- Sector: Internet
- CEO: Nick Chapman
- Website: www.leadpoint.co.uk
- Year founded: 2005
- Country: London, UK
- Five-year revenue growth: 21,801%
- CAGR: 385%
Founded in 2005 in a small office in London's Soho, LeadPoint is a pioneer in the online lead-generation industry, which allows hundreds of thousands of voice and data leads to be traded each month between buyers and sellers. Its focuses on financial service providers, offering retail products, such as mortgages, insurance, and pensions.
The system is based on a model first developed in the United States, through which buyers purchase targeted leads in real time - mostly generated online - that have been pre-verified to a high standard. LeadPoint then earns commission on each trade. "Lead generation is a few years ahead in the United States, so we've taken a lot of their insights on how consumers behave online and buyers and sellers interact,” says Nick Chapman, LeadPoint's UK Managing Director.
An important part of this knowledge has been used to help buyers maximise the value of their leads and make a better return on their investment. "We try to educate our buyers on improving the process that occurs once the leads have been bought,” says Chapman. "More than any other factor, this makes the greatest difference to how successful they are."
For larger clients this means acting as a consultant, and having regular meetings to see how leads are performing and being used. It also means making a range of online resources available that buyers and sellers can learn from. To this end, LeadPoint has worked closely with the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) to produce best practice guidelines and white papers on the subject.
LeadPoint also offers buyers and sellers the opportunity to connect directly, even at the risk of disintermediation. "Our job is to prove that the value of the tools we provide is high enough for us to be completely transparent with our customers,” says Chapman. "There's a risk that lower prices will undermine what we do, but we find that buyers and sellers want to continue using our platform and our tools.”
Chapman attributes his firm's success to three factors: the advantage of being a thought leader in the market and shaping the way it develops; having a team of like-minded individuals to drive the company forward; and finally, having a quality product that is always cutting edge.