Lead gen affiliate vs lead seller

The one question that separates them

Ask yourself: where does the person fill in the form? If the form is on a lander the network owns and you send traffic to it through a tracking link, you are an affiliate. If the form is on a page you own, and you capture the person's details and consent yourself, you are a lead seller. Everything else follows from that one difference: who writes the consent language, who keeps the record, and who controls the page.

Both are legitimate businesses. They need different skills, carry different responsibilities and suit different stages of a business. Many companies start as affiliates and later build their own forms, and some run both.

What being an affiliate asks of you

As an affiliate, you focus on traffic. Summit runs the lander, captures consent and routes each lead by real-time ping/post. You are paid rev share on sold leads.

• Send traffic through your tracking link to the Summit lander for the offer.
• Use an approved traffic source: Meta, Google, native ad networks, or SEO and rank-and-rent sites.
• Write ads that follow the traffic guidelines and the ad platform policies.
• Do not change or remove the consent language on the lander.
• Use sub IDs to track your own results, since leads are reported by tracking link.

The trade-off is control. You cannot change the form, add questions or redesign the page. If you want that control, you are describing a lead seller.

Three common starting points

Most people reading this guide are in one of three positions. Find yours.

A media buyer with no forms

You buy traffic on Meta, Google or native ad networks and have never built a lead form. The affiliate route lets you start with what you already do. Summit provides the lander, the consent capture and the buyer routing, and you work on campaigns. Begin with what is a lead gen affiliate? and how pay-per-lead affiliate programs work.

A site owner with traffic but no forms

You run content or local service sites that rank, but you have not collected leads. You can link to Summit landers through your tracking links, with sub IDs set by page. That lets you learn which pages produce leads that sell before you decide whether to build forms of your own. See SEO and rank-and-rent sites.

A business that already runs forms

You collect leads on your own pages, with your own consent language, and you either use them yourself or sell them elsewhere. You are already a lead seller. Start at sell your leads, and check your consent records against the TCPA compliance checklist before you talk to any network.

Running both models

Some businesses run both: their own forms on sites they have built up, and affiliate traffic to Summit landers for new sources or offers. If you do this, keep the two clearly separate.

• Use your tracking links only for traffic going to Summit landers.
• Do not send the same person through both routes. A duplicate lead does not earn twice.
• Keep separate reporting for each, so you can see which model performs better for each offer.
• Make sure your own forms carry your own consent language, and leave the Summit lander language as it is.

For a closer look at the trade-offs between hosted and self-built pages, read hosted landers vs your own landers.