Redistribute a lead
Give a lead that never sold another run at your buyers, one at a time or in bulk, with live eligibility shown before you commit.
This article shows how to retry a lead that did not sell. Redistribution re-runs distribution against the buyers you pick, with schedules and caps re-checked live, so a lead only sells if a buyer would genuinely take it now.
Use it when a lead was skipped after hours, blocked by a cap that has since reset, rejected by a filter you have now changed, or errored during ingest.
Prerequisites
- Admin access, and the Lead Retries feature on your workspace
- At least one active buyer on the campaign
Which leads can be retried
Any lead can be retried unless it is already placed or intentionally held.
| Lead status | Retryable | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | No | Already placed with a buyer |
| Pending | No | Placed with a CPA buyer awaiting its decision. Re-delivering mid-decision could double-place it. |
| Stored | No | Intentionally held and never distributed |
| Rejected | Yes | Covers hard rejects and soft skips alike |
| Duplicated | Yes | |
| Error | Yes | |
| Returned | Yes | The lead is unsold again. The buyer that returned it is not offered. |
A lead sold to several buyers only becomes Returned when the last surviving sale is returned. While any sale still stands the lead is Accepted, so it stays out of the retry path.
Retry one lead
- Open Leads from the sidebar and find the lead.
- Open the row menu and click Redistribute.
- Read the buyer list in the drawer. Each buyer shows why it refused the lead the first time under Previously, and its live status under Now, along with the buyer's timezone and local time.
- Tick the buyers to attempt. You are not limited to the ones that skipped. Any active buyer on the campaign can be selected, including buyers never tried before.
- Decide on the two options below.
- Click Redistribute and read the result.
To retry many leads, select them in the list and use the bulk Redistribute button. Small batches run immediately. Larger ones queue and stream their progress into the drawer, and you can close it without stopping the run.
The two options
Re-run integration checks is off by default. A normal retry reuses the phone, email and credit values captured at first ingest, so nothing is billed twice and your sources keep seeing the same validity flags. Tick it and those checks are billed again for every lead in the run, and they run before any buyer is attempted, so a lead that now fails one is marked rejected instead of retried.
Consent verification is not covered by this switch. A claim or authentication with a settled answer is always reused rather than paid for again.
Skip buyer filters is also off by default. Tick it and the selected buyers are attempted without their lead filters running, so a filter that would reject the lead no longer stops it. Only buyer-level filters are skipped. Schedule, caps and duplicate checks still apply.
Filter pricing goes with it. A filter that would have set a payout for a buyer does not run either, so the lead sells at that buyer's normal bid price. The drawer warns you when you tick it.
Why a buyer might be blocked
The drawer shows each buyer's live status, and a blocked buyer stays visible and disabled rather than disappearing without explanation.
| Block | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Out of schedule | The buyer is outside its delivery window right now |
| Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Lifetime cap | The buyer is at its limit for that period |
| Buyer inactive | The buyer is paused |
| Already returned | This buyer took the lead and returned it |
A buyer that already returned the lead is never offered again. A return is that buyer saying the lead was no good after taking it, and a return does not give the buyer its cap slot back, so re-selling would consume a second slot for one net purchase. The block is enforced on the server, not only in the drawer.
Live eligibility is a snapshot of the moment you opened the drawer. The retry itself is what decides.
Reading the outcome
| Outcome | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Sold | A buyer accepted and the sale was recorded |
| Pending | A CPA buyer accepted and is deciding. This is a success. |
| Rejected | The retry was refused again, by schedule, cap, filter, or the buyer's own response |
| No eligible buyers | Nothing you selected survived the server-side check for that lead |
| Already resolved, pending, or stored | The lead was placed or held between opening the drawer and running |
| Another admin is redistributing | Someone else holds the lock on that lead |
Each completed attempt increments the lead's retry counter, whatever the outcome, and appears on the lead timeline as a new attempt. Earlier attempts collapse behind a toggle so the current one reads first.
Expected result
The lead shows a new attempt on its timeline with the buyers you selected, and the leads list shows an incremented retry badge. A sold retry counts toward that buyer's daily, weekly and monthly caps like any other sale.
Troubleshooting
- No Redistribute action on a lead. Its status is Accepted, Pending or Stored, or your workspace does not have the Lead Retries feature.
- The action is missing while filtering by buyer. The status column is buyer-scoped when a buyer filter is on, but the action follows the lead's own status. Clear the buyer filter if the row still looks wrong.
- Every buyer comes back blocked. Check schedules, caps and active status. A retry does not bypass eligibility, and only the filter override skips anything at all.
- A buyer you expected is not listed. Only active direct-post buyers are offered. Pay per call, cost per click, and one-to-one delivery buyers are excluded because the retry pipeline would drop them anyway.
- The retry sold at a different price than you expected. Skip buyer filters was ticked, so a filter that sets a payout did not run.
- A returned lead will not go back to the buyer that returned it. That is deliberate and enforced server-side.
Frequently asked questions
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