Internet Lead Companies....Are They All Bad..?

Yes. I did judge internet leads on a $200 order. I'm not blaming Hometown quotes, rather the terrible quality of internet leads in general. Do you really think things would be different if I ordered more? They were very accommodating and returned all bad leads. Even their own rep said that over 50% of the leads would be bad and but I tried them anyhow. It was a total time suck. Maybe some agents want to spend 10 hours a day chasing crappy leads but not me. Again, this seems to be the case with all internet leads, not just Hometown quotes.

I've never tried commercial internet leads, maybe those leads are better.
 
I'm no holy grail but I'm different than the rest. I haven't given a shot to auto but I bet I could knock it out of the park although I don't know much about how the sales process works for an agent.

What type of money do you make on a policy sale and what is a good cost per sale? I'd probably be willing to do a pilot test on auto just to see how it goes.
 
To be successful with leads, you have to understand it is the law of large numbers at work. Sometimes you hit a batch of bogus leads and then the next batch are all answering their phones. That is truly why the agent earlier said that $200 is not enough to judge the quality on. At best, you got 16 leads [I think you said Auto] If Home or life leads it would have been even less.

Please go read this thread where an agent asked for help to meet his goal this month. HERE. http://www.insurance-forums.net/forum/insurance-leads/4-more-accounts-happy-pay-help-t74776.html#post998600

If you notice towards the end, that after talking to me & his Regional Director, he said: "I'm now contacting WAY more of the leads and getting better quality."

Seriously, IMHO, you bailed too soon. All of my Regional Directors have experience working leads in an agency setting. They also talk to our agents on a daily basis & share what they hear from our successful agents with others.

We rarely have bogus leads over 20%, it is extremely rare, but it happens. Law of Large numbers:) I am working leads with an agent on a daily basis now. What I've learned has helped us make changes at HTQ so things get better for our agents. Yes, it sucks some days more than others, but I'm doing this to not only help the agency but to see if we can do things better. Then we'll share those ideas with our agents.
We're coming out with a "white paper" that we'll be offering free to those interested soon. It will have many ideas that we've learned, both from our agents & by personal experience. I'll let you all know once we have it available.
 
When you are new to internet leads, it doesn't make much sense, but they really do run in batches of hot and cold. Sounds like you hit a cold spell.

You also learn all marketing programs work this way. Heck, even cold calling, some days you get a bunch of leads, somedays none. Somedays you talk to people, somedays, phone numbers are all disconnected. Just the way it is.

In the P&C world, there are no 'Holy Grail' of lead sources that last for any length of time. Everything takes time and you are working these for $200 in commission at a time. Having the expectation that you have to work the lead is much more realistic then thinking they are really waiting for you to call and tell them where to sign.

The catch to internet leads is you have to have a very thorough system and work them hard. You can't let them sit in your inbox for any length of time. This makes it very hard for a one man shop to work them though, because you can be tied up for a few hours when a lead comes in.

I had a system that looked like:
Lead comes in
- Phone automatically calls them
- An email is automatically sent to them

- 20 minutes later, phone calls them again
- 60 minutes later, phone calls them again
- 4 hours later, another call
- 24 hours later, another call, another email
- 48 hours later, another call
- 7 days later, another call, another email
- 14 days later, another call, another email
- 30 days later, another email

When I say, phone automatically calls them, I mean my lead system would automatically call me and when I connected, automatically dial them. This keeps you on top of your game.

Once I connected with them, then they would get taken off this method and put on either a sales pipeline or a drip system for later followup.

Then you need a realistic expectation that this isn't a get rich scheme. In P&C, you'll spend every bit of your first year commission in writing a policy (on non-family / friends).

If you work aged leads, you get all of the garbage of the fresh leads and then a bunch more since many people are burned out from the calls. Of course, your lead cost is MUCH lower.

Dan
 
So I Figured that I'd give HTQ a try.... (50%) Absolutely no good! I.E., Not at all interested….wanted quote for a line I hadn't requested…thought they were filling out something for a free this or that.. a child messing around on parents pc. All verifiable & honestly accurate on my part.
....I spent $600 on this,


Ended up being closer 70+% no good. From some searches on here, it's not that un-common really.

Plus, when you cancel, they deduct the cost of the "bonus" leads from your balance.


ALLWEB LEADS is even worse. They get you with there "after Multiple Attempts" gig

... over 15 years of experience with internet leads I believe I am qualified to comment. "After multiple attempts, unable to verify the return reason selected"
 
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