The Thread to End All Internet Lead Threads

[whatyouwantfinally]

I'm a longtime reader of this forum who is FINALLY ready to divulge ALL the information you have all been waiting for about internet lead companies. Because I know credibility is an issue, I'll give you a quick background on myself.

I have worked as sales manager for an internet lead provider for about a year. I was the top-producing sales rep there for a year prior to my promotion. My motives are purely spiteful; I'll make that clear upfront. I'm sure, despite that, those of you in the "know" will find my offered information reliable and verifiable. If you think what I have to say is sour grapes, fair enough.

This is going to be tailored to those with experience with internet leads. No, I won't vanish upon questioning.

The first thing I want to make clear is this; agents are dealing with a direct correlation of excessive demand meeting limited supply. There are not enough consumers in existence for every licensed agent to be as successful as he/she would like to be. Not even close. In any market where this occurs you are going to see a constant decrease in quality. If there wasn't enough gas for everyone to get where they were going there would be millions of barrels of fake gas, lower-quality gas, etc. The risk of false advertising charges would be far out-weighed by the potential "sucker" revenue. I hope we're all in agreement so far.

The lead generation business is the same as above. It started legit; on-line shoppers looking for quotes being farmed to a few agents. The genius of the idea lead to a multi-million dollar industry. But economics demands that the greed set in, and has it ever.

YES, pretty much every company is selling the same leads. YES, "affiliate marketing" is the cause. Anyone can sign up to be an affiliate for a lead company in 5 minutes. Go to a lead-gen company's website and try it if you don't believe me. I could become an affiliate for any company that ANY of you are using, fill out quote forms myself with info from a phone book and get paid for a few months. Happens all the time. Fact is, the number of people who legitimately shop on-line for insurance has doubled in the last 10 years, yet the number of internet leads has more than quadrupled (contact me for references on that). YES, that means exactly what it implies, and my supply/demand formula explains it all.

They are selling the same leads because they CAN and that's how the meta-marketplace is. Affiliates have settled into the fact that they can sell the same leads to multiple vendors. Vendors have settled into the fact that they can sell a lead a few times in addition to another vendor. What scares me is the desperation caused by the insurance industry has caused demand to rise to the point where this obvious problem can exist and still leave the marketplace uber-profitable.

Unfortunately for all of you, your worst fears are true. Driven by the college-taught economic model of the marketplace, leads companies are pushing their limits. Surehits (those pesky Geico, Ehealth, etc.) ads at the bottom of every quote form account for nearly 40% of the revenue in the lead-gen industry. "Exclusive" leads are intentionally sold to multiple agents. Execs really do have "closed door" conversations about what they can/can't get away with.

I'm here, I'm unafraid, and I'm willing to back up everything I say with reliable references and/or scenarios. Yes, I'm driven by spite (with a touch of integrity). YES, I'm a nightmare to lead companies. I've seen countless (justified) complaints about lead company execs running scared on here.

If you think I'm fake, try me. If you don't, ask away.

 

[Guest]

If you think I'm fake, try me. If you don't, ask away.

Who are you and where did you work?

Al

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Interesting...no...potentially explosive first post...if true.

Knowing who you worked for would add some credibility. I suspect it is NetQuote, but that's just a guess.

""Exclusive" leads are intentionally sold to multiple agents. Execs really do have "closed door" conversations about what they can/can't get away with."

I think we all would like to hear some specifics regrding that.

Thanks.

 

[whatyouwantfinally]

Interesting...no...potentially explosive first post...if true.

Knowing who you worked for would add some credibility. I suspect it is NetQuote, but that's just a guess.

""Exclusive" leads are intentionally sold to multiple agents. Execs really do have "closed door" conversations about what they can/can't get away with."

I think we all would like to hear some specifics regrding that.

Thanks.

I'd be more than happy to let you know exactly who I am (first/last name, company, things I couldn't know if I wasn't who I was, talk to you on the phone, etc.) PM me. If, because I'm new, PM's don't work for me, we'll find another means. NDA and all, you know?

Funny you replied. I was once (within the last year) given the task of finding out who you are due to your posts on here. Never really was sure if I was right or not. You did use my (former) employer once or twice (per your posts), and I THINK I figured it out but was never really sure. Needless to say I monitored this forum quite a bit, and I'm under the impression you could verify my credibility to the satisfaction of most here, so I hope you follow through.

My identity aside, here are some (pre-identity verification) specifics.

Regarding "exclusive" leads; the obvious problems are as thought.

1) Most companies do exactly what you think they do; share leads. If an already-sold lead is bought by one company from another and sold as "exclusive" (read; we only SOLD it to you) there's an issue. Let alone the fact that both our and our affiliates' sites promise consumers 5 or more quotes and provide a multitude of pay-per-click options upon form completion, we would also sell them to 1-3 other agents with the old fallback of, "We never promised they wouldn't visit other sites." There's a reason you'll hear that from other companies (even with shared leads), and your suspicions are spot on. It seems like every agent knows this deep down, they just have the, "Someone would stop them if that was REALLY happening," mentality. No, no one would, and they really are.

As for "closed door" meetings, I can go on all day (and will upon questioning) but it would be like putting out unrequested snuff porn. Everyone knows how the story goes but watches nonetheless; I'd rather respond to specific inquiries than just spew. Put it this way for now; during my tenure I never once was involved in a conversation about how to actually make leads better from an agent's perspective. Nothing but what we can do because others have gotten away with it, how we might be able to further push the envelope in that regard, etc. It's all about "monetizing" the product; nothing more. We went as far as knowingly billing people incorrectly figuring the % that wouldn't notice/complain far outweighed those that would. And we were right. Snuff trailer over.

