How Many “Leads” Does $100,000 Buy?

 
A senior marketing executive once got so frustrated with his sales counterpart that he offered the following choices for spending $100,000 on a lead generation campaign:
Option
Type
Quantity
Vertical Qualified
Email Addresses
1
Contacts (Name, Title)
200,000
No
No
2
Companies (Three Contacts)
100,000
No
No
3
Content Aggregator “Leads”
4,319
No
Yes
4
Appointment Setting
117
No
Yes
5
Sales Qualified Leads
81
Yes
Yes
 
The frustration by the CMO stemmed from running various campaigns only to have sales either ignore the leads or complain loudly about lead quality. To the sales VP, a contact (you can buy 200,000 or