Want to know exactly what online lead generation can do for advertisers and publishers? Learn more about the latest technological marketing tool to hit our shores.

Get ready, Britain. A new form of customer acquisition has invaded the interactive space. It's called 'Online Lead Generation' and for those of you who haven't heard of it, you will soon. It's already caught on in the U.S. with top brand advertisers and publishers like P&G, Pepsi, Disney, The New York Times, Weather.com and AllRecipes. And it's one of the fastest growing online advertising vehicles, topping $1.6 billion in spending in 2007 according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

So what is 'Online Lead Generation' and why all the buzz? The answer depends on whether you're an advertiser/agency or a publisher.

Online lead generation for advertisers
Unlike search or banner ads, which essentially deliver anonymous clicks to a website, online lead generation enables advertisers to collect detailed contact information and permission to contact interested consumers. Advertisers use it to build their in-house database in order to drive sales and fuel ongoing CRM initiatives.

The process works by presenting consumers with a branded advertisement and a contact form while they are visiting a website. If interested, individuals provide the advertiser his or her relevant information and explicit permission to be contacted. Priced on a cost-per-lead basis, online lead generation is quite simply the most cost-efficient vehicle available to build a database. It's also the all-important first step in beginning a relationship with consumers, since its sole purpose is obtaining an individual's permission to receive marketing communications from your company.

That's why advertisers in nearly every type of industry (and their agencies) are utilising online lead generation. For example, CPG marketers use online lead generation for request-based product sampling and brand loyalty initiatives such as delivering product usage suggestions and recipes via a newsletter. Pharmaceutical companies use online contact forms to identify ailment sufferers and drive them into their doctor's office for a prescription consultation and sample. Retailers use it to deliver sales notices and seasonal promotions to drive traffic to their stores or site. And so on.

Not surprisingly, the increasing ad revenue being spent in the category has caused an influx of new networks to crop up, which may complicate an advertiser's decision on choosing a lead generation provider. As a starting point, advertisers and agencies should work with ad networks that have two key characteristics: a full service creative staff with the ability to create and optimise campaigns, and the ability to generate a high volume of high quality leads. The latter encompasses a variety of capabilities, including targeting offers based on demographic data, like gender and age, to ensure they are shown to the right consumer; providing robust data validation to weed out leads up front that may not convert; and sending leads in real-time so advertisers can follow up quickly for higher conversion rates.

Online lead generation for publishers
For most publishers, opportunities to monetise visitors to their websites have essentially been limited to display -- banner and search ads. Online lead generation represents a new revenue source because it's typically incorporated into a site's registration path. Specifically, publishers can generate incremental revenue that scales with their membership growth by presenting targeted online lead generation offers post-registration. For example, if a consumer visits Weather.com and registers for a free weather alert email, he will be presented with lead generation offers that are targeted based on his registration information. The consumer can opt in to receive additional information on products or services from any advertiser he selects or choose to skip the offers. Networks hosting the offers will share revenue with publishers based on offer selections.

As with advertisers, the abundance of networks offering lead generation can be daunting. As a starting point, publishers should work with ad networks that have two key characteristics: seamless integration in the registration path and predictive modelling to ensure offer relevancy for higher quality leads and higher revenue for the publisher.

Unlike banner and search ads where a click-through takes consumers to another site, online lead generation offers should be presented in a controlled progression path that is seamlessly integrated to match a publisher's site and preserve the site's consumer experience. Networks should allow consumers to easily skip any offer they aren't interested in and proceed to the page of their choice.

Equally important for a successful program is to make sure you are getting the right offers in front of the right consumers. Toward that end, the network should have a complex predictive system that matches offers with the consumers it determines are most likely to convert based on robust demographic, behavioural and transactional data. In the end, this generates not only better results for the advertiser, but more relevant advertising for the consumer and additional revenue for the publisher.

All in all, online lead generation may be an unfamiliar process with an unusual new name, but at its heart it is something advertisers and publishers have been doing for ages: matching advertisers with potential buyers. In any case, it won't be unfamiliar to you for long.

Gayle Guzzardo is senior vice president, product management at Q Interactive.