Publisher Guide: Getting Started

How ping/post affects affiliate payouts

On a rev share program, your pay is a share of what each sold lead sells for, and ping/post is the process that sets that price. This guide explains the auction from an affiliate's point of view. By the end you will be able to describe what happens in the seconds after a form is submitted, name the factors that raise or lower a lead's price, and change the parts of your traffic that affect them.

Published 5 October 2026. How we write and check guides: editorial standards.

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Ping/post in one paragraph

Ping/post is a two-step way of selling a lead in real time. In the ping step, a network sends buyers the details of a lead without the person's contact information: for example the state, the type of accident or project and the answers from the form. Each buyer whose filters match replies with a bid, or declines. In the post step, the network sends the full lead, with contact details, to the buyer chosen from those bids. The whole process takes seconds. Summit routes every lead this way, in real time, to a network of 40+ national buyer and supply partners, as described on the publisher program page.

For a deeper look at the process itself, read ping/post explained and ping/post vs direct post. This guide focuses on what it means for your pay.

Why the same traffic earns different amounts

Because each lead is priced by the buyers who want it at that moment, two leads from the same ad can sell for different amounts, and one can sell while the other does not. The lead's price is not fixed in advance. It depends on which buyers are active, what they are looking for, and how many of them want the same lead.

With rev share, your payout follows that price. A lead that several buyers want earns more than a lead only one buyer wants. A lead that no buyer wants is unsold, and unsold leads are not paid. The how pay-per-lead affiliate programs work guide explains the full set of lead statuses.

What raises or lowers the price of a lead

These factors are common across ping/post markets. Some you control directly, some you influence through targeting, and some you cannot change.

Factors that affect the sale price of a lead in a ping/post auction
Factor	Effect on price	Your control
Match with buyer filters	Leads outside buyer filters get no bids	High: your ad decides who fills in the form
State and location	Buyer demand differs by state and area	High: you choose where to target
Number of buyers bidding	More matching buyers usually means more competition for the lead	Medium: targeting matched offers and states helps
Time of day and day of week	Buyers bid when they can work the lead, and some pause outside working hours	Medium: you can day-part your campaigns
Form answers	Complete, consistent answers match more filters	Medium: copy that sets clear expectations helps
Duplicates	A person already submitted recently is worth little or nothing to buyers	Medium: frequency caps and exclusions help
Buyer budgets and caps	A buyer that has reached its limit stops bidding	Low: you cannot see or change these

Buyer filters in MVA and home improvement differ by buyer and change over time. The exact qualifying criteria for your offers are confirmed with each publisher during onboarding.

Steps to sell more of your leads

You cannot set the auction price. You can send leads that more buyers want. Work through these steps in order.

01
Find your unsold pattern
Split your reports by sub ID and look for campaigns, states or ads where many leads go unsold. That is where the auction is telling you something.
02
Tighten the message
Make the ad describe the person the offer is for. In MVA, name the accident and a recent time frame. In home improvement, name the project and the home.
03
Shift states
Move budget toward states where more of your leads sell, and test new states in their own ad sets. See geo-targeting by state.
04
Match your hours to buyers
If leads submitted late at night sell less often, reduce bids or pause then. See day-parting for lead gen campaigns.
05
Cut duplicates
Use frequency caps and exclude people who already converted, so the same person does not submit twice.
06
Check returns
A sold lead that comes back is deducted. Read why leads get returned and fix the cause.

Change one thing at a time and compare against the previous period, so you know which change moved your sold leads.

A worked example: reading an unsold pattern

Here is how the steps above look in practice. Say you run a car accident campaign on Meta with two ad sets, one for a group of southern states and one for a group of midwestern states, and three ads in each. Your sub IDs record the ad set and the ad.

You sort your report by sub ID and see that both ad sets produce leads, but the midwestern group has far more unsold leads.
You check the hours. The unsold leads in that group cluster late in the evening, when fewer buyers are active.
You check the ads. One ad, with a broad "need legal help?" angle, produces most of the unsold leads in both groups.
You make one change first: pause the broad ad and keep the two ads that name a recent crash.
After a fair period, you compare sold leads again. If the evening pattern remains, you test reduced bids in those hours next.

Each change targets one factor from the table, and each is measured before the next one starts. That is the whole method: find the pattern, name the factor, change one thing.

What a ping/post market means for planning

A fixed CPL program tells you in advance what an accepted lead earns. A rev share program on ping/post does not. That has two practical effects on how you plan.

Judge on sold leads and earnings, not on lead count. A campaign with fewer leads that sell well can beat one with more leads that do not.
Expect variation. Buyer demand moves through the day, the week and the season. Compare results over periods long enough to smooth out that movement.
Keep a margin. Bid on traffic so that a normal swing in sale prices does not turn a campaign from profitable to unprofitable.
Watch for shifts. When a stable campaign drops, check states and hours before you rewrite the ads. Demand may have moved, not your traffic.

If you want to compare this with fixed payouts, read rev share vs CPL.

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Why consent travels with the lead

In ping/post, the full lead goes only to the buyer chosen in the post step. The consent record needs to go with it, because the buyer is the one who calls. Summit captures TCPA consent on every lead and attaches a consent certificate. This is one reason the consent language on Summit landers must not be changed or removed. The FTC has looked at how consumer information moves through lead generation, including in its Follow the Lead workshop. For the federal consent rules, see 47 CFR 64.1200. This is general information, not legal advice.

Common mistakes

Expecting a fixed price per lead. On rev share with ping/post, each lead is priced by the auction.
Blaming the auction for unsold leads without checking targeting. Most unsold patterns come from who reaches the lander.
Running all hours and all states by default. Buyer demand is not even across either.
Retargeting people who already submitted. Duplicates rarely sell.
Changing several things at once. You cannot tell which change moved the price.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see the bids on my leads?

Leads are reported by tracking link. Ask during onboarding how reporting is delivered and what it shows for your account.

Why did a lead from my best ad go unsold?

At that moment, no buyer whose filters matched it was bidding. State, time of day, form answers and buyer budgets all play a part. Look for patterns across many leads rather than one.

Does ping/post mean my leads are sold to many buyers?

In the post step, the full lead goes to the buyer chosen from the bids. Buyers who only received the ping get the lead details without contact information.

Do I need to change my landers to sell more leads?

No. Traffic goes to Summit landers through your tracking link, and the lander and consent language stay as they are. Your levers are targeting, ad message, states and hours.

How is my rev share calculated?

You are paid a share of what each sold lead sells for. Unsold leads are not paid, and returns are deducted under the return terms agreed during onboarding. See how payouts work.