Issue 39

The FCC Targets Offshore Call Centers, Significant Industry Implications
At its March 26 Open Meeting, the FCC voted to advance a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would impose meaningful new requirements on offshore call center operations. The proposed rulemaking includes actions to encourage and facilitate the onshoring of call centers, improve customer service and security, and address illegal robocall scams that originate inside foreign call centers. Among the proposals being floated: English proficiency testing for offshore agents, offshore volume caps of approximately 30% of interactions, mandatory disclosures at the start of calls identifying that the call is being handled abroad, and the right for consumers to request a transfer to a U.S.-based agent. For lead gen and performance marketing operations that rely on offshore contact center infrastructure, this rulemaking is one to watch closely. The conversation about contact center optimization — compliance, routing, and conversion — will take center stage at LeadsCon.

Home Insurance Premiums Keep Climbing, Impact on Lead Gen
A market under stress is a market full of opportunity, and the home insurance industry is under significant stress. U.S. home insurance premiums are set to rise for a fifth straight year in 2026, with the average annual premium projected to increase 4% to about $3,057 this year — after jumping 12% in 2025. Since 2021, premiums have climbed 46%, roughly three times as much as inflation. The pressure is concentrated in hurricane and fire-prone regions, but is being felt nationally. Accelerating consumer urgency around coverage shopping represents a meaningful demand-generation tailwind for the insurance lead gen sector. At LeadsCon, the Insurance Exchange: Decoding the Buyer's Mindset and Closing the Capability Gap session will unpack how insurance lead sellers can align with the rigorous quality and compliance standards carriers now demand. This year’s agenda is packed with other critical insights for the insurance sector.

Adobe and NVIDIA Bet Big on AI-Powered Marketing Workflows
On March 16, at NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, two of the most influential names in enterprise software announced a partnership that signals where AI in marketing is heading. Adobe and NVIDIA announced a strategic partnership to accelerate AI-powered creation, production, and personalization, including delivering the next generation of foundational Adobe Firefly models and agentic workflows — bringing together Adobe's creative and marketing technology with NVIDIA's open models, libraries, research, and accelerated computing. The question of how to balance AI automation with human judgment, compliance guardrails, and conversion performance is exactly what LeadsCon's From Click to Close: How AI + New Tools Are Rewriting the Lead Gen Playbook session will tackle in Vegas!

Agentic AI Is Coming for the Middle of Your Funnel
If 2025 was the year the industry accepted that AI could generate leads, 2026 is shaping up to be the year it learns to close them. ChannelEngine reported that traffic from AI assistants and agents to retail sites has grown more than 1,300% over the past year, a data point that underscores just how quickly agentic AI is moving from novelty to infrastructure. Across martech, the pattern is consistent: platforms are racing to deploy autonomous agents capable of handling multi-step tasks — lead scoring, routing, follow-up sequencing, and campaign optimization — without waiting for a human to pull the trigger at each stage. For performance marketers attending LeadsCon, check out Keeping it Real: AI in Lead Gen & Compliance on Friday, April 24, featuring Lindsay Stone of LeadsPedia, Isaac Shloss of Contact Center Compliance, and Olly Whittle of AIVI, who will cut through the hype and address the real risks and opportunities of deploying generative and agentic AI in a strictly regulated environment.

LeadsCon 2026: The Countdown Is On. Are You In?
The clock is running. LeadsCon Las Vegas kicks off April 22 at the MGM Grand, and if you haven't registered yet, now is the moment. This is your last realistic window to lock in your spot, book your hotel, and set your meeting agenda before the industry's biggest gathering of the year gets underway. Whether your focus is compliance, contact center performance, affiliate strategy, AI adoption, or vertical expertise in insurance, home services, or financial products — the sessions, the speakers, and the deal-making conversations you need are all in one place! Don't be the person watching the highlights from the lobby and social media; register by April 19 and save $400!