Ping Tree Software: How to Maximize Your Profits on Lead Flows

Whether buying or selling leads, you may not even know about the architecture behind it: a ping tree, which is essentially a smart lead distribution system that cascades leads to relevant buyers one by one, from the most to the least relevant. The end result of a well-configured ping tree is data-driven lead routing that, while prioritizing a specific campaign, always ensures a lead is connected to a buyer as long as at least one relevant buyer is available.

A ping tree is the core element of a smart lead distribution system in which you want to prioritize certain campaigns, offering leads to multiple advertisers one by one, starting from the most relevant to your specific variables, whether demographics, firmographics, or psychographics.

Phonexa’s ping tree is one of the most agile lead distribution systems in the market. It’s all about how you prioritize buyers: price, weight, availability, etc. For example, you can route leads to the highest bidder – the buyer that offered the highest price for the lead – or route them based on agent availability, evenly among all matching buyers, or directly to a predetermined buyer.

“In the ping tree, the offer kind of cascades down and is placed eventually, so no leads or calls will go unsold.” – Evan Weber, an expert in B2C and B2B digital marketing and online advertising, during the Pioneering Pay-Per-Call Excellence webinar

Take a product tour to explore Phonexa’s enterprise-grade software for leads and calls.

Data-Driven Lead Distribution with Phonexa’s Ping Tree Software

Phonexa’s ping tree software has proven extremely effective for brands, lead generators, and large-scale affiliate networks that process thousands of leads and phone calls daily. From insurance to finance to HVAC to solar, businesses in high-ticket industries choose Phonexa for reliability, security, and reporting speed.

Here’s what a ping tree builder looks like within Phonexa:

First things first: The ping tree system is often used by affiliate networks that need to distribute leads from affiliates to advertisers. With Phonexa, you can create a unique ping tree system that accurately reflects the needs and wants of different buyers in your network  – not just the product interest and price per lead, but also parameters like location, loan amount, and other details.

For example, if you have solar installers from different states, it’s crucial to connect leads from state A to buyers from state A. Next, if there are no buyers from state A, you might possibly want to distribute these leads to buyers from other relevant states (for example, these might include campaigns from nearby states).

At the same time, your ping tree architecture should always reflect your buyers’ and your sellers’ criteria, such as the ask and bid, and qualification parameters like location, age, gender, credit history, family status, and more, depending on the industry.

Here’s an example of a lead distribution logic for financial services:

The benefits of a well-thought-out lead distribution are immense, from faster response times to increased conversion rates to a higher ROI. However, there are quite a few factors to consider when distributing leads, so each ping tree is different.

 

Example: If two identical buyers compete for the lead, you might want to sell it to the highest bidder. But there may be more factors to consider when ranking your campaigns. For example, in urgent niches – roofing, plumbing, home repair, etc. – agent availability might be top priority. After all, you’re looking for sales, so you need to retain the lead’s purchase interest.  

Here’s another example of a lead distribution logic:

One of the most reliable lead distribution strategies is to evaluate a lead’s purchase intent or risk level before submitting it to the network, advertiser, or wherever it goes. A risk-based ping tree might be the safest choice when it comes to lead quality and conversions.

For example, you can route leads with a score of 90 and higher to the best-performing advertisers in your network, while flagging risky leads for manual verification with iClear or rejecting them altogether.

 

Ping Tree vs. Ping Post

A ping tree isn’t the only lead distribution system – there’s also a ping post. 

Here is the difference between a ping tree and a ping post:

• A ping tree is essentially a stack of campaigns with different parameters against which a lead is automatically evaluated and then routed to the best-fitting buyer. So no real-time competition or bidding process takes place
• A ping post, on the other hand, involves real-time bidding. First, multiple buyers receive essential data about the lead, such as the lead’s ZIP code. Then these buyers place their bids, and the highest bidder receives the remaining lead data, such as the lead’s phone number and email address.

“With ping post, a lead is sent into the marketplace in the form of a ping, which means you’re using some level of customer data to ping data into your marketplace in one go, essentially giving all of your advertisers – buyers – the chance to review that customer and decide in real-time whether they want to acquire that customer. Ping post allows for dynamic bidding, so advertisers can bid against each other. In fact, you’re asynchronously pinging all the data to everyone in one go, essentially saying, “Hey, I have a customer. Do you want this customer?

As for the ping tree, it’s more of a one-by-one routing logic where you’re applying some kind of filtration initially and ranking your list of advertisers or buyers by a priority of some sort, for example, by the price they’ prepared to pay, or you might have an advertiser you’re wanting to send 80% of your traffic or some other prioritization model. For example, you may want to split-test advertisers to evenly distribute calls between them. A ping tree is typically used to have a distribution logic with a little more control than a ping post, with a little bit more deliberation around it.” – David Pickard, CEO, Phonexa, during the Pioneering Pay-Per-Call Excellence webinar

How Ping Post Calls 2.0 Solves Phone Call Distribution

While form fills are a time-tested marketing staple, the most purchase-ready leads usually come via phone calls. The good news is that phone call distribution is also covered in Phonexa’s software suite, with a dedicated product called Call Logic.

