The best lead routing method depends on the buyer arrangement: how many buyers compete for each lead, whether the price is fixed or bid, and how many times the lead can be sold. Each arrangement calls for a different method, and most sellers run more than one across their campaigns.
Routing is the strategy behind where leads are distributed. Distribution is the action of sending leads to their destination.
Delivery can succeed while routing fails. A routing rule that sends a lead to a lower-value buyer reduces revenue on that lead even when delivery works.
ClickPoint has built lead distribution software since 2007, and LeadExec runs each of these methods for lead sellers, aggregators, and enterprise teams routing leads internally.
Best method: weighted or percentage routing, with priority routing for any buyer who holds a contractual first right.
Weighted routing splits volume across buyers by percentage. Priority routing gives a named buyer first consideration. Both enforce a commercial agreement independent of what the lead is worth to any one buyer.
Round-robin rotates equally across eligible buyers. Weighted routing controls unequal shares.
Equal rotation stops fitting once one buyer pays more, accepts more, or has contracted for 40% of volume while another has 10%. Weighted routing covers each of those cases.
A buyer with first consideration on every lead receives every lead they qualify for, and the buyers behind them receive what remains. That is the intended behavior for a contracted exclusive. It is the wrong behavior for a buyer who happened to be entered first.
Best method: price-based routing with a waterfall behind it.
Price-based routing ranks eligible buyers by what each pays. The waterfall defines what happens when the first buyer rejects, times out, or has reached capacity: the lead moves to the next eligible buyer in rank order.
A buyer at the top of the price list who rejects 30% of leads leaves 30% of leads unsold at the top rank. The waterfall moves those leads to the next buyer, and the response history records what they rejected and why.
The waterfall is a sequence rule that applies to every ranking method in this article. Price, priority, weight, and bid each produce an order, and the waterfall moves through that order.
Best method: Ping-Post.
A ping sends selected lead attributes to qualified buyers. Each buyer returns a bid or a rejection. The seller's selection rule evaluates the responses and posts the full lead to the winner or, for shared leads, the winners.
The selection rule does the routing. Highest bid is one input among several: buyer eligibility, geography, capacity, schedule, and campaign criteria all apply before the bid is compared. A high bid from a buyer outside the consumer's service area is rejected.
Best method: revenue-optimized distribution.
LeadExec evaluates each eligible distribution scenario for the lead, including exclusive, shared, and semi-exclusive sales, and selects the scenario with the greater combined revenue. Price-based routing picks the highest single price. Revenue optimization picks the highest total.
A lead has two eligible options. Exclusive: one buyer at $100, for $100. Semi-exclusive: three buyers at $40 each, for $120. Price-based routing sends the lead to the $100 buyer. Revenue optimization sends it to the three buyers, and the seller earns $20 more on the lead.
On the next lead, the exclusive buyer bids $150 and only two semi-exclusive buyers are eligible at $40, so the exclusive sale wins at $150 against $80. LeadExec runs the comparison on each lead using the revenue model set for the campaign.
A shared or semi-exclusive scenario posts the same lead to several buyers through concurrent delivery, and each buyer pays the shared price.
What happens when one of those buyers rejects or times out depends on the campaign's fallback configuration, and the delivery record shows which buyers accepted.
An aggregator that pays its lead sources a percentage of realized revenue needs a record of what each lead earned across every buyer, exclusive or shared. The supplier share comes from that record.
Lendilio, one of our LeadExec clients, moved to Ping-Post bidding with revenue-optimized distribution and waterfall fallback. They reported a 25% increase in average lead selling price and a 40% reduction in delivery and acceptance time.
Best method: geographic and coverage rules, applied as a filter before whichever ranking method the campaign uses.
A coverage rule removes buyers who cannot serve the consumer's location before any ranking happens. The ranking then runs on the remaining buyers. A buyer with the highest price and no service in the consumer's ZIP is out of the decision before comparing prices.
When a coverage filter leaves one eligible buyer, the routing method is irrelevant for that lead. When it leaves none, the lead can go to a configured fallback destination or to Quality Control.
