Best Leads Practices Recommended

With an eye towards safeguarding private consumer data as well as improving operational efficiency, the Interactive Advertising Bureau is recommending that all lead generation advertisers adopt the Lead Generation Data Transfer Best Practices recently released from the bureau’s Lead Generation Committee. IAB hopes the guidelines will help standardize the transfer and receipt of data between advertisers and lead generation service providers.

“These Best Practices are the latest component of the IAB’s longer-term initiative to educate both advertisers and publishers on security and operational best practices,” an announcement Thursday stated.

At least 38 states require that borrower prospects be notified when a data breach has occurred — with variance in scope and complexity among states, the association explained. The recommended standards will help advertisers and lead generators comply with applicable state and federal laws, rules, and regulations.

Lead generation was a $1.3 billion business last year, according to IAB, which boasts 300 members who are responsible for 86 percent of online advertising in the United States.

Lead companies should transfer and receive all data in an encrypted format, the best practices indicated. If real time data transfer is unavailable, then batch data should be transferred through a secure FTP such as SSL and X.509 certificates — as standard FTP is inadequately secured. Alternatives include PGP or other public key-based cryptology protocols with a minimum of 128-bit encryption.

In addition, all advertisers and lead generation companies should use a common format and setup, use no redirects to other pages and avoid batch delivery when possible.

A number of other data formats were also recommended and are available online.

“We urge all advertisers to adopt these best practices to continue the momentum of the lead generation industry as protectors of consumers’ privacy and innovators in improving ROI for advertisers’ marketing strategies,” Gayle Guzzardo, chairman of the committee and an executive for Q Interactive, said in the statement.

In addition to Q Interactive, other member companies to reportedly endorse the practices include 360i, Active Response Group. AMC On-line Media Services, AzoogleAds, Geary Interactive, Motive Interactive, Permission Data, Return Path, SendTec, TARGUSinfo, ValueClick, Inc. and WebTrends.