Pay Per Conversion (CPA)

Most lead sales are billed at delivery: the destination (the buyer who pays you) gets the lead, and they owe you for it right then. Pay Per Conversion flips that. The lead is delivered at $0 and you get paid only if it turns into something real, like a signed retainer, a booked install, a bound policy, or a closed sale. This is often called CPA, and in legal campaigns it is usually called cost per retainer or CPR.

When to use it

• Your destination will not pay per lead, but will happily pay a large amount for an outcome. A law firm that says no to $60 a lead may say yes to $2,500 a signed case.
• Lead quality varies a lot and you would rather share the risk than argue about returns.
• You are selling to a destination that already reports outcomes in their own CRM, so confirming a conversion costs them nothing.

Turn it on for a destination

• Open the campaign, find the destination in the routing table, and click Edit.
• Set Payout Type to Per Conversion (CPA).
• Fill in Payout Per Conversion. This is what you get paid when a lead converts.
• Optional: add pricing rules if the amount changes based on the lead, for example a different price per state.
• Save. Delivery, caps, filters, and schedules all keep working exactly as before.

What happens when a lead is delivered

• The lead is delivered normally and marked Accepted.
• Revenue is $0 for now. The lead detail page shows a Per Conversion badge with the amount it will be worth if it converts.
• It counts against the destination's caps, because caps control how much volume they can handle, not how much they owe you.
• Your supplier cost is recorded as usual, so an unconverted lead correctly shows as a loss until it converts.

How a conversion gets reported

This is the step people forget, and it is the one that decides whether you ever get paid. A per-conversion lead sits at $0 forever until somebody says it converted. Set up at least one of these three before you send real volume.

• The Partner Portal. Give the destination a portal login and they mark the lead Converted themselves. They can backdate it to the day the deal actually closed so your reporting lines up with theirs. See Partner Portal.
• Their CRM, automatically. Their CRM posts back to Lead Distro AI the moment the deal closes. This is the best option for a destination with any real volume, because nobody has to remember to do anything.
• You mark it. Open the lead and set the outcome to Converted. Fine for a handful of deals, and useful as a backstop.

Setting up the CRM postback

Every destination gets its own webhook secret and a shareable setup page. Send them the link and their developer can wire it up without ever logging into your dashboard. One URL covers all of your campaigns with that destination.

curl -X POST https://www.leaddistro.ai/api/webhooks/buyer-outcome \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Buyer-Secret: your_destination_webhook_secret" \
  -d '{
    "lead_id": "<lead-uuid-from-the-original-delivery>",
    "outcome": "converted",
    "conversion_revenue": 2500,
    "lead_value": 40000,
    "note": "Retainer signed",
    "idempotency_key": "crm-event-12345"
  }'

Full field list, every lead matching option, and response codes are in the API Reference.

If a deal falls through

Change the outcome back to Pending or Not Qualified and the revenue backs out automatically. Your P&L updates, and the lead goes back to being worth $0. Returns work the same way they always have, including your return window, so a converted lead can still be returned later. See Lead Returns.

Signed retainers for legal campaigns

Cost per retainer is the most common use of Pay Per Conversion, so here is the whole thing end to end. Motor vehicle accident campaigns are the usual example, but this setup is identical for mass tort, workers compensation, or any campaign where a law firm pays for signed cases instead of leads.

• One destination per firm. Each firm gets its own destination, with Payout Type set to Per Conversion and the payout set to your cost per retainer for that firm.
• Different rate per state? Add pricing rules on the destination instead of creating extra destinations, for example Florida at $2,500 and Georgia at $3,250. The right rate is picked and locked when the lead is delivered.
• Leads flow in and out normally. Your ad forms, funnels, or API feed the campaign, and the campaign delivers to the firm or to your call center. Nothing is billed yet.
• Your call center works the lead and gets the retainer signed.
• The firm confirms the retainer. Either they mark it Converted in the Partner Portal, or their case management system posts back automatically. That is the moment revenue lands and the case shows up in your P&L.

Things to know before you go live

• Conversions record revenue, they do not charge a card. A confirmed conversion updates your revenue and your P&L. It does not debit a prepaid wallet, so per-conversion money is still invoiced and collected outside the app.
• Do not mark conversions with bulk edit. Changing the outcome on many leads at once writes the outcome without running the billing steps, so no revenue is recorded. Mark them one at a time, or let the destination report them.
• Nothing expires on its own. A lead stays open until somebody reports on it. There is no timer that converts or closes a lead automatically, so if a destination goes quiet you need to chase them.