Netquote Leads And Final Expense

[ksigmtsu]

It's odd how wrong I was while I was tracking the results and had proof. I posted the results here as I collected them. I'm sure the threads are still there.

There were times when I got the same fake lead with identical data posted on a 4 hour delay.

I reported exactly what happened while it happened.

I have some understanding of the affiliate programs also, because I have the posting docs, but I did have to make assumptions as to what could cause 3 vendors to get the same fake lead on a time delay.
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My assumption was that they all violated the count and counted a lead vendor as a person then didn't report how many times each vendors down the line resold it.
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I'm not saying that your system does this, as i've never tested your system.

 

[Bob Klee]

ksigmtsu,

Old story actually. I do think someone has covered this before.
The post the other day I made about the most expensive Key Word on Google: Insurance, is a clue as to why.

Let's say you buy an auto lead from me for $8 bucks. Our lead agreement says I can sell the lead up to 8 times but for captives, it is "exclusive" as we won't sell the same lead to two Allstate agents. I pay $15-$20 to buy that lead, sometimes even more, sometimes less.

In reality, being that we are at most, 10% the size of NQ, AWL and their combined companies, I can't compete unless I do one of two things. 1) only sell to agents signed up with HTQ & thus have to charge them much more! 2) participate in the "undersold" market with my "Frenemies" to help keep my cost of leads down. [undersold being less than my max distribution but of course not the same agent. In reality, I've rarely seen a lead distribute to more than 6 even with this distribution. Typically it might go to 2 more agents at most using this method] Depending on what area of the country we're talking about, we might sell the lead 3 times ourselves.

Pangaea is beginning to understand this with his Exclusive leads. I'm sure most days he has more Un-sold leads than sold! I remember back when we started we cringed at the end of the day looking at the un-sold list of leads. Money we might have just as well thrown down the toilet. Without a market for his un-sold leads he won't be in business long.

Back to the "ping-post" sharing of leads. It does require a "gentleman's" agreement to not distribute more than X times & it requires as you discovered, that we share the agent license number to achieve this.

Also, we still have to screen the leads as if from any Affiliate or we end up taking Junk! One company we do this with we turn down over 2-300,000 leads a month! We have our own Quality standards, our own screening tools.

So back to the start. Even as big as the "Big Dogs" in this space are, they don't have enough agents to sell their leads to either.

Is it hurting you, the local agent for us to do this? I think that is the Best question to ask. IMO from analyzing many, many leads & talking to successful agents that work leads: No, but for one lead type, Maybe/Yes.

Why? In one particular lead group type, Health, there are extremely "aggressive" call centers that just hammer the client. Somaro Bob is very aware of this. We have been investigating & believe we have a solution for you Health guys but I won't post here. If a couple of you "old timers" that bought Health leads from me in the past would like to discuss my idea, please give me a call.

Lastly: I am all about being as transparent as I possibly can in dealing with agents. That is the only way I know to do business. I am always available to chat via phone, IM or email if you'd like to contact me.

 

[Pangaea]

ksigmtsu,

Old story actually. I do think someone has covered this before.
The post the other day I made about the most expensive Key Word on Google: Insurance, is a clue as to why.

Let's say you buy an auto lead from me for $8 bucks. Our lead agreement says I can sell the lead up to 8 times but for captives, it is "exclusive" as we won't sell the same lead to two Allstate agents. I pay $15-$20 to buy that lead, sometimes even more, sometimes less.

In reality, being that we are at most, 10% the size of NQ, AWL and their combined companies, I can't compete unless I do one of two things. 1) only sell to agents signed up with HTQ & thus have to charge them much more! 2) participate in the "undersold" market with my "Frenemies" to help keep my cost of leads down. [undersold being less than my max distribution but of course not the same agent. In reality, I've rarely seen a lead distribute to more than 6 even with this distribution. Typically it might go to 2 more agents at most using this method] Depending on what area of the country we're talking about, we might sell the lead 3 times ourselves.

Pangaea is beginning to understand this with his Exclusive leads. I'm sure most days he has more Un-sold leads than sold! I remember back when we started we cringed at the end of the day looking at the un-sold list of leads. Money we might have just as well thrown down the toilet. Without a market for his un-sold leads he won't be in business long.

