Paying for leads vs paying for lead generation

[Rob Lion]

I’ve seen that ... what do you have your per/lead cost down to now?

Also, you are telesales, so I presume your lead cost might be considerably lower than it would be for a F2F agent who wanted to limit the geographic range of the prospect poo. I may be wrong on that and I’d like to hear from folks who are doing their own FB ads.

As a side note, I spent some time in auto sales and do actually miss it. If I could figure out a way to get car sales leads off FB in the quantity and quality I receive from calendarleads.com I’d be tempted to go back to moving metal. I’m considering buying that FE FB course to see if I can figure out a way to make it work for car sales lol.

As to the OP’s question, I really liked the way Thad offered his FB leads when he first introduced them here last year: $300 guaranteed at least 20 leads. If more came in, he gave you the additional leads with no additional charge. I typically got anywhere from 30 to 60 leads for my $300. I do realize that those were not nearly as high quality as the leads I get now that actually say “affordable life insurance” and I do understand that the survey leads you are offering are likely a cut or two above even the ones I am getting now for $20 per lead (and usually get a few more than the 20 I paid for).

For me, I like the flexibility of NOT being on a fixed recurring cost program, e.g. $800/week every week for DM. I now do my own combination of DM drops, FB leads, TM leads, and buying aged DM at a steep discount from other local agents. For the past 8 weeks, my lead cost is down to $390/week. My production has steadily increased over that time but that is more a function of increased effort on my part (more door knocking and cut out calling for appointments) than the lead strategy. I can’t say I’m ruling out an arrangement such as you suggest, but I am not yet sold on it either. Frankly, my ultimate goal (not sure it is possible) is to maintain lead flow and reduce costs to $200/week or less.

2.50ish. F2F you can still generate your own for much cheaper than what the vendors are selling for.

 

[HoosierLife]

Sorry for not mentioning it was regarding Facebook leads. I'm talking about exclusive, long-form surveyed leads, not Lead Ad (Form) - type lads that are cheap and usually low quality.

My question however is rather what's more preferable - paying for leads or paying a fixed monthly retainer (management fee) to an ad agency and whatever the leads actually cost to generate.

Scenario 1 - You buy 100 leads at $20 each = $2,000

Scenario 2 - You pay $1,000/mo retainer + $1,000 ad spend (paid directly to FB) = $2,000
The ad agency were able to generate leads for $8 a piece. As a result, your $1,000 ad spend generated 125 leads.

Potentially, they could get even more leads with their $1,000 ad spend, like 200 leads at $5 each. But there is also possibility to get less than 100 leads if they they come at more than $10 each...

The question is, would agents take a chance to potentially get more leads with a risk of getting less? Or would they rather have a fixed price per lead?

As a competitor, I highly recommend you try to market this as a monthly retainer model.

 

[HoosierLife]

I highly recommend every agent spend hours out of their week launching ads, split testing, trying to figure out why their ads never come out of review etc.

Then figure out and baby sit all the integrations and automations.

Oh and what do you do when your ad account gets suspended?

I watch guys buy leads from us, then try to do it themselves and then come back and buy leads from us again. All that time they weren’t making any money trying to figure out digital marketing.

I’d say there’s a very small percentage of agents that have the time or digital skill set to do it effectively. But if you can, you can definitely save money on a per lead basis.

Maybe you can save $200 a week (which you won’t every week btw, one misstep and you’re CPL will be higher than what those un-American fascist lead vendors charge).

But how much time are you spending (wasting) trying to do all that, when you could just be out there doing what you do best: selling insurance.

But what do I know. I’m obviously biased Calendar Leads

 

[Rob Lion]

I highly recommend every agent spend hours out of their week launching ads, split testing, trying to figure out why their ads never come out of review etc.

Then figure out and baby sit all the integrations and automations.

Oh and what do you do when your ad account gets suspended?

I watch guys buy leads from us, then try to do it themselves and then come back and buy leads from us again. All that time they weren’t making any money trying to figure out digital marketing.

I’d say there’s a very small percentage of agents that have the time or digital skill set to do it effectively. But if you can, you can definitely save money on a per lead basis.

Maybe you can save $200 a week (which you won’t every week btw, one misstep and you’re CPL will be higher than what those un-American fascist lead vendors charge).

But how much time are you spending (wasting) trying to do all that, when you could just be out there doing what you do best: selling insurance.

But what do I know. I’m obviously biased Calendar Leads

Theres 3-4 different vendors you can literally buy a plug n play fb fe course from lol. I saved 10 dollars a lead by just generating them myself, it's not that difficult even for the older gentlemen .

 

[DayTimer]

it's not that difficult even for the older gentlemen

Why were you looking at me when you said that?

 

[Rob Lion]

Why were you looking at me when you said that?

I thinking more of Gol or rouse

 

[DayTimer]

I highly recommend every agent spend hours out of their week launching ads, split testing, trying to figure out why their ads never come out of review etc.

I will say this: I have seen that I can place an order with you this morning and have fresh leads to run within hours ... not days ... hours. That is what I mean when I say I love the flexibility of FB leads. With DM, I was getting 30 leads a week, and I was not seeing all 30 that week. So the next week I'd have 10 to 15 leads left over and another 30 right on top of those ... before I knew it I had hundreds of unworked DM in inventory. When it comes to DM leads I feel a bit like this ...



"Well this is easy!"

"Yeah, we can handle this ok."

lol That's what it felt like until my third order hit my inbox!

With the FB leads, all my work time is basically spent selling, with some service work thrown in. My biggest admin task each week is spending about an hour loading the leads into the route planner and then printing and organizing the leads by stop order.

 

[BibH]

Josh what kind of results are you seeing with the customized texts ? Out of 20 leads approximately how many people are calling the agent ? Does it really help when the lead gets a text with the agents #’s that they answer the phone ?

 

[HoosierLife]

Josh what kind of results are you seeing with the customized texts ? Out of 20 leads approximately how many people are calling the agent ? Does it really help when the lead gets a text with the agents #’s that they answer the phone ?

Usually agents either pick click to call or put the calendar on there. More people schedule than call.

But usually 20-25%. Then another 15% if you text them yourself including a screenshot of the lead card.

 

[BibH]

So are they texting them with the lead card immediately after the lead comes in or are they trying to call first them if no answer then texting ? Are they conducting the whole sales process by text or after they text them and get a response are they saying “ I’ll call you “ ? The reason I’m asking I’ve had very little response when texting with a pic of the lead card . Thanks