Guide · Updated 23 October 2026
Lead routing software for lead sellers and affiliate networks
Short answer
Lead routing software decides where each incoming lead goes. For lead sellers and affiliate networks it sends leads to the right paying buyer using rules, caps, priorities and fallbacks, then tracks the sale and what each publisher earned. It is different from CRM lead assignment, which hands leads to sales reps inside one company.
Two meanings of lead routing
| Lead distribution routing | CRM lead assignment | |
|---|---|---|
| Who receives leads | Outside buyers who pay for them | Your own sales reps |
| Goal | Earn the most per lead | Respond fast, balance workload |
| Tools | Cascades, ping/post, caps, buyer delivery | Round robin, territories, queues |
| Also needed | Publisher tracking and payouts | A CRM |
This guide covers the first: routing leads you sell to buyers. If you need to assign leads to your own sales team, look at your CRM's assignment rules.
What lead routing software should do
- Filter first: remove duplicates, fake details and blocked sources before any buyer sees a lead.
- Route by rules on lead fields such as state, product or score.
- Order buyers by price and priority, or split volume by weight.
- Enforce caps and schedules per buyer and publisher.
- Deliver in each buyer's format and record acceptance.
- Fall back when a buyer declines, and keep unsold leads.
- Report by buyer, publisher and offer.
Rules you will use
| Rule | Example | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Match on a field | Send leads from Texas and Florida to Buyer A | Buyers buy specific states, products or scores |
| Quality threshold | Reject leads with a failed phone check | Bad contacts are returned and cost you |
| Cap | Buyer A takes 100 leads a day | Volume is shared as agreed |
| Schedule | Buyer B only receives leads from 9 to 5 | Buyers staff their teams for set hours |
| Priority or weight | Buyer C gets 30% of the volume | Share leads or test a new buyer |
| Fallback | If nobody accepts, keep the lead for later | No lead is simply lost |
What happens when nobody buys
Every routing set-up needs a rule for the leads no buyer accepts. Good software keeps them as unsold, so you can offer them to a different buyer later, rather than discarding them. Review unsold leads by source and by field: a pattern tells you which buyer to add.
Questions to ask a lead routing vendor
- Can I route on any lead field, and combine rules?
- Can I test a rule in watch-only mode first?
- Can I cap and schedule per buyer and per source?
- What happens to leads nobody accepts?
- Does it also track sales and pay publishers, or only route?
- What does it cost at my volume?
Set up routing in pingtype
- Add your buyers and set up delivery for each one, with field mapping, and send a test lead before you go live.
- Create a cascade and put the buyers in order, or switch to weighted to split by percentage. Use ping/post bidding where buyers should price each lead.
- Set caps and schedules for every buyer, and acceptance rules on the lead fields that matter to them.
- Turn on rules and phone, email and IP checks, in watch-only mode first so you see what they would reject.
- Send traffic, and follow each lead through the tree in the reports. Unsold leads are kept so you can offer them again.
Questions
What is the best lead routing software?
It depends on what you route. For selling leads to outside buyers, look for rules on any field, cascades and ping/post, caps, delivery to buyers, click tracking and payouts. Compare vendors on those and on price using the side-by-side pages. For assigning leads to your own sales team, look at your CRM's assignment rules.
What is lead routing software?
Software that decides where each lead goes, using rules, priorities and caps. For lead sellers it sends leads to the right paying buyer.
How is lead routing different from lead distribution?
They overlap. Lead distribution usually means selling leads to outside buyers. Lead routing can also mean assigning leads to your own sales team.
Does lead routing software include tracking and payouts?
In pingtype, yes: S2S tracking, publisher payouts and buyer statements are part of the package.