Where can I get current and accurate information on the lead generation pricing (CPA) for a variety of financial services products online?

Not totally clear on what you are asking, but if the questions is; does giving out a referral code to an existing user in hopes that they would refer another work? My experience (largely in B2B software) is not all that well, at least not without some sort of incentive. Even if your user is super satisfied with the product/service you are providing, simply giving them a code to give another person doesn't necessarily drive them to make the handoff. Now, two things. First, if you either incentivize the existing user with say a discount on his next bill or a free goodie, then he'll be more likely to do it... Even better, if you do that, plus give the referred user some kind of benefit, like a discount on his first bill, free trial or other goody, then it can work rather well. Second, all that said, know that referrals in general are gold. You should test and do whatever you can to get referrals. Generally @Leads360 we found that providing really high quality customer service (more so than even the best product) lead to referrals. To that point, our sales people worked in tandem with customer service in this way. Whenever a CS person realized they gave a great customer experience they would let the sales person know and they would then reach out to that customer while still warm from the nice touch and simply ASK for a referral. I was always surprised when we could get referrals simply by asking. I like to stick with 1 referral at a time, just ask for 1 person to be email connected with, don't overwhelm them with the statement "hey, can you refer your friends and colleagues to us", be specific. Something like "I see on LinkedIn you're connected with John B from ACME corp, I'd really like to speak with him about our product, would be willing to make an introduction for me".

I know of a marketing executive at an online university. I will ask him your question and let you know what I find out. Cheers, Frank

Given that you are marketing your ability to build websites and mobile apps, your website lacks a lot of credibility as compared to other vendors offering similar services. A few specific examples: Links to what might be apps that your firm has previously built, link to almost illegible screenshots of appstore listings. This shows poor design decisions and raises significant concerns about why you chose to do this. Too much text that says nothing. There is a lot of text throughout your site that for all of its verbosity doesn't give much detail about what you do, why you're the best at it, and why you should be trusted. No customer testimonials. This is a big red flag. Generally, the website does nothing to inspire confidence that your firm is a quality provider of the services you are offering. I would suggest you focus on simplifying your website significantly, emphasizing whatever recent projects you have done where your customers are willing to offer written testimonials, and link directly to the sites and/or mobile apps.

Paid option: Do a paid press release on prweb.com. Free options: 1) To respond to reporters that are looking for content related to your product, subscribe to HARO (helpareporter.com) and check it daily and respond to relevant requests with information on your product. 2) To actively pitch your product story to reporters, first find the right ones: A) In google type in keywords relevant to your product. B) Click on the 'news' category C) filter the results by 'recent' or 'blog' Some journalists cover a particular topic, others cover particular region. Find the ones in each category relevant to your product. To contact them, look them up on Linkedin, Twitter, etc. In your correspondence, make sure you show them that you've read what they've written about in the past and describe your product and how it's relevant. They need reads / hits on the article to get paid, so make sure to frame your story in a way that would help them do that. If you'd like more specific advice on how to frame your product for particular stories, etc. let me know, Lee

(Background: I founded the largest marketplace for direct ad sales. Powers sites like Microsoft, Aol, Gawker, etc) If you want to sell ads directly to advertisers... that's awesome, but recognize it takes more work than just dropping AdSense on your site. I'm glad you're thinking of it like "how can I attract advertisers (customers) to do business with me?" I personally don't think gimmicks work well in the long run. It's all about the fundamentals. You are essentially a business (the website) that sells a product (the ad space / ability to reach your audience) to customers (the advertisers). All the normal fundamentals apply - you have to attract potential customers, sell them on your product, close the business, get repeat business, etc. So while a gimmick may work to get someones attention, if their experience of doing business with you is terrible they won't buy or won't come back. We believe the best way to attract, close and keep advertisers is to make your "products" as easy to find and purchase as possible. In the direct ad space, it is way too complicated - often requiring lots of emails and manual effort. Plus they have to find you to begin with. Some actionable stuff for you to do: * Do some customer validation. If you want to sell a product (the ad space), how do you know there is a market? Have you talked to potential advertisers about this? Do you have any pre-committed deals? Do your similar competitors do direct sales successfully? * Have a .com/advertise page and promote it well. You have to let people know you're open for business. Make it easy for people to find it. * Have a system that makes it easy to place/execute/manage actual ad orders. This is what we do at www.isocket.com. There are other tools for various needs, website sizes, costs, etc.