Read also: The Complete Guide to Pay-Per-Call Lead Generation

In a nutshell, Call Logic works the same way as LMS Sync, with the main difference being that it distributes phone calls rather than web leads. The other obvious difference is that data collected from phone calls will include items that aren’t available for web leads, such as IVR interaction details, the call timestamp, and the call outcome. But then again, for all LMS Sync users, you won’t have any problems mastering Call Logic.

Here are the 5 call distribution flows you can use with Phonexa:

Call Flow #1: Data Collected by an IVR System	Demographics, psychographics, firmographics, and other essential marketing details are collected by the IVR system from callers who interacted with it before choosing to connect with a sales rep.
Call Flow #2: Data Is Pinged before the Call with the Caller’s Phone Number	Trustless phone call distribution, where the buyer receives the caller’s phone number to decide whether the caller aligns with their goals and is worth purchasing at the offered price.
Call Flow #3: Data Is Pinged before the Call without the Caller’s Phone Number	Standard call distribution, with several competing buyers receiving basic data, such as the lead’s location, to evaluate and place a bid.Related: Lead bidding software 101The lead goes to the highest bidder, including their phone number, email address, and other details.
Call Flow #4: Call with Applications and no Bidding	Direct lead distribution under the pre-agreed conditions, with a specific buyer getting specific types of phone calls.
Call Flow #5: Pinging Based on Agent Availability	Prioritizing agent availability to distribute urgent calls at the peak of their purchase interest

Important: Phonexa’s lead tracking and distribution system, LMS Sync, and call tracking and distribution system, Call Logic, work in full sync, allowing you to cover the customer journey across channels and track consumers who switch touchpoints.

For example, you can identify callers who have previously filled out your lead generation form, giving your sales rep a head start in the conversation. At the very least, they know everything the caller entered on the form and, if the call went through an IVR system, also the data collected by the IVR system.

Get started with Phonexa to scale faster, drive more conversions, and turn every call and lead into a revenue opportunity.

Last but not least, Phonexa’s predictive modeling software allows you to use all accumulated data for data-driven marketing forecasts, such as, for example, what ads on what platforms displayed at what time to what audience are expected to generate the highest ROI.

Related: Pay-Per-Call Advertising: Your Best Source of Pay-Per-Call Leads

With our predictive modeling software, you can simulate an unlimited number of campaigns at no cost and then go with the best-performing parameters at a lower risk. The best thing is that the more data you collect, the more accurate your simulations become. Then, whether you’re expanding into new markets, audiences, or partners, it’s much easier to do so with exhaustive data on your side.

 

Your Enterprise-Grade Lead & Phone Call Management Software

Phonexa is an enterprise-grade platform designed to track, distribute, and analyze inbound leads and phone calls at scale. It helps organizations manage complex lead and call workflows by bringing tracking, routing, automation, and analytics into a single, unified system.

Seamless data flows within Phonexa provide full visibility into the customer journey across marketing channels and touchpoints, from high-level performance insights to granular, real-time metrics. With a user-friendly, multi-layer analytics dashboard, teams can make informed decisions without losing context, even as campaign complexity grows.

 

Here are the two core products you get at a single price:

Here are the six extra features you get as a Phonexa client:

Get started now to grow your phone call revenue streams with in-depth caller insights.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ping tree software?

Ping tree software is a rule-based distribution mechanism that routes incoming leads or calls through a predefined campaign hierarchy. Each campaign is evaluated against qualification rules and prioritization parameters until a matching destination is found.

In Phonexa, a ping tree is configured as an ordered set of campaigns with specific acceptance criteria, such as geographic requirements, pricing parameters, availability, or performance-based logic.

What is ping tree lead distribution?

Ping tree lead distribution refers to a structured routing process in which leads or calls are evaluated against campaign-level rules and routed accordingly. When leads enter Phonexa’s ping tree, the system sequentially applies qualification filters and prioritization logic to determine the most appropriate campaign.

If a campaign does not accept the lead under the configured conditions, the system continues evaluating the next eligible campaign in the hierarchy until a valid routing outcome is reached.

What is the difference between a ping tree and a ping post?

A ping tree is a cascading lead distribution process in which a lead’s data set is checked against the criteria of each available campaign one by one and then routed to the best-fitting campaign. There’s no direct, real-time competition between buyers.

A ping post is a two-stage lead distribution process in which some essential lead data (for example, a lead’s ZIP code) is shared with several advertisers competing for this lead. After that, advertisers place bids on this lead, and the highest bidder wins the lead along with the rest of the marketing data, such as the lead’s phone number or email address.