LeadGen Economy

Alex Paddington

There's an industry that touches insurance, mortgages, solar, legal, and home services - but operates almost entirely in the shadows. Billions flow through it annually. Most people outside it don't know it exists. This is the lead generation economy. Publishers capturing intent. Brokers routing data through real-time auctions. Buyers competing for the right to make contact. The mechanics are invisible, the margins are brutal, and the compliance landscape will destroy the unprepared.

  1. 15 JAN

    Email Deliverability Compliance, SPF, DKIM, DMARC

    This episode breaks down the seismic shift in email deliverability as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft implement mandatory authentication requirements for bulk senders. We explore the 5,000-daily-message threshold for permanent bulk sender classification and the new baseline of dual SPF and DKIM authentication coupled with mandatory DMARC records. The discussion dives into the technical mandates of RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe and the "death zone" for deliverability: the 0.3% spam complaint threshold. Finally, we explain how to monitor your status using the new binary "Pass/Fail" compliance model in Google Postmaster Tools to ensure your messages continue to reach the inbox.

    34 min

  2. 15 JAN

    California's Delete Act (SB 362) launches DROP

    California's Delete Act (SB 362) launches DROP on January 1, 2026—one deletion request now reaches all 545 registered data brokers simultaneously. The penalty math scales fast: $200 per request per day means 10,000 consumers times 10 days late equals $2 million exposure. Early enforcement has already hit National Public Data ($46K), S&P Global ($62.6K), and others. For lead sellers, the first visible impact isn't fines—it's patchy data: weaker appends, lower match rates, inconsistent enrichment. Suppression becomes a systems problem, not a compliance checkbox. Operators who treat 2026 as infrastructure work will still be profitable in 2028.

    39 min

  3. 23/12/2025

    Choose Your Lead Gen Entry Model

    Choosing the right entry model into lead generation determines everything that follows. We examine six distinct paths: affiliate publisher (lowest barrier at $5-10K), direct generator ($25-100K), vertical specialist, technology-first platform builder ($50-500K), service provider, and buyer-side entry. Each model carries different capital requirements, risk profiles, and timeline expectations ranging from 3 months to 3 years for profitability. Success depends on rigorously matching your entry model to your specific capital, skills, risk tolerance, and long-term goals. It covers vertical selection criteria including market size, regulatory complexity, and buyer accessibility. The discussion highlights that entry points should be viewed as launch trajectories rather than final destinations, with common progressions from affiliate to direct generator to vertical specialist as operators build proprietary knowledge and defensible competitive advantages.

    33 min

  4. 23/12/2025

    From Paper Leads to AI Agents

    The complete evolution of lead generation spans from physical direct mail and 1980s telemarketing through to modern AI-powered systems, revealing repeating patterns: innovation outpaces regulation, hot channels eventually commoditize, and intent, permission, and speed remain the only constants. Key milestones include the TCPA of 1991 (establishing consent requirements and private right of action), Go2.com's 1998 pay-per-click revolution, Google AdWords' quality score innovation, and Facebook's 2007 push marketing model enabling demand generation. Critical operational developments include ping-post systems that created real-time lead marketplaces, consent documentation tools like TrustedForm and Jornaya that became mandatory for legal defense, and carrier call blocking challenges post-2017. The current era features 84% of B2B companies using AI for lead generation with 50% volume increases and 47% conversion improvements reported. The discussion concludes with the dramatic FCC one-to-one consent rule saga, vacated by the 11th Circuit Court just three days before implementation, demonstrating how regulatory uncertainty continues to reshape the industry.

