Send the lead to the top-ranked buyer first. If they reject or time out, fall to the next qualifying buyer. Continue down the list until one accepts. Configurable ordering, per-step timeouts, DQ fallback, and every evaluation recorded in leadDistribution.
Parallel
Sub-100ms prequalify
Configurable
Per-step timeout
Full
Audit trail
The Basics
The standard delivery model for exclusive-sale verticals.
Waterfall routing sends a lead to buyer #1. If they reject or time out, the lead falls to buyer #2. The process continues down a ranked list until a buyer accepts or the list is exhausted. It is the standard approach for exclusive-sale verticals where you want the highest-paying or preferred buyer to get first look.
Lead Router runs a real-time waterfall with sub-100ms parallel prequalification upstream, so only real qualifiers enter the sequence. Per-contract timeouts, configurable ordering (priority, price, weight, round-robin), DQ fallback, and auto-return handling are all native. Every step of every waterfall lands in leadDistribution for audit.
The Flow
Six steps from lead arrival to sale or DQ fallback. Every evaluation auditable.
A partner posts the lead (full payload or ping) through a campaign tied to an offer. The offer has a set of active buyer contracts and a configured distribution rule. Waterfall routing fires when the distribution rule is exclusive or hybrid-falling-to-exclusive.
Before the waterfall runs, Lead Router fans out to every active contract on the offer in parallel. Each contract checks filters (geo, demographic, custom), caps, buyer balance, schedule, and dedup. Contracts that fail any check are dropped. Prequalification completes in sub-100ms so the waterfall starts with a clean, ranked list of real qualifiers.
Surviving contracts are sorted by the offer distribution strategy: price (highest bid first), priority (manual integer order), weight (percentage split within a tier), or round-robin (even rotation within a tier). The result is a ranked list, buyer #1 through buyer #N, ready for sequential delivery.
Lead Router posts the full lead to the #1 buyer endpoint. The call respects the per-contract timeout (default five seconds, configurable). The buyer responds accept or reject based on its own dedup, filters, or bid logic. The full request and response are written to postingLog with latency, HTTP status, and response body for audit.
If buyer #1 accepts, Lead Router writes the leadSale, increments caps atomically, charges the buyer, pays the partner, and the waterfall stops. If buyer #1 rejects or times out, Lead Router immediately falls to buyer #2 and repeats. The loop continues down the list until a buyer accepts or the list is exhausted.
Every waterfall step writes a leadDistribution row: which contract, what bid, the outcome (sold, rejected, timeout, capped, filtered), and the reason. Operators get a complete audit trail per lead: who got the chance, in what order, how fast each buyer responded, and why the lead landed where it did. Post-delivery buyer returns attach to the same lead record for reconciliation.
Configuration
Every offer sets its own ordering, timeouts, fallback, and return handling. All configurable from the admin console.
Choose how contracts are ranked within the waterfall. Price orders by bid (highest first). Priority orders by the priority integer on each contract (manual tiering). Weight splits volume across a tier by percentage. Round-robin rotates evenly within a tier. Combine them: priority tier first, then price within the tier, then round-robin on ties.
Each contract has its own timeout for the POST to the buyer endpoint. Default is five seconds. Tune down (two to three) for fast buyers or up (ten to fifteen) for slow buyers with rich validation. If the endpoint does not respond in time, Lead Router treats it as a fail and falls to the next buyer. Latency is written to postingLog per attempt.
If every qualifying buyer rejects or times out, Lead Router routes the lead to the offer DQ fallback contract if one is configured. DQ is typically an in-house buyer, a data aggregator, or a training set sink. No DQ? The lead is marked unsold and kept for audit. Either way, the full waterfall attempt is preserved in leadDistribution.
Buyers can mark a delivered lead bad after the fact (bad phone, duplicate, out of criteria) via the returns API. Lead Router credits the buyer, updates cap counters, and can optionally resubmit the lead back through the waterfall to the next qualifier. Return reasons are tracked per buyer so you can see which buyers are returning at what rate.
Waterfall vs Ping-Post
Different models for different buyer mixes. Use the right one per offer.
Waterfall is sequential and exclusive. One buyer at a time gets the lead. Used when exclusivity matters and the top buyer should always get first look: final expense, high-intent mortgage, legal. Higher margin per lead, slower sell-through, better for verticals where buyers pay premiums for first look.
Ping-post is parallel and competitive. Every qualifying contract bids at once and the winner (or winners) take the lead in a single pass. Used when price discovery matters and buyers expect competition: auto insurance, Medicare, home services. Faster sell-through, competitive pricing, better for verticals with deep buyer pools.
Lead Router runs both on the same engine. Contracts, caps, filters, and dedup work the same way. Set the offer distribution rule to exclusive (waterfall) or multisell (ping-post) per vertical, or use hybrid to blend them. See ping-post software for the parallel-auction variant.
Frequently Asked
The questions operators ask before running waterfall volume on a platform.
What is waterfall routing?
Waterfall routing is a sequential multi-buyer distribution model. The lead is sent to the top-ranked buyer first. If that buyer accepts, the lead sells and the waterfall stops. If the buyer rejects or the call to the buyer times out, Lead Router falls to the next qualifying buyer and tries again. The process continues down the ranked list until a buyer accepts or the list is exhausted. Waterfall is the standard approach for exclusive-sale verticals where the highest-paying buyer should always get first look.
How does Lead Router order buyers in the waterfall?
Each offer picks an ordering strategy. Price orders by contract bid, highest first, so the top-paying buyer always gets first look. Priority orders by the priority integer set on each contract, useful when business rules (preferred partners, tiering, exclusivity deals) override price. Weight spreads volume across a priority tier by percentage. Round-robin rotates evenly within a tier. Strategies can be combined: priority tier first, then price within the tier, then round-robin on ties.
What happens if all buyers reject the lead?
If every qualifying buyer in the waterfall rejects or times out, Lead Router routes the lead to the offer DQ fallback if one is configured. The DQ buyer is a last-resort contract (often an in-house buyer, a data aggregator, or a training set sink) that accepts leads rejected by the primary waterfall. If no DQ fallback exists, the lead is marked unsold and the full waterfall attempt is recorded in leadDistribution for audit and later analysis.
Can I mix waterfall and ping-post on the same platform?
Yes. Lead Router supports a hybrid flow where contracts are pre-evaluated in parallel (ping phase, sub-100ms) to decide who qualifies at what bid, and only the qualifying buyers enter the waterfall for sequential delivery. This gets the speed of ping-post prequalification and the exclusivity of waterfall delivery on the same offer. Each offer picks its distribution rule, and the same engine runs both modes.
What is the timeout per waterfall step?
Timeout is configurable per contract. The default is five seconds; operators typically tune between two and fifteen seconds depending on buyer endpoint behavior. If the buyer endpoint does not respond within the timeout, Lead Router treats the step as a timeout fail and falls to the next buyer. Every timeout is logged in postingLog with latency and HTTP status so operators can see which buyers slow the waterfall down.
Run the Waterfall
Configure contracts, set the ordering strategy, tune timeouts, wire up a DQ fallback. Sub-100ms prequalify, sequential delivery, full audit trail in leadDistribution. Same engine also runs ping-post auctions when you want it.
No credit card required. All features included from day one.