Round Robin
Round Robin lead distribution in Lead Distro AI: rotate leads equally across every eligible buyer, with worked examples, cap and pause behavior, and the rotation rules that keep the split even.
What is Round Robin distribution?
Round Robin rotates leads equally across every eligible buyer. Lead 1 goes to Buyer A, lead 2 to Buyer B, lead 3 to Buyer C, then back to A. Over time every buyer is offered the same share of leads.
It is the simplest method and the right default when you are starting out, when your buyers pay the same price, or when an even split is part of the relationship. There is nothing to tune: add buyers and they join the rotation.
Round Robin is a rotating waterfall, not a single shot. It picks who goes first, and if that buyer declines, the lead continues to the next buyer in the rotation rather than failing. The rotation decides the starting point, not the only stop.
When to use Round Robin
- You are getting started and have no data yet on which buyer converts best. Equal volume gives you a clean comparison after a few weeks.
- Your buyers pay the same price per lead, so there is no revenue reason to favor one.
- Your buyers have similar capacity. None of them needs materially more or less volume than the others.
- Fairness is part of the deal, for example partner agencies who would read an uneven split as favoritism.
- You want zero configuration. No shares to maintain, no tiers to keep straight, no numbers that drift out of date when you add a buyer.
How to configure it
- Open your campaign and go to Settings > Routing.
- Set Distribution Method to Round Robin.
- Add buyers on the Destinations tab. Every active buyer joins the rotation automatically.
- Optionally set a daily cap per buyer. A buyer at its cap leaves the rotation for the rest of the day and the others keep splitting evenly.
- Optionally add state filters or field filters per buyer. Each lead only rotates among the buyers whose filters match it.
Share and priority are ignored under Round Robin. You will still see those columns on the Destinations table because they are used by the other methods, and they keep their values if you switch later.
Worked example: 12 leads, 3 buyers
Three buyers, all active, all eligible for every lead. Acme has a daily cap of 4; the others are uncapped.
| Lead | Offered to | Outcome | Running totals (Acme / Bright / Overflow) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Acme | Accepted | 1 / 0 / 0 |
| 2 | Bright Path | Accepted | 1 / 1 / 0 |
| 3 | Overflow | Accepted | 1 / 1 / 1 |
| 4 | Acme | Accepted | 2 / 1 / 1 |
| 5 | Bright Path | Accepted | 2 / 2 / 1 |
| 6 | Overflow | Accepted | 2 / 2 / 2 |
| 7 | Acme | Accepted | 3 / 2 / 2 |
| 8 | Bright Path | Accepted | 3 / 3 / 2 |
| 9 | Overflow | Accepted | 3 / 3 / 3 |
| 10 | Acme | Accepted, now at its cap of 4 | 4 / 3 / 3 |
| 11 | Bright Path | Accepted. Acme is capped and no longer in the rotation | 4 / 4 / 3 |
| 12 | Overflow | Accepted | 4 / 4 / 4 |
From lead 13 onward the rotation is just Bright Path and Overflow, alternating, until 08:00 UTC resets Acme's daily counter and it rejoins.
What happens when a buyer says no
There are two very different situations here and mixing them up is the most common source of confusion.
| Situation | When it is decided | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer is not eligible (capped, paused, filtered out, suppressed, no wallet balance) | Before the rotation runs | The buyer is not in the pool at all for this lead. The rotation runs among the rest and its turn is not held open. |
| Buyer is reached and declines (their API returns a rejection, or delivery fails) | During delivery | The lead continues to the next buyer in the rotation, then the next, until one accepts or the list is exhausted. |
A rejection does not consume the buyer's turn permanently. The rotation pointer only advances to a buyer that actually received the lead, so a buyer that declined is still next in line on the following lead.
Edge cases, in detail
| Scenario | What Lead Distro AI does |
|---|---|
| A buyer hits its daily cap mid-day | It drops out of the rotation for the rest of the day. The remaining buyers split evenly rather than taking turns around an empty slot. The counter resets at 08:00 UTC. |
| You pause a buyer | Same as a cap: it leaves the rotation immediately and the rest keep rotating. No skipped turns. |
| A buyer's filters reject one specific lead | It is skipped for that lead only, and stays in the rotation for the next one. Its position is preserved rather than reset to the top. |
| You add a buyer mid-day | It joins at the next lead. It does not receive a catch-up batch, so the split evens out over the following few rotations rather than immediately. |
| Two leads arrive at the same instant | The rotation slot is claimed atomically per lead, so concurrent traffic still alternates. Two simultaneous leads cannot both be handed to the same buyer. |
| A buyer is removed from the campaign | The pointer no longer matches anyone, so the rotation resumes at the next buyer in the list instead of restarting at the first one. |
| Every buyer is capped | The lead is set to Error with the reason Destination Cap(s) Reached. Build an automation on that reason if you want an uncapped overflow buyer to catch it. |
Turns are not the same as acceptances
Round Robin equalizes offers, not outcomes. If Acme accepts 95 percent of what it is offered and Bright Path accepts 60 percent, an even rotation still produces an uneven number of billable leads. That is not a bug in the rotation, it is a difference in the buyers.
Check Reports > Compare Campaigns or the Destinations table's Accepted column after a couple of weeks. If acceptance rates are far apart, that is the signal to move to a weighted method and give the stronger buyer a larger share.
Round Robin on calls campaigns
Calls campaigns support Round Robin too, and it works slightly differently because a call ring tree always rolls forward: a busy or unanswered target rings the next one automatically.
- Rotation decides which target rings first, not who is the only one to ring.
- It rotates inside the top eligible priority level. Lower levels stay in priority order as fallbacks, so a backup target never jumps the line.
- It only changes anything under sequential ring. If your campaign rings every target at once, there is no order to rotate and the setting does nothing.
- If the rotation cannot be read for any reason, the ring order falls back to plain priority so a call is never dropped.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Round Robin ever send two leads in a row to the same buyer?
If a buyer is paused, does Round Robin still skip its turn?
What happens when all buyers hit their daily caps?
Can a buyer in Round Robin still have its own price?
How does Round Robin interact with state and zip filters?
Is there a way to slightly favor one buyer under Round Robin?
My split is not exactly even at the end of the day. Why?
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If you have any questions, send us an email at support@leaddistro.ai