The term ping tree software gets thrown around in the lead business pretty often, but can carry a different meaning depending on who you’re talking to. It’s like the term water fountain. Much of the country pictures an outdoor decoration or the dancing waters at the Bellagio while your California friends insist it’s the faucet that you drink water from at public places. (And if you’re visiting our Madison, WI office, unless you call it a bubbler, no one will know what you’re talking about.) So before we dive into the problems you run into when running your business through ping tree software, let’s lay out a working definition with which to operate.
Common Ping Tree Software Issues
Ping tree software allows you to plug into a pre-defined network of lead buyers and sellers. This is drastically different than ping post software such as that found in the boberdoo.com lead distribution system. While the ping post process remains virtually the same with ping tree software as with ping post software, much of your flexibility is restricted. To learn more about the ping post process or advanced ping post software, check out our ping post pages. While ping tree software can be useful if you’re just getting started in the lead industry, it’s important to know the issues it presents.
1. Your software provider can carve margins
Because you are plugging into the network that the ping tree software provider created, they are the middle man in every transaction. While you are sending your pings and gathering bids, they are standing between you and the buyer to carve their own profit margin on every lead. That means less profit for you on every lead you sell.
2. You can’t build your own buyer network
With ping tree software, you must rely only on the buyers supplied to you. This certainly limits your ability to form new business relationships and find buyers that will pay top dollar for your leads. Additionally, what if there are no buyers in the network that accept your specific leads or the geographic area your are marketing to? The answer is simple: you’re out of luck.
3. It's a buyer’s market
Because ping tree software provides the easy solution to sell to lead buyers, these networks often build high competition between lead sellers. When supply rises and demand remains the same, only one thing can happen: the price per lead drops. Because of the high volume, buyers no longer have to bid top dollar for your leads, driving your profit margins and total revenue into the ground.
4. Growth Ceiling
As some of the previous points have alluded to, ping tree software puts a cap on how much your business can grow. With reduced profit margins on each lead and restrictions on who you can sell leads to, your business will only perform as well as the network dictates.
What’s the alternative to ping tree software?
The best way to run a lead business via ping post is with ping post software. Ping post software differs from ping tree software by giving you control of the entire ping post process as well as your lead buyers and sellers. Why plug into someone else’s network when you could build your own, aggregate higher bids and ultimately make much more money per lead sold? The most successful lead companies utilize ping post software rather than ping tree software and are able to totally optimize their lead flow.
However, we don’t want to completely deter you from ping tree software. If you are brand new to the lead industry and have no buyer or seller connections, ping tree software may be a good place to get started. Once you get the hang of things and start making more connections, weaning your leads off of your ping tree software and to your own ping tree built through your ping post software will make you much more money.
If you are interested in learning more about ping post software and how it can help you optimize your lead business and increase your revenue-per-lead, please give us a call at 800-776-5646 or click the red Contact Us tab. We have clients utilizing our software in all the major ping post verticals and would be happy to show you exactly how you can maximize your business with our technology.
boberdoo.com has been building lead distribution software since 2001. Our unparalleled experience has helped us build the most sophisticated solution on the marketing while retaining the ability to cater to even the smallest businesses. If you are running a lead business, there is no better solution to help you run your back-end operations than boberdoo.com.