Back to the "ping-post" sharing of leads. It does require a "gentleman's" agreement to not distribute more than X times & it requires as you discovered, that we share the agent license number to achieve this.

Also, we still have to screen the leads as if from any Affiliate or we end up taking Junk! One company we do this with we turn down over 2-300,000 leads a month! We have our own Quality standards, our own screening tools.

So back to the start. Even as big as the "Big Dogs" in this space are, they don't have enough agents to sell their leads to either.

Is it hurting you, the local agent for us to do this? I think that is the Best question to ask. IMO from analyzing many, many leads & talking to successful agents that work leads: No, but for one lead type, Maybe/Yes.

Why? In one particular lead group type, Health, there are extremely "aggressive" call centers that just hammer the client. Somaro Bob is very aware of this. We have been investigating & believe we have a solution for you Health guys but I won't post here. If a couple of you "old timers" that bought Health leads from me in the past would like to discuss my idea, please give me a call.

Lastly: I am all about being as transparent as I possibly can in dealing with agents. That is the only way I know to do business. I am always available to chat via phone, IM or email if you'd like to contact me.

Bob, we sell shared leads too. lol Also, the font is hard to read...

 

[ksigmtsu]

There were leads during the testing that I spoke of that I was sold up to 6 times, by different vendors, and I know for a fact that they went to 4-5 other agents also.

The irony is, it could be prevented, it just isn't, and what the lead vendors are selling is still ultimately increased rent.

You take a middle spot between the agent and customer, jack up the advertising cost inside it to pay your overhead, then create a very negative experience for the customer by overselling the data.

If your average good agent calls the real number of times they should, which is 6, and you sell the lead 8 times, you just had someone unknowingly sign up for 48 phone calls.

Now, it would be different if it said right there bold on the site, if you fill out this form your information will be sold to 8 different insurance agents or companies if possible, and they will likely call you up to 6 times each, so you could get between 40 and 100 phone calls as a result of filling out this form.

I bet it would harm conversion rates though.

If you sell a lead 8 times, only 1 agent can make the sale, so ultimately you've increased their advertising cost by a factor of 8.

 

[Bob Klee]

...

The irony is, it could be prevented, it just isn't, and what the lead vendors are selling is still ultimately increased rent.

You take a middle spot between the agent and customer, jack up the advertising cost inside it to pay your overhead, then create a very negative experience for the customer by overselling the data.

Can you explain what you mean here? "Jack up the Advertising cost...."
The advertising cost is truly what we buy a lead for. One example: PPC. Let's assume the click cost for a Home lead in Dallas, TX is costing us $10 at the moment. Let's assume a click through rate of 50% [is there anyone here than can average 50% with their campaigns?] So 2 people click which cost $20 and one completely fills out the lead form that then goes into our system. That Lead just cost us $20 + at a minimum the cost of our Marketing Dept. PPC guru. [what if the lead is due to You filling out a test lead to see what we do with our leads?] See how the water gets muddied real fast?

How many times do I have to sell this $20+ lead to make a profit? Ksigmtsu: What would you consider to be a Fair Profit Margin?

I have 28 employees that are absolutely required to run our operation to provide the service our agents demand or else I lose them. How much profit margin do you think is fair?

These leads don't just fall in our laps for Free. Affiliates don't drive traffic to us for Free. Last I checked everyone on this Site likes to earn Good Commission checks! Anyone here interested in taking a 50% Less in Commissions so the Consumer can buy Cheaper Insurance?

Does Anyone here Sell insurance for Free? Just checking to make sure you're still awake

If your average good agent calls the real number of times they should, which is 6, and you sell the lead 8 times, you just had someone unknowingly sign up for 48 phone calls.

Now, it would be different if it said right there bold on the site, if you fill out this form your information will be sold to 8 different insurance agents or companies if possible, and they will likely call you up to 6 times each, so you could get between 40 and 100 phone calls as a result of filling out this form.

I bet it would harm conversion rates though.

If you sell a lead 8 times, only 1 agent can make the sale, so ultimately you've increased their advertising cost by a factor of 8.

Remember that "Click through rate" I mentioned above? How many potential clients would click on: Free Insurance Quote: Warning! expect to be auto-dialed 50 times a day until they drive you crazy!!


