Defining OLG: IAB Online Lead Generation Council Update

At last week’s meeting of the Internet Advisory Bureau’s (IAB) OLG Council the big debate was about how some advertisers, media agencies and publishers are misrepresenting OLG.

At its core, OLG is a cost effective advertising channel that provides high quality, high volume leads, engineered to convert into actual sales. While there can be no doubt about the definition I have just etched out in digital stone, the process involved in executing OLG campaigns properly across multiple channels can only be defined by dedicated OLG practitioners (like myself) who are breaking new ground and putting the methodology in place. For example, my particular blend of OLG magic has a strong foundation in traditional full service marketing practice, hence the reason I refer to it as Lead Marketing.

To hit the right note in your OLG campaigns make sure you get the right practitioner to do the job and not a company who can only deliver half of the goods. Here’s a list of who knows what and where to look for it:

Advertisers - With the maze of options available to them, advertisers are largely in the dark about how to design and manage winning multi channel lead generation campaigns.

Media Agencies (particularly the larger ones who should know better) – Often lump OLG in with other areas of marketing like online marketing or generic digital advertising rather than treating it as a separate entity and a channel in it’s own right. In addition, media agencies will measure an OLG campaign according to a fixed KPI (e.g. either CPA or CPL) rather than adopting a more flexible approach to measuring OLG campaigns that takes into account the broad price range of leads and the speed at which the leads are processed.

Publishers – it’s far too easy for new OLG companies to establish themselves and cobble together a decent initial test selection of leads. However, unscrupulous ones bump up their volumes by supplementing their leads with those of other publishers behind your back. This is known in the industry as blind broking.