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Diamonds and cubic zirconium may look the same, but there’s a vast difference in worth between the real gem and its fake twin.

Marketers face the same dilemma in their campaigns when determining whether they are purchasing data or leads. The difference between data and leads isn’t as clear cut as it may seem, just like that sparkly diamond may be worth less than a lollipop ring.

A good example we’d like to use here is prescreen credit bureau data. There is a lot of misinformation out there and we’d like to clear it up. The credit bureaus really don’t sell “leads”. That has wrong written all over it. The credit bureaus sell data for permissible purpose marketing within the FCRA guidelines. Are there leads out there that have an actual credit score available? Absolutely. However, they do not come from the credit bureaus.

This includes Trigger Leads. Mortgage Triggers and Auto Triggers are really just credit triggers, not traditional leads. These are basically credit alerts that identify people who are shopping for mortgage loans or vehicles within the past 24 hours, week, month etc. Sure, we can say these are warm prospects because we know they are actively seeking credit for a home loan or vehicle – the difference is they have not specifically contacted your company and filled out a credit application. 

Raw data is the building block of a lead generation campaign that results in names marketers then target. Data is information—not a lead. There are billions of records of information generated every year on people from such sources as credit bureaus, government agencies, census bureau data, questionnaires, marketing campaigns and other places.

Data can include names of people in a certain age or financial bracket, homeowners whose properties are worth a specific amount, renters with good credit located in a city or people who own specific year, make, and model of vehicles. The marketer who buys the data ultimately controls the quality of the leads being generated through their medium of choice, whether direct mail, telemarketing or email.  

A mortgage marketer who is trying to build a list of mortgage prospects who have a good chance of being interested in refinancing their homes wouldn’t want to direct mail homeowners with a saturation strategy. They’d want to refine their mailing list to know that those prospects have a good chance of being interested and have the pre-qualified credit they need for their service. Knowing the difference between data and leads will help marketers understand response and conversion rates.

Leads are essentially refined data and contain names of prospects that have clearly and recently expressed interest in a product or service, and are therefore much more likely to be interested in what a particular marketer is selling. It’s the difference between contacting a person who owns a home and a person who has applied for a refinance within the last 24 hours.

Because of the difference in potential results and uses, the cost of buying raw data and live leads can vary dramatically. Raw data can run under $1 a name and leads can cost $10 or more per name. Costs also vary depending on the actual campaign that is being conducted, including SEO, PPC, direct mail, email and telemarketing campaigns.  

Lead generation companies have to factor in their hard costs and a margin of profit to price their lead programs. Some companies lack the time and/or expertise to develop their own successful lead generation campaigns in-house so they pay for lead generation services.

Endless Resources can help build custom lead generation campaigns with our data services or provide a customized list of data for marketers to use to generate leads with the method they choose or lead-generation company they choose.

Endless Resources has relationships with call centers for telemarketing campaigns, competitive printing and mailing capabilities, email marketing platforms and more, which gives it the ability to manage a wide range of lead-generation campaigns.