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With CPALead about to go belly up any time now, it was only a matter of time before another CPA company developed gateway technology to take an industry on a plate. Leadbolt have taken up that challenge, and thus far have proven that Gateways don’t have to be for the shady type. I have known about Leadbolt for around a couple of months now, people kept asking my thoughts on them and to be honest I have never used them. But “Mike” contacted me through here and asked that I take a look. To be honest I am not sure where Mike stands in the company, but the fact that a CPA company is trying their best to reach out to publishers is a good move IMO. Often CPA companies play the game with all the cards, that they couldn’t care less if you don’t want to join them, but the fact a company is going out of their way to find publishers means that they actually value each and every person.
Anyway, onto the signup. It was pretty straight forward and I got approved almost instantly. I do know that Leadbolt review each publisher application manually. Which is a good thing since what really destroyed CPALead was giving everyone a free for all. As always, when applying for any CPA company just be honest. They know that not every publisher is a million dollar one.
Unfortunately I am not playing with gateways at the moment, I have enough on my plate. But that didn’t stop me having a little play around and creating a few test gateways.
First thing I notice is that you cannot use a custom skin. This is both good and bad. As far as I know, one of the problems with compliance in the CPA industry is people imitating other companies. I showed an example of it when people were using a gateway skin that looked exactly like Facebook. Another issue being that people just blatantly lie about the offers on the gateway. For example lets say that there is mobile offers, on the gateway skin (Or text), they write that all the offers are free and not to worry. Obviously ringtone offers are not, and then everyone gets pissed because the lead is now angry about being charged. Double edged sword however, because skinning your gateway is also one of the easiest ways to raise your profit margin. I guess it is an issue of do you want to make a tonne of money now using a custom skin, or do you want the company still here in a years time because they are complying with the advertisers wishes.
When all that is said and done however. They do have quite an array of pre-made skins which I presume are all good with the advertisers.
While creating your gateway, you also have to say what Category it falls under. Just look at this list… Surely they can’t accept everything there :
Adult, Alcohol, Gambling… Something tells me that advertisers don’t want to be seen around this. Could be wrong, who knows.
Annoyingly, You can add additional gateways to the same site. But it isn’t laid out that way. And the option to actually edit a gateway (And add one) is a bit confusing. I think they should segregate out completely that adding a site, is not adding a gateway. If you look up on the screen above, it is actually an option to add a site, not a gateway. But it still asks you to edit the skin etc. Anyway, bit more on that later.
Leadbolt don’t just work on Gateways, they have a few other options that intrigue me a bit. They have :
Gateway :
Your standard CPALead gateway. Basically what this entire review is about 
Overlay :
CPALead tried this, I don’t think it ever worked for them. Basically when you view the side, boxes of ads will come up. Sort of like a popup banner, but inside a lightbox. It does not “Lock” the content as such, a user can easily close it. Basically it is just a nice way of doing popup ads. You are still paid on a CPA basis, and from when I used them (once), they weren’t that profitable at all.
Banner Ads :
Interesting to say the least. Unfortunately there isn’t much written about this option, but I personally think it is an exciting prospect. Basically it shows CPA ads in a banner widget (Standard banner sizes). Now the huge advantage of using Leadbolt over doing your own CPA ads from other networks, is that firstly, you can now geo target. You can do this yourself, infact I have written guides on how to do it, but it involves thinking up every possible country, and finding an offer for them. Leadbolt do this for you. Ontop of that, you also have to remember that they also rotate offers in based on the highest performing. Now I am not sure on the algorithm, but this could be good or bad. Good because they are finding the highest converting offers. But also bad because (as I suspect), the “highest converting” offers are worked out based on the data from the gateway. Thus the banner ads could actually have a CRAP click through rate, but a high conversion ratio from the landing page. So overall it may not be the best money maker. A bit hard to explain in words, but I hope you get what I mean.
I have put a banner ad on a fairly high traffic site of mine to see how it goes. It gets anywhere between 2 – 5k unique visitors a day, and the position I have the ad in (usually) has quite a high CTR. To be honest, I have dabbled in these sorts of things before, and it hasn’t worked out well. Showing CPA’s are often a bit hit and miss, and can take weeks to gather enough data to really make call. Because the CPA could be worth up to $13 (For a ringtone say), then it is hard to see how you are progressing. Since once day you could get 3 leads and it could boost your crap day to a good one. 3 Leads probably doesn’t sound all too much, but this is a content site, you are comparing to adsense
Back onto the review.
After adding a site, it has to be approved. Once again, compliance and all that, still kind of annoying. Once your site is approved however, you can make any number of gateways for that one site. It is also important to note that while the widget has to be reviewed before it can be used, I don’t think there is any sort of domain tracking implemented on the widget code. So I can’t see why you couldn’t just take an approved widgets code, and stick in on another site. They would eventually find out I suppose, but there is still nothing stopping you from doing it in the first place.
Keeping with the locked down theme of the network, you cannot see any offers that will show on your gateway. Kind of frustrating because one of the cool things when running with CPALead, is that you could block offers that didn’t work out well for you. Well, you can’t even see which offers are available on Leadbolt….
Note : Apparently they have an “elite” section when you start earning enough that allows you to do this. Possibly a rumour. But there is a message on the publisher dashboard regarding high earners getting in touch with them.
Payment terms are net 15 which makes a refreshing change. But for some reason referrals payments (If you refer a friend to the network, you gain 10% of their earnings), are paid on a net 45 basis. Not really sure on the logic there. If the publisher gets paid, then the money is paid and gone. Not sure what the reasoning is to hold back the referrers cash flow.
Overall :
Overall feeling is that Leadbolt is on the right path. Locking down everything and making sure everything complies with their terms is a good way to make sure advertisers don’t throw a tantrum. But at the same time, I feel that the interface is incredibly confusing. The reporting graphs go all over the place (You have to go through several pages to find them), and setting up a gateway is a bit confusing with you having to add a site first (And yet still select a subset of gateway options..). Interfaces only get better over time and user feedback, and to be fair, I didn’t actually use the gateway for anything. So signup to Leadbolt and let me know where your earnings are compared to other networks.
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