Coregistration success via communication.

Co-registration refers to the practise of collecting consumer leads. This is normally in the form of a separate tick box, which can be shown when a user is signing up to a website. Users can opt in to receive information from a third party.

For example, if a user is signing up for a free subscription to a newsletter, they will be shown some offers, and if interested can opt in.

These offers are usually shown after the registration process.

Co-registration or co-reg as it is known in the British digital market has been in evidence online for at least the past 10 years. In America, co-reg is called host and post, yet they both, essentially mean the same thing, as follows:

Co-registration - people complete a form registering for a single brand and by ticking further boxes co-register for additional third party branded offers. So this means people only need to enter their contact details once and then give their consent to further info./contact from third party brands. For example, people who register with cars.com can also opt-in to offers from cars.com advertising partners with a simple tick in the box.

Host and Post (USA term) - where opt-in adverts are hosted and leads/data from those ads are posted via real-time transfer or other delivery method. This term clearly distinguishes this type of lead generation from other performance based traffic driving efforts.

The commonly accepted metric for measurement and payment of coreg is cost per lead (CPL). In fact, this is the only advertising medium where CPL is the default metric! Again, there is a subtle, but crucial difference in America in that instead of CPL, CPA is used, meaning 'Cost Per Action'. Whereas, in the UK, CPA is normally only taken to mean cost per acquisition.

The co-registration process is when a and an advertiser form a relationship by themselves or through an intermediary to exchange consumer contact information based on permission—essentially permission-based sales and marketing leads. Co-registration leads are gathered when a visitor to a website, app or other digital property registers for something specific (e.g., a magazine subscription) and then is offered the opportunity to opt-in to receive information from one or more advertisers on a contextually relevant topic.

This basic methodology can yield quality lead generation benefits such as targeting genuinely interested prospects; efficiently building a solid leads database, driving brand awareness, and increasing targeted traffic.

Top internet marketing experts have quietly been amassing enormous databases of fresh email leads from co-registration services. These aren’t harvested addresses, but legitimate opt-in email leads. Co-reg leads are often every bit as good as those you generate yourself.

The common misconceptions of co-reg advertising are:

It must involve a competition entry - though this is a popular way to gain people opt-in details this is by no means a pre-requisite.

The same advert and criteria will work across similar co-reg publishers

Publishers should not send invalid leads to be considered a good source

Asking consumers more qualifying questions automatically drives better quality

A good lead will still be good even if not contacted the same day.

It is important to understand how data should be used for achieving the optimum results, and reducing your CPA.

Before a campaign is launched ask yourself: how quickly do you want to receive the data? It is essential to have a plan in place that enables you to immediately convert a lead.

Your lead generation supplier will be able to advise you on this. It is also important to remember that depending on the product, the time the leads take to covert will differ, and therefore realistic expectations are needed.

For example, SMS leads should convert instantly, where as a catalogue request campaign could take weeks or even months before the user buys something.

By using lead generation you are building a database of users interested in a particular product, and this data can be reused. Some problems that may occur are email delivery problems, delivery of catalogues or samples taking too long, and call centre employees not being trained well enough. These factors can all result in a campaign not working at its best. As long as data is managed properly a good ROI will be produced.

Lead generation fits perfectly with other marketing tools;it provides an environment to present users with offers and opportunities that they may not have been looking for. This opens up opportunities to a much wider audience compared to other marketing methods.

Providing promotions with a product or service is also an effective way to grab the consumer’s attention, and encourage them to try something they may not have tried otherwise. All elements of online marketing serve a purpose. Lead generation is still considered one of the most accountable and cost effective methods of marketing online if the data it produces is managed effectively.

Validation and data cleansing:

Validation is an essential component of lead generation. It involves ensuring that the details in every lead captured are accurate. Full 100% validation can never be achieved due to margins of human error when filling in a data capture form.

However, the objective is to achieve as close to 100% validation as possible, and companies like clickwork7.com use various in-house tools to validate PAF, mobile and address details for each user.

The lead generation industry has become increasingly aware of the costs and waste associated with poor quality data, and has introduced more and more methods for ensuring that data is of a quality level acceptable to clients.

The methods of determining the effect of a co-registration campaign are similar to those used to measure the effect of any advertising or recruitment programme - drill it down to a target return on investment (ROI).

It is essential not only to determine the impact but to optimise co-registration campaigns.

It is important to be able to attribute ROI on a per source basis and be able to track the source of a lead through your CRM and conversion process. When measuring the ROI for a campaign, it is also important to give the leads sufficient time to convert and to judge the derived revenues over a fair period of time.

Call centre cost, email delivery cost, postal cost, etc should all be factored in when determining your conversion costs. Ensuring your leads have verified data, for example telephone number or postal address, will help minimise these costs.

How well your leads are converting and the methods you are using should be shared with lead sources to help optimise a campaign and drive down conversion costs. This communication is vital to success and a great ROI. To provide a list of those leads that have converted will give the source the best information to help refine the campaign and ultimately improve your ROI.

Grant Saxon Rowe

clickwork7.com

grant@clickwork7.com