Over the last 18 months it is clear that there has been a huge rise in the volume of call center generated leads.  While the increase is clear to many, it’s not to all.  Many of the top lead providers now utilize call centers now to generate leads.  The good ones clearly acknowledge it and separate them from internet generated leads and give their clients/schools a choice as to receiving them or not.  However, as we all know too well by now, it’s harder to track source by affiliate channels and many of them (smaller affiliates) don’t mind operating without full disclosure as they don’t bear the client risk.  Also some may mix some into the flow to cover lead caps or open allocation. During our last survey less than 22% of schools (185+ of them) said they purchase call center generated leads and less than 15% thought that their lead aggregators were sending any.  While we would like to believe that we unfortunately know better. The top quality lead aggregators must continue to do what ever they can to verify strict compliance for their customers/the schools.  And the schools must start and/ or continue taking steps to verify source identity. Trust But Verify, a common business term stands true in this circumstance.  Schools should look to inquire with at least 5-10% of their purchased leads (from a mix of your providers) on how they heard about you, where they saw you, and more importantly if they were contacted via phone.  In addition, they need to ensure that they have protection in the IO’s with lead providers. Now, we ARE NOT saying that all call center generated leads are bad or that all vendors cheat, because clearly they are not and thats not true. Some of the highest converting leads can come from qualified call centers & warm transfers directly to schools.  We are simply stating that disclosure is way more important these days and ignorance of the source is no longer a valid excuse.  We need to look prior to the actual lead being generated/posted or warm transfer made, how was that data captured?  Under what pretense?  Was it just acquired contact data? Was it legally acquired?  Was it older leads potentially previously sold to another school?  Or maybe leads your school (or another one) previously deemed invalid? Point: be careful, trust but verify!   Any advice from marketers, schools or lead providers on how schools can better audit, improve and enforce  please share! Advice welcome, advertisements will be deleted!  ]]>