Just over two years ago, myself and three other lead generation practitioners formed the Online Lead Generation Association (OLGA). We immediately began talking about best industry practices at a time when no one was talking about such things. Two years later, lots of people are talking best practices, particularly since the federal government and various state attorneys general have gotten
into the act.

So, after a few high-profile enforcement actions, the latest being that of ValueClick, where do things stand? Over the last month or so, OLGA and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) have collaborated on the IAB’s recently published Best Practices  document and the two groups are still discussing OLGA’s insistence on stronger consumer protection regarding the marketing of personally identifiable information.

Meanwhile, regulatory officials have picked up the pace. Last fall, at the OMMA East Expo in New York, OLGA hosted a panel discussion on regulatory issues. One of our panelists was Leonard Gordon, Regional Director of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). While Len was very circumspect in what he could say, owing to the FTC’s ongoing probes, he did say several times that the feds would very much prefer that the lead generation industry police itself. Failing that, he allowed that the FTC would go after those entities involved with sketchy incentivized lead generation offers who have the deepest pockets, namely advertisers and big Web sites. After all, the FTC reports to Congress and must justify its activities and budget, so the FTC will go where the most money is.

Following the OMMA conference, the office of the Florida Attorney General said in an interview with ClickZ.com that it would be going after not only deceptive lead-gen companies, but advertisers and Web sites involved in any way with deceptive lead-gen offers. Think about it: potential lawsuits against companies like Facebook and Netflix. Now think about the chill this could have on the lead-gen space, as advertisers decide to pull back, in knee-jerk fashion, because they don’t always know where their offers are running and don’t want to put the effort into finding out, which is their right and duty. This is why industry self-regulation needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Call me a skeptic, but regardless of what guidelines the IAB or OLGA publish, I believe there will always be “black hat” lead-gen operators raking in big money while trying to stay one step ahead of the regulators. After all, some of the settlements we’ve seen with companies like Azoogle and World Avenue—a million dollars here, a million dollars there—are very small beer when you look at the revenue side of these operations. (I’d pay $1 million any time in exchange for the liberty of taking in $100 million.) As I write this, the FTC hasn’t released the final documents on its investigation and settlement with ValueClick. ValueClick has announced it will pay $2.9 million without admitting any guilt. So it looks like ValueClick will move ahead while promising that it will not do in the future what it denies having done in the past. Sure, we’ll get some new guidelines about the size and color of terms and conditions for “free” and other incentivized offers, and hopefully a company as prominent as ValueClick will lead the way to a better future.

I don’t think this takes the game far enough. My company routinely comes across incentivized offers that look for all the world like the same kind of offers with which the FTC and others consider misleading. These offers invariably bear the names of some of the country’s biggest marketers. As a result, I spend a fair amount of time explaining to advertisers what kind of due diligence they should be doing when planning and executing lead generation campaigns. Education is also one of the reasons OLGA exists. It is my personal opinion that OLGA needs to take the next step and lead the way to industry self-regulation. This could involve publicizing the most egregious incentivized offers and alerting advertisers of their presence within those offers. Lead generation has grown enormously over the years and has the potential to evolve much further. One reason for this future growth is because lead-gen works. Another is the eventual development of technology that will enable the smallest Web publishers and the smallest, most local advertisers (pizza parlors, car dealers, furniture stores) to manage their own lead-gen activities. Call it the “long tail” of lead generation. It’s bound to happen, but we all stand to reap the most benefits if our industry shines a spotlight on the Worst Practices at every opportunity.