bidding software qualifies leads by location, age, gender, income, and other factors, assigning scores to these leads so advertisers can quickly get an idea of the offered leads.		5 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4 between these providers
Score	5 out of 5	4 out of 5
Lead Validation	✅	✅
Lead validation is a checking algorithm that sieves out low-quality, irrelevant, and potentially fraudulent leads from reaching the advertiser. Advanced lead bidding systems enable scrupulous lead validation for web and phone call leads.		7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.3 between these providers
Score	5 out of 5	4.3 out of 5
Bidding Customization	✅	✅
Bidding customization shows how quickly and deeply you can change your bidding strategies. Advanced lead bidding systems allow advertisers and affiliates to change their bidding strategies on the fly so they can instantly react to changes in demand, supply, quality, or price.		7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.1 between these providers
Score	5 out of 5	4.1 out of 5
Market Depth	✅	✅
Market depth shows how many affiliates and advertisers are in the market, translating into the number of leads you can buy or sell at once at your target price.		7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.4 between these providers
Score	5 out of 5	4.4 out of 5
Performance Reporting	✅	✅
Performance reporting shows the availability and depth of reports, which you can use to optimize your lead sales and acquisition campaigns. Likewise, performance reporting displays how well different reports complement each other to create an overarching business picture.		7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 4.7 between these providers
Score	5 out of 5	4.7 out of 5
Integrations	✅	✅
Integrations show how many lead management, CRM, and other software and systems you can use together with a particular lead bidding solution. The more integrations, the easier you can build a comprehensive marketing management system.		7 out of 7 other software providers offer this feature, with an average quality score of 3.1 between these providers
Score	5 out of 5	3.1 out of 5
Value for price
Total Score	49.4 out of 50	41.1 out of 50

 

Ping Post Calls 2.0 by Phonexa – Five Lead Flows in One

Not many lead bidding systems support various lead flows, but Phonexa Ping Post Calls 2.0 does, giving advertisers and affiliates the best conditions for securing profitable deals. Advertisers get partial information about the lead so they can make an informed purchase decision, while affiliates can bid on the best call data attributes in the marketplace.

Here are the lead flows supported by Ping Post Calls 2.0:

• Data collected by IVR
• Data pinged before the call with the caller’s phone number
• Data pinged before the call without the caller’s phone number
• Call with applications and no bidding
• Pinging based on agent availability

The best thing is that Phonexa offers much more than just a lead marketplace, integrating lead bidding software into a comprehensive performance marketing ecosystem that coordinates affiliate and organic marketing campaigns across departments.

Get Your All-In-One Performance Marketing Software Suite

As a marketer, you know how ineffective it is to juggle between different systems and reports, trying to coordinate heterogeneous marketing campaigns. With Phonexa, you don’t have to do that because everything you need comes as one performance marketing software suite.

Phonexa unites eight proprietary performance marketing solutions that cover marketing from top to bottom across all existing avenues, including but not limited to affiliate, referral, email, social media, on-site, and influencer marketing. Continuous data exchange between different systems unlocks the right vision for your business so you don’t lose the forest for the trees.

 

Here are the eight proprietary solutions you get at a single price starting at $100 a month (online price calculator):

Build your plan now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best lead bidding strategy for lead generation?

The choice of the lead bidding strategy depends on your type of lead bidding software, the quality and number of leads you want to buy, the level of competition, and the price per lead you are willing to pay. The simplest bidding strategy is raising the price per lead to win the competition, but there are many other effective strategies that may work depending on the mentioned variables.

Among the most common lead bidding strategies are setting detailed lead qualification criteria, analyzing why other advertisers decline some leads, increasing or reducing the price depending on the competition, and more.

What is the best lead bidding platform?

In our opinion, Phonexa provides the most complete lead bidding software suite that can be built into an even bigger performance marketing ecosystem. For just a few hundred dollars a month, you can sell or buy any leads at any quantity while knowing who these leads are, where they came from, how they interacted once sold, and many more details.

What features of the lead bidding software are the most important?

The features you need depend on your business strategy. For example, if you’re an affiliate, you might be interested in the bidding system ping post or ping real-time because these sales lead to the higher bidder, allowing you to maximize earnings.

But then again, it’s not just about the price per lead you’re able to get but also the number of leads you want to sell, the speed at which you can sell these leads, and the loyalty of the advertiser that may or may not accept the leads from you in the future depending on how the convert.