Highest CPL Rates in Entertainment and Health Verticals

Entertainment and health brands paid more than other sectors to obtain online leads that included “premium” information from consumers during the second half of 2009, according to a firm that promotes cost-per-lead advertising.

Pontiflex’s CPL report said entertainment companies paid an average of $3 per lead and health companies, $2.68, for premium information, defined as data such as a consumer’s telephone number and responses to custom questions such as, “Have you traveled to Hawaii in the past year?” In contrast, publishing companies paid 70 cents for a lead to grow their subscription lists for the period covering the last six months of 2009.

Overall, advertisers paid $2.72 per lead that included premium information in the second half of 2009 versus $3.36 during the second half of ’08, according to Pontiflex’s data. “This decrease can be attributed to more advertisers collecting limited information from the consumer upfront – and acquiring more information as their brands built trust with the consumer over a period of time.” the report stated.

Meanwhile, the cost-per-lead that included only basic information such as a person’s name, e-mail address, and postal address, averaged 81 cents during the second half of 2009, an increase of 19 cents or 31 percent.

In addition, Pontiflex said after capturing the marketing leads, brands engaged 48 percent of them on social and community sites during the three-month period ended Dec. 31, 2009. That percentage is more than double that of the same period in 2008, according to Arun Krishnan, VP, marketing at Pontiflex. The firm could not immediately provide detailed comparative data for 2008.

At this time, most advertisers tap lead generation first to obtain basic information from people, including an e-mail address – and then work to make a connection on a social network.

Only a few of Pontiflex’s clients use lead gen to collect Twitter account names. The firm said it doesn’t have permission to identify those clients.

Pontiflex’s data is based on a sample of 807 publisher Web sites across its network during the second half of 2009.