What's really disturbing is this; in light of what goes on due to the rampant demand for clients you'd think someone would corner the market by offering a quality product. I mean, with all these people wanting/needing leads and having the same complaints about every company it almost makes no sense that someone doesn't just give the people what they want. Quite a phenomenon. I'm left pondering whether or not a "legit" internet lead company is even a profitable business model. My best guess as to why it is what it is follows;

Most of these companies are owned by VERY young people. You connect the dots.

These companies are owned by computer nerds. If you've ever met a true "nerd", their lack of connection with reality (at least the human element of it) isn't that surprising.

And, finally, there's too much money involved. Go with me here...

You're starting a lead company. You have to rely on a combination of self-generated and affiliate-generated leads. The ratio there matters, but regardless, there's an average acquisition cost involved. You have no control of where your leads come from geographically, yet your acquisition cost exists on every lead. Early on, you're not going to have an agent to receive every lead, which forces you to either not recoup your cost on many/most leads early on and go under or sell those leads to a "partner". Even if you have 1 agent on board to receive every lead, you're usually in the red (YES, lead companies usually pay more for the leads than an individual agent does. Fortunately, affiliates are SUPER nerdy, too much so to set up their own distribution networks), so your "partners" are important for quite a while. I'm sure your happy ending would be that eventually a company would have 2-3 agents to receive each lead and recoup cost plus profit on every lead, but try convincing a young nerd that it's a good idea to resist that extra $5-$15 per from selling to other companies for the sake of quality when you're talking thousands of leads a day (coupled with the fact that agents keep buying regardless) and you'll start to catch my drift.

For proof, look at internet leads from years ago. Before Surehits and lead sharing took hold they were the best thing since sliced bread. Then one company called another and said, "Hey, we'll give you an extra $8 a lead." Leads aren't worse now because people are less serious than they used to be, it's because demand beating up supply seems to DEMAND it.

Call me Sammy Gravano with a conscience rather than a plea bargain.

 

[whatyouwantfinally]

Interesting...no...potentially explosive first post...if true.

Knowing who you worked for would add some credibility. I suspect it is NetQuote, but that's just a guess.

""Exclusive" leads are intentionally sold to multiple agents. Execs really do have "closed door" conversations about what they can/can't get away with."

I think we all would like to hear some specifics regrding that.

Thanks.

I just spent a ton of time responding to your post here as well as sending you a PM with my identity/backstory. Now I don't see my reply here and found I can't send a PM until I have 20 posts. It's as if I paid $10 for a lead, spent an hour calling it over a week just to find out the person didn't want an insurance quote. Justice, I suppose.

...and no, not Netquote. I'll find a way to fill you in if it kills me.

Everyone else, ask away!

 

[SRQ Willie]

Is this supposed to be your next Pulitzer? If I was an editor, I would say get back out there, everyone already knows about this "crap" ...... "Give me something we don't know"

 

[whatyouwantfinally]

Is this supposed to be your next Pulitzer? If I was an editor, I would say get back out there, everyone already knows about this "crap" ...... "Give me something we don't know"

And if I were me (luckily I am) I'd say, "If you already know everything about internet leads what are you doing on an internet board dedicated to them?" If my post was titled, "The answer to 2+2 revealed!" would you have read it?

Oh, and if I WERE an editor I'd correct you on your usage of was/were. But don't worry, if the readin' and writin' fails ya, you could always sell insurance!

 

[Sydney]

I do not think anything you disclosed here is "new information" to any of us.

My questions are:

-How come I am still able to maintain a $7,$8 or $9 to $1 ratio exclusively using internet leads to build my health insurance book?

-Instead of us all complaining about this issue forever, what can we do to change the way the industry operates?

-Since you are now an expert in the lead business field, why don't you start your own lead company and do it the honest way? I will be your first client!!

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Although this is a great topic, nothing new posted as of yet. We know there are rogue affiliates. I even have a documented case of an affiliate plugging in false info so we know that goes on.

Lead swapping between vendors? The worst kept secret in the industry. Vendors even resell aged leads as pass them off as leads in real time.

More recently vendors are getting into the agency/call center game. Why settle with making money selling leads when you can also earn commission?

We can we do the change it? Nothing. And the top vendors know that. Class action would be impossible and even if you caught a vendor "red handed" and you chose to sue damaged would be limited to the amount of money you spent on their leads. Likely that amount is a few hundred.

Two things:

1) ROI: if you're earning what you consider a decent profit then why stop

2) Karma...which I believe in. Choosing to make a living by running a company that operates by lies, deception and basically screwing people is punished in many ways....and "it goes around and comes around" will always be there. The owners of these companies might not see it "come around" for them in a year, 2 or 5 years but it's well documented that karma is a bitch.

 

[focusgroup]

I agree with Sydney. If one is able to effectively work these leads then you take the good with the bad.

I'm relatively new to the "business", have been licensed since March. I have used at least 5 different lead sources and researched many more. It was an expensive learning lesson. The ones that consistently sent crappy leads, didn't keep my business. Sure they got money up front, however, no business can continue to grow without long term business.

Karma has and always will come around to bite a company in the backside who isn't doing right by it's clientèle.

Thanks for sharing. Those who have done their research will not be surprised by this post whatsoever.

B