There is a little known layer that exists between your computer and the company you are visiting on the web.
LeadiD exists within that layer, unknown to most but sitting in a lucrative niche.
Based in Ambler, the B2B lead certification company recently closed $1.7 million in funding led by
Genacast Ventures.
Ross Shanken, who founded the company and presides as CEO over 11 employees, has developed a way to weed out bad leads online. LeadiD makes its money operating as a go-between for companies looking to sell products or services and their potential customers. "We don't generate leads and we don't buy leads," explains Shanken, who says LeadiD is changing the industry with its patent pending lead certification system.
Let's say you are doing research on finding a lawyer. You fill out a form on a LeadiD participating website, and a unique 36 character identifier is assigned to that online event. The equivalent of a car's VIN, the ID lives with the lead.
By contrast, lead buyers are used to dealing with so-called black hat lead generators, who may be selling a lead generated by typing in a name and address from the white pages, or a lead that doesn't have true consumer intent behind the action. These unreliable bits of information are not going to create sales.
Shanken, while employed at TARGUSinfo, says he saw an opportunity in the lead space. "A bank might buy a mortgage lead for $50, call that lead, and find out it's not the person listed. It's a bad lead. There were operational inefficiencies. We started scoring data using demographic information, with a model that showed how likely a person was going to buy a certain product. It became clear that Targus did a good job of cleaning up the data, but had no purview into the intent of the customer."
Since its inception in January 2011, LeadiD has made a name for itself in the industry as an independent neutral third party, says Shanken. LeadiD and its clients are able to know definitely where data is from and where it traveled to prior to the ultimate recipient of the data.,"It's an authentic lead with an authentic consumer. Insurance carriers, schools, automotive companies, law offices, and more are buying data that has a Lead ID and in real time can run a kind of Carfax report."
Shanken reports that there are now over 600,000 Lead IDs created every day, and emphasizes the concept of trust in the transaction. LeadiD's revenue is largely generated through subscription fees based on expected volume, although it's also possible to pay per LeadiD audit.
Now, Shanken says five of the nation's top 10 for-profit schools are clients, and that number will rise to eight of the top 10 in the next three months. There's similar growth in the auto insurance and legal industries. LeadiD will use the Genacast funds to expand the business through hiring and marketing.
Source: Ross Shanken, LeadID
Writer: Sue Spolan