Anyone in their right mind who reads about, works towards or is rewarded because of the strong growth in online lead generation must surely wonder what loss of rational thought resulted in the commercialisation of “maximum scrub rates”. Discuss.
So, the first student to complete a BA in “The Beatles” has graduated. Were I lecturing at University and setting an examination for a “BA in Online Lead Generation”, I’d set the above question. But what would a good answer contain, and how would the good student build the arguments?
Personally, I’d be looking for examinees to consider the state of a market in which buyers are contracted into paying for garbage. I’d want to see arguments about the “market perception” that such a maximum sets, the potentially negative and “shady” marketplace in which sellers are unwilling to subject their goods and services to fair and reasonable . I’d also want to hear the arguments defending the commercial needs of the seller, explaining the real time eCPM reports and “yield optimisation” requirements of the lead selling business, balancing out against the arguments regarding eCPA and other conversion objectives of the lead buying business.
But nowhere, nowhere, would I expect a student writing in 2011 to summarise that maximum scrub rates remain relevant to the current lead generation marketplace. I’d expect informed and educated students to explain that sellers who require such contractual terms are inadequately tooled to ensure the quality of their goods, and seeking to solve their fundamental business problems with a “band aid” contract clause.
From a macro perspective, they might argue that such a clause betrays the lazy seller, and buyers who frequent such selling practices merely perpetuate a marketplace in which their purchase price averaging requires the quality suppliers to subsidise the poor, even if only for a short while. As with all market anomalies, they tend to correct, and so the arguments should seek a corrected vision of a future marketplace in which quality suppliers thrive, and poor suppliers diminish, or disappear entirely.
Were the students being examined in London, they should also be minded to consider whether maximum scrub rates are even tenable or legal in the UK. After all, general UK law allows any customer or consumer to refuse to pay for goods or services that are “not fit for purpose”. So, if a buyer specifies a data set, then the specifics need to be met, or any payment could be void. It seems that “maximum scrub rates” are a feeble attempt to supersede some basic consumer rights, and may not stand the test of legal review.
Of course, that teases us towards answering questions regarding the definition of a genuine lead, and I would expect the good scholar to discuss the specification of a lead, the method that would be used to validate and verify the spec, and the audit process that would be used to define “fit for purpose” and effectively conduct the transaction between seller and buyer.
Sure, I expect a passing paragraph (a short one) which doffs its cap to the “quick” way such a mechanism allows (or allowed) for a risk-balanced test between seller and buyer during the infancy of a market, but i would expect that to be dismissed rather more swiftly in favour of a system in which time-delimited (perhaps 24 hour) quality assessment periods replaced these false ceilings. I’d expect the negative connotations regarding a “shady” sector with shady business practices (perhaps on both sides) to concede ground to more sustainable and transparent conclusions, thereby lifting the veil and promoting transparency, clarity, enhances specification and reporting systems.
One word of caution from this examiner! I would give a “fail” to anyone who didn’t see the ever-nearing market state in which everyone involved in promotion of online lead generation agreed that if 100% of the lead delivery is rubbish, then the maximum scrub rate should be 100%. That seems far too sensible to be disputed. Hence, I would expect conclusions to echo the general consensus that there is no longer any real place for such a phrase on the insertion orders and contracts of professionals in this sector.
Anyone in their right mind who reads about, works towards or is rewarded because of the strong growth in online lead generation must surely wonder what loss of rational thought resulted in the commercialisation of “maximum scrub rates”. Discuss.
So, the first student to complete a BA in “The Beatles” has graduated. Were I lecturing at University and setting an examination for a “BA in Online Lead Generation”, I’d set the above question. But what would a good answer contain, and how would the good student build the arguments?