Glossary of lead buying in Switzerland
The technical and business terms of B2B lead buying, explained simply: consent, scoring, exclusivity, nLPD compliance, performance indicators... Everything you need to understand exactly what you're buying, sector by sector.
45 terms defined, from A to Z
A
- Lead subscription
- A purchase plan that delivers a steady monthly flow of leads for a defined sector and area, rather than a one-off order. The volume can be adjusted during the subscription based on the company's processing capacity.
- Pay-as-you-go purchase
- A one-off purchase option, with no commitment or subscription, to order a first batch of leads and test a provider's quality before committing further.
- Lead buyer
- The lead buyer is the company that orders qualified customer requests to grow its business, as opposed to the provider that collects and delivers them. Choosing a sector, area and exclusivity level are among the buyer's key decisions.
- Business introducer
- A business introducer connects a company with a potential customer in exchange for a commission or a pre-agreed fee. Our platform plays this intermediary role between Swiss businesses and the customers looking for their services.
C
- Canton
- Switzerland's 26 cantons are the main geographic level for targeting lead purchases, between a specific city and the whole country. A company can choose to cover a single canton or several at once.
- Geographic targeting
- The selection of the area or areas where a company wants to receive leads, from canton level down to a specific city or postal code. Finer targeting reduces the available volume but generally increases the relevance of the requests received.
- Lead configurator
- A tool for building a tailor-made lead request: several sectors, several geographic areas, a monthly volume and an exclusivity level, to receive a personalised proposal with no commitment.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC) measures what a signed customer actually costs, factoring in the conversion rate of the leads received — not just the price paid per lead. It's the most reliable indicator for judging the profitability of a lead-buying campaign.
- Cost per lead (CPL)
- Cost per lead (CPL) is the price paid for a single lead, which varies by sector, region, exclusivity level and how qualified the contact is. There is no universal fixed rate — a personalised quote remains the only reliable figure for your business.
- CRM
- A CRM (customer relationship management tool) centralises the leads received, the history of exchanges and the sales follow-up through to signature. Feeding leads into it as soon as they arrive limits losses from a late or forgotten callback.
D
- Double opt-in
- A two-step consent process: the person first expresses their need, then explicitly confirms they agree to be contacted by a professional. It strengthens the traceability of consent compared with a simple opt-in.
- Duplicate
- A duplicate lead is a contact already delivered previously to the same company. It's one of the cases covered by the replacement guarantee, since it brings no new business opportunity.
E
- Territorial exclusivity
- An arrangement that reserves all the leads for a sector in a given area to a single company, going beyond a single exclusive lead taken individually. It's an option to discuss directly with the provider, depending on the available volume.
F
- Fake lead / lead fraud
- A request created with invalid contact details, a fictitious need or no real intention of being contacted — whether through a data-entry error or an attempted fraud. A serious provider filters these requests before delivery and replaces free of charge any that slip through.
- First-party data
- Data collected directly by a company from its own customers or prospects (form, customer account, purchase history), as opposed to data bought from a third party. A qualified lead with tracked consent becomes a source of first-party data for the company that buys it.
- Request form
- An online form filled in by a potential customer to describe their need and give consent to be contacted. It's the starting point of every lead: its clarity largely determines the quality of the request collected.
- Lead provider
- A company that collects customer requests, checks their quality and passes them on to buying companies. A provider's reliability is judged by the traceability of its consent, its replacement guarantee and the transparency of its pricing.
G
- Lead generation
- The set of marketing actions (SEO, advertising, forms) that turn an anonymous visitor into an identified, qualified request. Buying leads lets a company benefit from this work without running it in-house.
I
- Purchase intent
- How close a customer is to their purchase decision, from a simple enquiry to an urgent, immediate need. A request with strong purchase intent generally converts faster into an appointment and then a customer.
L
- Landing page
- A web page dedicated to collecting a request for a specific need, usually paired with a short form. A well-designed landing page improves the conversion rate of visitors into qualified leads.
- Lead
- A lead is a real request from a potential customer submitted through a form, including their contact details and a description of their need. It's neither a cold-contact list nor a randomly bought file, but an identified business opportunity.
