Groups
Destination Groups in Lead Distro AI: put a campaign's destinations into ordered groups, each with its own routing method, reserve price, and multi-sell limit. A lead only moves to the next group when nobody in the current group buys it.
What are Destination Groups?
Destination Groups let one campaign use more than one routing method. You put your destinations into ordered groups, and each group gets its own method. A lead tries Group 1 first. It only moves to Group 2 when nobody in Group 1 buys it, then Group 3, and so on.
That lets you say, in a single campaign: sell to my contracted destinations first, then let the aggregators bid, then send whatever is left to a catch-all.
Destination Groups is a Labs feature. Turn on Destination Groups in Settings > Labs. It works on Direct Post lead campaigns. Ping-Post campaigns and call campaigns keep their usual routing.
When to use it
- You have destinations that always pay more at a flat price, and you want them to see every lead before an auction runs.
- You chain two or three campaigns today and send unsold leads from one to the next. Groups do the same job in one campaign, with one set of caps, filters, and reports.
- You want a catch-all last. Put a low-price destination alone in the final group so it only gets leads nobody else bought.
- Different destinations need different rules. Your top firms go in priority order while your aggregators split the rest by share.
How a lead moves through the groups
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Eligibility | Every destination is checked first, exactly like any campaign: status, hours, caps, budgets, location, filters, suppression, wallet. Only destinations that pass go into their group. |
| 2. Group 1 | The lead is offered to Group 1's destinations in the order its method picks. |
| 3. A sale stops it | If a destination in Group 1 buys the lead, routing stops there. Destinations in later groups show Not reached on the lead's timeline. |
| 4. No sale moves it on | If nobody in Group 1 buys, the lead moves to Group 2 and tries again, then Group 3. |
| 5. Nobody buys | If no group sells the lead, it gets a final status with a reason, the same as any other campaign. |
The five group methods
A group uses the same methods as a regular campaign, plus Auction, which only a group offers.
| Method | Order inside the group | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Priority | Top to bottom, in the order you set | Contracted or best-paying destinations |
| Round Robin | Destinations take turns. Each new lead starts with the next one in line | An even split between similar destinations |
| Weighted | A random draw, weighted by each destination's share | Splitting volume by percentage |
| Weighted (Fair Share) | Whoever is furthest behind their daily target goes first | Destinations that want a set number of leads per day |
| Auction | The highest bid for this lead goes first | Getting the most money for each lead |
Inside a group, every destination gets a try before the lead moves to the next group. This is different from a regular Weighted campaign, where only one destination per tier is tried.
A Round Robin group keeps its own place in line. Two Round Robin groups on one campaign never share turns, and a destination that is capped or filtered for one lead keeps its spot for the next.
How the Auction method works
- Destinations with a ping endpoint are all asked for a bid at the same time.
- Every other destination bids its own price for this lead. Rule-based prices count, so a destination that pays more for certain states bids that higher price.
- Live bids and fixed prices are ranked together, highest first. If two bids are equal, the destination higher in the group wins.
- The top bidder gets the lead. If it turns the lead down, the next-highest bid gets a turn.
- Each destination is asked only once. The winner of a ping gets the lead at the price it bid, without a second ping.
- A destination paid per conversion or per appointment pays nothing at delivery, so its fixed price counts as $0 in the auction.
Reserve price
A group's reserve price is the least a destination must pay to get a lead from that group. It works in every method, not only Auction. Leave it at 0 for no reserve.
- A destination with a fixed price below the reserve is skipped before anything is sent. The timeline says so.
- A live bid is checked as soon as the ping comes back. A bid below the reserve does not get the lead.
- A destination paid per conversion or per appointment counts as $0, so any reserve above 0 skips it.
Selling one lead more than once
Each group has a Multi-sell limit: how many destinations in that group can buy the same lead. Leave it on Follow source to use each source's Sells per lead setting.
A group can never sell a lead more times than the source allows. If the group says 3 and the source says 1, the lead sells once. Raise Sells per lead on the source first.
Once a group sells a lead at least once, the lead stops in that group. It does not continue to the next group to fill the rest of the limit.
Time limits
Every lead has a fixed amount of time to find a destination. Each group except the last keeps 3 seconds back for every group after it, up to 12 seconds, so a slow group can never use up the time your last group needs. Auction bids wait up to the source's Base Auction Time, or 4 seconds if you have not set one.
Turning Groups on and off
- The first time you choose Groups, all your destinations move into one group with the method you use now. Priority keeps its order. Round Robin keeps taking turns. Weighted and Weighted (Fair Share) keep each destination's share, but priority tiers do not carry over, so the whole group shares the leads. To keep some destinations first, add a group above and move them there.
- A destination you add later joins the bottom of the last group, paused like every new destination.
- A destination that is not in any group still gets leads, but only after every group has had its turn.
- Switching to another routing method keeps your groups saved. Choose Groups again and they come back as they were.
- Changing the campaign to Ping-Post switches it back to a regular method on its own, and your groups stay saved.
- Every save is kept in the history, so you can go back to an earlier layout. If a teammate saved a change after you opened the page, your save is stopped so you never overwrite their work. Reload and try again.
- Duplicating a campaign copies its groups too.
Example
| Group | Method | Destinations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auction, reserve $40 | Firm A (bids live), Firm B (flat $55), Firm C (flat $30) |
| 2 | Weighted | Aggregator X (60%), Aggregator Y (40%) |
| 3 | Priority | Catch-all Z (flat $5) |
| Lead | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 | Firm C is skipped because $30 is below the $40 reserve. Firm A bids $62 and beats Firm B's $55. Firm A buys it. Groups 2 and 3 show Not reached. |
| 2 | Firm A says no to the ping. Firm B turns the lead down. Group 2's draw picks Aggregator Y first, who says no, then Aggregator X, who buys it. |
| 3 | Nobody in Group 1 or Group 2 buys. Catch-all Z buys it in Group 3. |
Reading the timeline
Open any lead to see its path. Each group shows when the lead entered it, which destinations were tried, and why the lead moved on. Destinations the lead never reached say which group sold it. Every sale also records the group that made it, so results stay right even after you rename or reorder groups.
You can also read and change a campaign's groups by chat through the AI Assistant (MCP).
Frequently Asked Questions
Can one destination be in two groups?
Does this work on Ping-Post campaigns or call campaigns?
Do caps and filters still apply?
What happens to a destination I forgot to put in a group?
Do test leads work with groups?
Why did my Weighted group try every destination?
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If you have any questions, send us an email at support@leaddistro.ai