I was knee-deep in LeadsCon festivities last week, trekking from one session to the next and chasing down attendees and company reps for meetings, when my coworker pinged me via email. It read, "Matthew Lesko of 90's era infomercial fame is at LeadsCon...[he] might make for a fun interview. Let me know if you want me to reach out to him." Distracted by my jam-packed schedule, I responded, "That'd be fun. I can try to meet up with him tomorrow for an interview." It wasn't until later, when I sat down to research Lesko and come up with some questions to ask him, that my brain switched from "frazzled conference mode" to "instant recognition" when I pulled up a picture of him. My mouth dropped open. Holy crap. I was going to interview The Question Mark Suit Guy. 

Last week I attended my first ever LeadsCon conference. I'm no stranger to conferences and trade shows--having worked in Internet marketing for several years, I've experienced a number of events from an attendee, speaker, and exhibitor's perspective. However, I'm fairly new to lead gen so LeadsCon was a unique experience and made me feel like a kid on her first day of school all over again. The networking and learning value felt new and fresh, and I emerged from Las Vegas with quite a few takeaways. 

Earlier this week Leads360 released their annual lead industry report detailing how the mortgage, education, and insurance lead gen verticals did in 2011. The insurance industry faced some tough challenges throughout the year, including a struggling economy and a spike in natural disasters that caused an "unprecedented $38.6 billion in property and casualty losses," resulting in an estimated $75 billion in economic losses.

Leads360, the industry's largest lead management software provider, announced their second annual top lead provider award winners at LeadsCon yesterday afternoon. I was fortunate to sit down with Ryan McClintock, insurance vertical manager for Leads360, and talk about the company, their software, and their lead provider awards. 

Jay Gierak and Nathan Labenz from Stik.com gave a presentation about understanding the future of online media. Stik.com is a site that offers personalized referrels for both consumers and professionals. Their discussion primarily focused on what Google has been doing lately with social search and how "social discovery" will soon drive major changes in the lead gen industry. 

Before LeadsCon broke out into sessions, attendees spent the morning listening to keynotes, roundtable discussions, and large-scale presentations. One of the more robust conversations was between Patrick Quigley, CEO of Vantage Media, Damien Dovi from BIA Digital Partners, Michael Betz from Strayer University, and Brandon Huff, Vice President of Commerce at Yahoo!. The four gentlemen engaged in a discussion moderated by Jay Weintraub about how consumers have evolved and why online customer acquisition has to shift and adapt with them.

With a couple sessions already having run long, John DeMayo got things back on schedule by powering through an intensely focused presentation on practices for weeding out questionable (read: crappy) leads. Here’s the main takeaway with his 8 things you should avoid when buying leads.

Last night's Lead Buyer Summit mixer sponsored by This or That Media was a great, fun way to kick off the LeadsCon Summit. Held at King Ink, the event featured small bites, free drinks, and a tattoo parlor where you could get branded with the LeadsCon logo to commemorate your time at the conference in Sin City (don't worry, the tattoos were spray-on, but I'm sure the King Ink employees would have been all too eager to ink the real thing onto an attendee).