What is pre-bid lead scoring?
Pre-bid lead scoring is the practice of predicting how likely an insurance lead is to convert before paying for it, using only the limited data available at the ping stage of a real-time auction.
In a real-time lead auction, a publisher sends a minimal record — typically a phone number and ZIP code — to prospective buyers before the full lead is sold. Pre-bid scoring runs on that partial record and returns a conversion propensity estimate fast enough to inform what the buyer bids, or whether they bid at all.
The defining constraint is latency. A scoring model that needs a second to respond is useless in an auction that resolves in a few hundred milliseconds, so pre-bid models are deliberately built to run on sparse inputs and answer in single-digit milliseconds. This is a genuine engineering trade-off: pre-bid models are less accurate than models that run after purchase, because they have far less to work with.
Pre-bid scoring is distinct from lead filtering. Filtering rejects leads that fail a rule, such as an out-of-area ZIP code. Scoring produces a graded estimate that supports paying different amounts for different leads rather than a binary accept or reject.
Note on terminology: in construction and procurement, 'pre-bid' refers to meetings and qualification steps before submitting a tender. That is an unrelated use of the word. In insurance lead acquisition, pre-bid refers specifically to the moment before a lead is purchased in an auction.
How RiskLync uses this term: RiskLync's pre-bid model scores from phone number and ZIP code in 1–3ms.
Related terms
- Ping-post — Ping-post is a two-step lead transaction: the publisher first sends a minimal record (the ping) so buyers can bid without seeing the full lead, then sends the complete record (the post) to whichever buyer wins.
- Post-acquisition scoring — Post-acquisition scoring evaluates a lead after it has been purchased, using the full contact record to produce a more accurate estimate than was possible at the pre-bid stage.
- Conversion propensity — Conversion propensity is a model's estimate of how likely a specific lead is to result in a completed sale or enrollment, usually expressed as a probability or a score derived from one.