FCC Lead Gen Rule Update likely to Disrupt an Industry

FCC Closes Lead Generator Loophole by REQUIRING One-to-One Consent!!

Companies like Yelp, Angi, Homeadvisor, Thumbtack, and the thousands of smaller "Lead Generation companies woke up to some very bad news recently.

General Consent

The FCC Closed a loophole that previously allowed lead companies to get "general" permission to call. The loophole allowed lead companies who got this permission to sell the leads to any business who was willing to pay and because the "general" permission was granted it was in a sense transferable to the buyer or buyers of the lead.

Multiple businesses would call one prospect and in most cases the prospect didn't really have a clue who or why someone was calling them.

One-to-One Consent

This loophole has now been closed. This means that EVERY lead generated has to be specifically generated for YOUR business. If a lead is generated online the prospect must KNOW and give consent to YOUR company specifically before calling.

If you call a prospect without this One-to-One consent you could be facing a lawsuit.

Repercussions

Once this rule is in full affect you can expect the following repercussions....

- An uptick in lawsuits as many lawyer will tout easy wins against companies who violated the law.

- The elimination of "Shared Leads" and shared lead pricing, this means that the cost per lead will go up.

- Prospects who enjoy making one inquiry and getting multiple calls will find themselves having to do more searching online to get price comparisons

- The cost for advertising will increase as the companies currently buying leads will seek an alternative, more people paying for ads will cause the prices to rise

- The cost for SEO will increase as well as companies currently buying leads will try to generate their own leads

How to Avoid Being Sued

- Make sure you are able to see where leads you are buying are being generated

- Make sure the prospect is specifically giving permission for your company to call/text them

- Be sure your company name/branding is on the lead generation page so their is no confusion who the prospect thinks they are dealing with.

What to do now?

This rule takes affect 6 months after publication in the Federal Register so you have a little time.

- Find other ways to obtain leads

- Beat the upcoming rush for paid ads and SEO so you can take advantage of lower pricing

- Consider going after more keywords, as the keywords these lead gen companies dominated will open up

- Consider a Performance Based SEO company who can start getting your company on the first page a Google for hundreds of keywords before your competitors begin to figure out what is happening.