You may think that only people like mortgage brokers benefit from leads, but that just isn’t true.  Other types of businesses can benefit from leads, too.

Basically, buying a lead is where a company or agent pays for contact information for someone who has already expressed interest in their product or service, and is therefore more likely to become a customer.  An example is a site such as LendingTree.com, where someone who is looking for a loan enters their information into a Web form.  The website then sells this information (a "lead") to a bunch of different banks and brokers, who contact the potential customer with their deals.  Ostensibly the site is set up for the customer’s benefit, so that banks will compete for their business, but actually the company is benefitting by selling their information to the banks!

Anyway, a similar type of setup exists for online shopping sites, although it’s generally not thought of as leads.  Comparison shopping sites are places where a bunch of different retailers’ prices on an item are listed side-by-side.  The customer goes to the comparison shopping site to find the best price, clicks through, and buys it.  In most cases, the comparison shopping site gets a kickback or a cut of the profits from the sale, so in a way it’s kind of like selling leads.

For instance, say you’re looking for the best prices on aromatherapy soy candles.  You come to a comparison shopping page with listings from different retailers of soy candles.  If you click through and buy some richly scented candles from that page, the comparison shopping site will then get a "taste" of the sale.  In this situation, the biggest difference from regular leads is that the agent pays for the leads up front, whether or not they go anywhere, whereas the comparison shopping site gets money only if the customer completes the sale!

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