VMS data licensing: an ad agency's referral program

Operating companies, with a manufacturing focus on one page.

Four sample cards on the data page show unnamed deals from $210K (a property manager, paid in 4 weeks) to $1.6M (a freight brokerage, paid in 72 hours). The page itself calls them a range of outcomes, not a promise. The FAQ says payment usually takes 3 to 6 weeks.

According to the FAQ, you contract with the data partner, and the recipient of your data is named before signing. Yet the privacy and terms pages cover only the ad agency's business.

The data partner pays VMS once an introduction turns into a deal.

Ask three things: who the data partner is, whether it actually holds a contract with Google, OpenAI or Anthropic, and how much VMS earns per introduction.

We run the same checks on every buyer we rank. They take an afternoon and they protect the one thing you cannot take back: the copy of your records.

• Find the legal entity. A registered company name, an address and at least one named person. A Facebook form alone is not enough.
• Get the offer and the contract in writing before any export. A sample agreement tells you more than a sales call.
• Ask who strips personal data, how, and when. You should approve the method and see a sample before anything leaves your systems.
• Ask where the data goes. Which AI companies receive it, whether you are told, and whether it can be resold.
• Ask how everyone is paid. By you, by the buyer, or out of your deal. Referral fees are normal; hidden ones are not.
• Get a second quote. Terms from at least one other buyer is the fastest way to know if an offer is fair.