Lead Buying is Illegal In January 2025?
Andy Greene
15-30% of your email list is made up of vacant emails. You wouldn't send a letter to a vacant house, so why are you sending emails to vacant email addresses. List cleaning tells if an address exists, not if it is active
This is an article I wrote in May of 2024. I am reposting it here because I've had a lot of people email me about it in the last 2 weeks.
Lead buying, Illegal? Not quite. But many lead buyers are going to have to change their tactics + ping post is going the way of the dodo bird. Everyone needs to become a lead generator. Period.
I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Check with your lawyer before doing anything ever and never trust anything you read on the Internet.
I talk to so many companies that do not understand the meteor that is coming for lead buying.
FCC’s recent ruling on lead generation significantly alters the ability to leverage purchased leads for marketing and sales efforts. Organizations must get “one-to-one” consent before contacting consumers, meaning organizations that purchase leads must get explicit, individual consent from each consumer before contacting them. This eliminates the ability to leverage leads from mass marketing campaigns based on generic lead forms.
Not in 1 in 100 people I talk to understand the full implication of this change. Ping post buying is going bye bye. You have to have specific consent from each consumer. You can’t get the consent certificate from the lead seller or aggregator, you need to have your own consent.
Here are some myths
Ehhh! Wrong. Their consent doesn’t pass onto you. The only way you will be able to buy from 3rd party sellers is if there is consent for you as well as them. You can’t borrow consent from lead generators or aggregators.
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2. “I am B2B this doesn’t affect me”
Do you contact people via phone? Then this applies to you B2B or B2C.
3. What is this FCC going to come after me?
It is actually litigators that will sue you. If they appear bad with DNC lawsuits, wait until this ruling comes into play.
The general reaction of people when I tell them this is a yawn and “yeah, whatever”.
I’m purely writing this article to timestamp when I warned people and also to say there is a compliant way to do this.
If you aren’t sure how to do these steps, email [email protected] and I can show you.