- Exclusive lead
- A lead sent to a single company, with no direct competition from another professional on that particular contact. It structurally costs more than a shared lead, since the provider can only sell it once.
- Fresh lead
- A lead delivered in real time, as soon as the request is qualified, rather than processed in a delayed batch. Freshness is a key factor in the contact rate: the faster the callback after the request, the higher the chances of reaching the customer.
- Shared lead
- A lead sent simultaneously to several companies in the same sector, usually between two and four. Its lower unit price comes with direct competition to be the first to contact the customer.
- Lead nurturing
- A set of actions (follow-ups, content, emails) designed to keep in touch with a lead who isn't ready to commit yet, until their purchase intent is confirmed.
- Qualified lead
- A lead whose contact details have been verified, whose need has been clarified and whose consent has been tracked, as opposed to a raw, unchecked request. Qualification is what sets a serious platform apart from a plain contact file.
M
- MQL — Marketing Qualified Lead
- A contact deemed relevant by marketing criteria (sector, profile, behaviour) but not yet assessed by the sales team. The next step is qualifying it as an SQL before it's passed on.
N
- nLPD (Swiss FADP)
- Switzerland's federal data protection act (revised version, in force since September 2023), which governs the processing of personal data contained in a lead: consent, purpose and the rights of the person concerned.
- Postal code (NPA)
- The Swiss postal code (NPA), used to target a lead delivery area more precisely than an entire canton, down to the level of a neighbourhood or municipality.
O
- Opt-in / consent
- Explicit agreement given by a person to be contacted by a professional about their request. It's the legal basis that separates a compliant lead from data collected without authorisation.
P
- Sales pipeline
- The set of business opportunities being worked on, from first contact through to signature, usually tracked in a CRM. A steady flow of leads keeps the pipeline fed without relying solely on direct prospecting.
R
- Lead replacement
- A guarantee providing for the free replacement of an invalid, off-target, duplicate or non-consented lead, within a set timeframe after it's reported. It never entitles you to a refund, only to a new, equivalent lead.
- GDPR
- The European data protection regulation, distinct from the Swiss nLPD but built on similar principles (consent, purpose, access rights). It can apply to a Swiss company that processes the data of customers residing in the European Union.
- ROI — return on investment
- The ratio between the revenue generated by customers acquired through purchased leads and the amount spent to obtain them. It's calculated after conversion, not just on the price paid per lead.
S
- Scoring (lead scoring)
- A rating assigned to each lead to indicate its reliability, calculated from the consistency of the contact details, the absence of duplicates and the validity of consent. A high score signals a request more likely to result in an appointment.
- SLA / delivery time
- A committed timeframe between when a request is collected and when it's passed on to the buying company. A short SLA favours a fast callback, which is key to the contact and conversion rate.
- SQL — Sales Qualified Lead
- A contact deemed ready to be handled by the sales team, after checking that their need and purchase intent match the offer. It's the step that follows MQL qualification.
T
- Contact rate
- The proportion of leads for which the company actually manages to reach the customer, by phone or another channel. A low contact rate often points to a callback that came too late, rather than a lead-quality problem.
- Conversion rate
- The proportion of leads received that result in a signed sale. It depends as much on lead quality as on the speed and quality of the sales follow-up carried out by the buying company.
- Response rate
- The proportion of customers who respond to a first contact attempt after a lead is received, even before the question of conversion into a sale. It complements the contact rate as an indicator of responsiveness.
- Consent traceability
- A provider's ability to prove the origin, timing and exact wording shown to the customer at the moment they gave their consent. It determines the nLPD compliance of every lead delivered.
- Conversion funnel
- The path followed by a visitor, from their first visit to a completed request submitted as a lead. Each step of the funnel (page viewed, form started, form submitted) can be measured to identify where drop-off occurs.
V
- Vertical / business sector
- The field of activity a lead belongs to (plumber, car insurance, mortgage, etc.), which determines which companies the request is sent to. A company can buy leads in a single vertical or across several complementary sectors.
- Monthly lead volume
- The number of leads a company chooses to receive each month for a given sector and area, adjustable at any time based on its processing capacity and observed results.
Z
- Coverage area
- The set of cantons, cities or postal codes a company has chosen to receive leads for. A wider coverage area increases the available volume but may require adjusting callback logistics.
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