Ad:Tech Memories - it is about Lead Gen

Just finished up Ad:Tech and observed an interesting phenomenon. It seems that you either have an impressively constrained role in the marketing-cosm, or you are in lead-gen.

The roles in the interactive marketing firmament have hardened severely and unproductively - you are either SEO or SEM, ad creative or media, site or brand, etc. Sad, because consumers really don't consume media that way anymore.

Unfortunately, that is how it is fed to them.

The net result? An explosion of "Lead-gen" firms. I do not exaggerate. You couldn't swing a cat at Ad:Tech without hitting one. But what are they? And why are there so many? And why are they so profitable?

Perhaps Lead-gen is the Hedge fund phenomenon of the Interactive marketing industry. Groups of people that create arbitrage through math that normal folk would cring at. Perhaps they have technology that more precisely targets, prices, and aggregates leads.

Or, more likely, the only arbitrage is organization and staffing.

From an organizational perspective, a good lead-gen firm will not likely say "I can't control the landing page". They won't say "SEO is someone elses problem". They will look to find good leads and convert them into acquisition. They will learn how marketing is consumed to understand how consumers can be marketed to.

From a staffing perspective, they will hire people who are sick of being in a little box. They will hire marketers who "get it" and won't work in an environment of little boxes. These are people that brands, banks and retailers will not be able to retain.

This is an observation. It may be the right answer. Interactive Marketing may have become so niche-oriented that a modern corporate structure must outsource some or all to lead-gen firms. But agencies should certainly pay mind to it. You cannot out-market someone when you live by rules that they ignore.

Comments?

Comments

[Dan Putt]

Great points. I couldn't help but feel a "bubble" excitement as I walked the floor at adtech. The question I kept asking people there was, "are we in a bubble or is there really that much demand out there for lead-gen, email marketing, and contextual advertising companies? I would have to guess that the likely answer is a bubble, and most of those companies will not be around in a few years.

I do agree with the idea of more companies outsourcing some of their online marketing to some of these companies. It's an interesting observation.