Full definition
Round-robin distribution is a routing strategy where each incoming lead goes to the next buyer in a predefined sequence, then cycles back to the first buyer once everyone has received one. If buyers A, B, and C are in the rotation, lead 1 goes to A, lead 2 to B, lead 3 to C, lead 4 back to A, and so on. Over time, each buyer receives an equal share of volume, which makes round-robin the default choice when buyers are peers with similar capacity and close rates. Its strengths are fairness, simplicity, and zero-argument accountability — every buyer can see the rotation and verify they got their turn. Its weakness is that it ignores capacity: if a buyer is paused, slow, or overloaded, strict round-robin keeps feeding them anyway. Practical implementations add skip-on-capacity and skip-on-paused guards so the rotation adapts to real availability.
Related terms
The process of automatically routing incoming sales leads from suppliers to buyers using rules and software.
A distribution strategy that sends every lead to the top-priority buyer first, cascading to the next buyer when capacity is hit.
A distribution strategy that allocates leads in proportion to each buyer's configured share of total volume.
The recipient of leads in a distribution system — typically a sales team, broker, agent, or end-customer who converts leads into revenue.