Maybe we should retake a look at the 8 x? Especially since it is such a rarity anyway. I will ask my Director of Operations to look into it. Like I said before, 3-5 is the most common, depending on what city/state.

Question for you: What sells more cars for the Auto Dealer? 20% down payment & $500 a month payment OR ZERO DOWN, $249.99 a month payment!!

ZERO down brings the Buyers in all day long! Even ones that don't qualify. Marketing.

Marketing can be such a black hole money wise! John Wannamaker's said, "I know my marketing works half the time, but I just don't know which half:("

To me and many successful agents, that is the beauty of Real Time Insurance Internet leads. One can measure the ROI, set a budget & by using consistent, duplicatable, measurable methods...they can grow their agency. But one MUST have a plan on how to work the leads.

 

[ksigmtsu]

I never filled out test leads to see what anyone did, I paid for leads from 8 vendors at once to see what leads would get resold to me and how many times. I invested my own money to see what advertising methods were being used and what the actual resale amounts were. I never once filled in a false lead for any reason. I'm not certain what your suggestion is there, you should go back and read what I said.

I have no dog in the fight of how much profit you should be allowed to make for increasing the cost of advertising for agents by making their COA go up by a factor of 2 to 8, however I do not have to agree with you that your business model, in which you make a higher profit in an aggregate sense than the agent who does the selling of the insurance is appropriate. You don't sell insurance, you occupy an artificially inflated middle ground between the agent and client, which has been created as a barrier to agents being able to self advertise.

I understand ctr and conversion rates quite well. I hold a higher organic position on every single statewide term for life or health insurance than your company does in your home state, and I'm a 1 man seo operation.

Average conversion on a click on a good lead form averages 28-42% based on a number of factors, including copy used on the landing form, organic or ppc bid position, etc. It's complex to some degree but not rocket science. I could explain it to most people off the street, and it does not make you look smart to say "Remember that click through rate".

My saying that you're jacking up cost is pretty accurate. You take a position between the agent trying to sell the product and the person trying to buy. You outbid the agent, in order to sell to multiple agents, with no added value. The only value being provided is in providing good copy and a low resale rate, and I do believe that selling to about 3 agents is reasonable, because it is likely that the selling style of the 3 agents may be different and not all 3 of them could have closed the particular deal, and in the case of reselling 3 times you might not be creating a hostile environment for your marks.

Here's a suggestion if you want to know. Email your old leads that filled out your form, and ask them specifically how many phone calls they would have liked to have received when they filled out your form, vs how many they got. You have a list, find out how many people wanted to get more calls, less calls, or thought it was "just right". Then you can take your test data, and use that to adjust how many agents you sell to.

It would be minimal cost, if you would like I will cover the entire technical cost of it including survey, data collection, and cost of smtp servers to deliver all emails, along with writing the copy, just provide me with a representative sample of 50000-100000 emails so we can get a statistically significant survey of your leads, and I will be happy to not only survey them, but I'll analyze it for you, give you the results publicly, and you can go forward knowing that you're achieving a positive result for the consumer. I will happily sign a NDA, no compete, or whatever you want, and contractually agree to only send those people 1 email branded with only your logos, and 5 survey questions, and only until I get a significantly significant survey sample, and I will set the email campaign to turn itself off as to not send more than is necessary.

I'll wager that 8 is about 5 more than they'd like. I'd also wager that if you asked them if it was appropriate for you to sell their information to another company to resell, they'd say no.

If you'd like to see, send me an email list and I'll check.

 

[Pangaea]

This is getting good...

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

this is why lead vendors should stay off this forum, never ends well lol

 

[dgoldenz]

I put in a test life lead 10 minutes ago and haven't received any calls or e-mails yet. I'm amazed...

Edit - two hours later, no calls, no e-mails.
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Didn't get a single call or e-mail all day on the lead I put in...weird

 

[ksigmtsu]

I put in a test life lead 10 minutes ago and haven't received any calls or e-mails yet. I'm amazed...

Edit - two hours later, no calls, no e-mails.
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Didn't get a single call or e-mail all day on the lead I put in...weird

May have gotten flagged by validation system as fake.