Best method: quality gating before routing, with Quality Control as the holding area.
Duplicate detection, phone verification, compliance results, lead scores, and buyer-specific validation rules decide whether a lead enters distribution. A lead that fails configured validation can go to Quality Control for review or be rejected before delivery to the buyer.
Gating before routing protects buyer trust. A buyer who receives a duplicate, an unverifiable phone number, or a lead that fails a consent check has grounds to reject it and to renegotiate the price. Every one of those leads caught before routing stays out of the buyer's return rate.
|
Buyer arrangement |
Best method |
|---|---|
|
Contracted buyers, fixed price, fixed share |
Weighted or percentage routing; priority for contractual first rights |
|
Several buyers at known prices |
Price-based routing with a waterfall |
|
Several buyers who bid per lead |
Ping/Post |
|
Leads that can sell once or several times |
Revenue-optimized distribution |
|
Buyers with coverage limits |
Geographic and coverage filters |
|
Leads that fail validation |
Quality gating and Quality Control |
|
Any of the above |
Waterfall and retries as the fallback |
A working configuration runs in four stages. Filters run first: quality gating and geographic coverage remove ineligible leads and buyers from the decision.
Eligibility runs second: capacity, schedule, and campaign rules remove buyers who cannot take the lead right now.
Ranking runs third: price, priority, weight, or bid order the remaining buyers, and revenue optimization compares the exclusive and shared scenarios those buyers make possible.
Fallback runs last: the waterfall, retries, and Quality Control handle whatever the first delivery attempt returns.
A home services seller can run all four on one campaign. A lead passes duplicate and phone checks and matches to buyers whose service territories include the consumer's ZIP. One will take the lead exclusively at $100, and three will take it semi-exclusively at $40. Revenue optimization selects the semi-exclusive scenario at $120, and the postback record shows which of the three accepted.
Each stage is a separate setting, and each can change without touching the others.
Routing performance shows up in three records. Delivery history shows where the lead was attempted. Response history shows what each buyer returned. Postback history shows what happened after acceptance.
Together they answer why a buyer received or missed a particular lead.
A semi-exclusive scenario that wins the revenue comparison and then loses one of three buyers to timeout on most leads earns $80, and the postback record shows it ahead of the monthly revenue report. A waterfall that reaches its third buyer on 20% of leads is a reason to look at the first two.
The LeadExec advanced lead routing page covers the full method list, the Ping/Post model, revenue-optimized distribution, and the delivery and postback history that supports it all.
Which lead routing method is best?
The best method depends on the buyer arrangement. Contracted buyers with fixed shares call for weighted or priority routing. Several buyers at known prices call for price-based routing with a waterfall. Buyers who bid per lead call for Ping/Post. Leads that can sell once or several times call for revenue-optimized distribution. Most sellers run more than one across campaigns.
What is the difference between lead routing and lead distribution?
Lead routing is the decision about where a lead goes and in what order. Lead distribution is the act of sending it to that destination. A routing method ranks eligible buyers; distribution delivers the lead to the buyer the method selected. Lead distribution software covers both, along with the filters, fallbacks, and history that connect them.
When should a lead seller use Ping-Post?
Ping-Post fits sellers with multiple buyers whose lead price changes per lead. A ping sends partial lead data, buyers return bids or rejections, and the seller posts the full lead to the selected buyer. Sellers with fixed contracted prices and stable buyer lists have less to gain from bidding and more from priority or weighted routing.
How does revenue-optimized distribution choose between exclusive and shared sales?
It compares the combined revenue of each eligible scenario for the lead. One exclusive buyer at $100 yields $100. Three semi-exclusive buyers at $40 yield $120. LeadExec selects the $120 scenario. LeadExec runs the comparison on each lead using the revenue model set for the campaign, so the same campaign can sell one lead exclusively and the next one shared.
Can routing methods be combined?
Yes. A typical configuration runs quality and geographic filters first, capacity and schedule eligibility second, a ranking method such as price, priority, weight, or bid third, with revenue optimization comparing the exclusive and shared scenarios, and a waterfall or retry rule as the fallback. Each stage is configured separately.