reference

The vocabulary, translated

These words get used openly at industry conferences and never once in front of the people they describe. Here's what they mean.

Aged lead
A lead resold weeks or months after submission at a steep discount. The reason calls resume long after you filled out a form.
Append (data append)
Matching a record against other datasets to fill in fields it lacked — attaching a phone number to an email-only record, for example. How companies get details you never gave them.
Co-registration (co-reg)
One signup that enrolls you with several companies at once, usually through a bundled offer or pre-checked box. You never interacted with the other brands.
Consent certificate
Evidence that you agreed to be contacted, generated by a service like TrustedForm or Jornaya. Held by the buyer to defend against TCPA claims; never provided to you.
Conversion rate
The share of leads that become customers. Drives what a buyer will pay, and why speed of contact matters so much.
Data broker
A company that collects and sells personal information about people it has no direct relationship with. Four states — California, Texas, Oregon, and Vermont — require them to register, and those registries are public.
Exclusive lead
Sold to exactly one buyer. More expensive for the buyer; fewer calls for you.
Lead
A packaged record of a person who signaled buying intent — contact details, qualifying answers, submission context, and consent evidence.
Lead generator (lead gen)
A company whose product is leads rather than the service being advertised. Many quote comparison sites are lead generators that never sell insurance or loans themselves.
List broker
An intermediary who licenses or sells segmented lists — "homeowners aged 45–65 who requested quotes in the last 90 days."
Non-exclusive / shared lead
Sold to multiple buyers simultaneously. Cheaper per buyer, and the reason a single form produces several callers.
Opt-in
The recorded act of agreeing to be contacted. In practice, a checkbox or a submit button beneath a sentence naming unspecified "partners."
Ping tree / ping post
The real-time auction that offers your submission to buyers in priority order and resolves in under a second. Why the phone rings almost immediately.
PPC lead
A lead sourced from paid search advertising. Expensive to acquire, so buyers work them aggressively to recover cost.
Prior express written consent
The TCPA standard that permits autodialed marketing calls. The legal function of that fine print under the submit button.
Suppression list
The list of people who must not be contacted. Enforced only within the company holding it — it does not propagate to other buyers of the same lead.
TCPA
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Sets rules for marketing calls and texts, with statutory damages up to $500 per violation and $1,500 for willful violations, uncapped — the reason consent evidence is so valuable to buyers.
Trigger lead
A lead generated when your activity signals imminent intent — for example, a credit inquiry flagging you as mortgage-shopping. Often produces calls you find inexplicable.

what you can do about it

Knowing how it works is step one. Step two is never typing your details into a form again.

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