    48 min

  5. 23/12/2025

    Funding and Scaling the Lead Generation Float

    The critical "float problem" in lead generation creates a timing mismatch where you pay for traffic today but receive revenue 30-60 days later. We establish the 60-90 day reserve rule: operators need liquid reserves equal to two to three months of total operating expenses to survive cash flow disruptions. Bootstrapping strategies include revenue-funded growth, unit economics mastery, and the phased investment approach that minimizes risk through validation, optimization, and scale stages. External funding options include bank lines of credit, SBA loans, revenue-based financing (RBF), and angel investors. A cautionary tale highlights how early excessive dilution (50% equity for $250K) can poison cap tables and block future funding. Capital allocation frameworks span across stages and exit considerations, noting that PE buyers value revenue diversification, clean unit economics, and bulletproof compliance documentation when acquiring at 3-9x EBITDA multiples.

    30 min

  6. 23/12/2025

    Lead Generation Jargon Translated

    The technical vocabulary of lead generation directly determines pricing and risk. The core classifications covered include exclusive versus shared leads (exclusive commands 2-3x price premium), real-time versus aged inventory (leads lose 50% value every 24-48 hours), warm versus cold intent, and first-party versus third-party sourcing (90% match rate vs 50-60%). The holy grail is an exclusive, real-time, warm, first-party call lead, while every degradation in these factors causes exponential price drops. The market ecosystem includes publishers and affiliates on the supply side, brokers who take pricing risk by buying and reselling, aggregators who consolidate supply from hundreds of sources, and exchanges providing real-time bidding infrastructure. Understanding these terms is essential for contract negotiations, platform evaluation, and detecting when vendors use technical language to hide poor results. The example sentence about "18% returns on aged shared inventory because EPL dropped below floor" represents a real-time health report that incomprehensible jargon can obscure from those unfamiliar with the terminology.

    37 min

  7. 23/12/2025

    Lead Generation Graveyard - Nine Fatal Mistakes

    Nine common mistakes destroy lead generation businesses, organized into three tiers: fatal, expensive, and growth-stalling. The fatal tier includes TCPA compliance negligence (average class action settlement $6.6M, with 67% increase in 2024 cases and 112% jump in Q1 2025), under-capitalization causing the cash flow crunch (82% of business failures stem from cash flow issues), and single buyer dependency creating dangerous concentration risk where 50%+ revenue from one buyer transforms you into an outsourced marketing department. These failures are predictable and documented, with professional plaintiffs maintaining dozens of phones to generate lawsuits, making TCPA litigation a business model itself. Prevention requires consent documentation via TrustedForm certificates retained for five years, pre-contact scrubbing against litigator lists, maintaining six months of operating expenses plus 20% buffer, and diversifying buyer relationships before crisis hits. The key insight is that every lesson learned cost someone else millions of dollars, making pattern recognition essential for survival.

    31 min

  8. 23/12/2025

    Lead Generation The Honest Math

    A critical gap exists between dashboard metrics showing gross profit and the actual P&L reality that often reveals net losses. The economics are broken into three realms: generation (publishers creating leads), distribution (brokers managing inventory and capital flow), and buying (end clients calculating lifetime value). The foundational equation is simple - if your cost per lead is lower than your sell price, you have a business; if not, you don't. Everything else is optimization around this equation. Current benchmarks reveal Google Ads average CPC at $4.66 (up 10% YoY) with average CPL around $70, while Facebook offers 68% cheaper leads at $22-28 CPL but with fundamentally different user intent. Vertical selection dictates fate more than optimization skills - legal services pay $130+ CPL because case values justify it, while local services operate at $30 CPL. Operators often focus on revenue and volume while ignoring hidden costs like returns, bad debt, and working capital float that destroy paper profits.

    53 min
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About

There's an industry that touches insurance, mortgages, solar, legal, and home services - but operates almost entirely in the shadows. Billions flow through it annually. Most people outside it don't know it exists. This is the lead generation economy. Publishers capturing intent. Brokers routing data through real-time auctions. Buyers competing for the right to make contact. The mechanics are invisible, the margins are brutal, and the compliance landscape will destroy the unprepared.

Information

  • Creator
    Alex Paddington
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    62
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Alex Paddington
  • Show Website
    LeadGen Economy