Why Crappy Leads from Affiliates Will Never Stop!

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

"Why anyone would buy a "shared" lead or an "affiliate" lead is beyond me, when they can get "exclusive" leads.Tom"

As many have mentioned...no such thing as an exclusive lead.

If you are referring to "live transfer leads,"...for an unbiased viewpoint, anybody can send me a PM.

 

[TXINSURANCE]

The reason affiliate leads exist is because there are not enough "real" leads to go around. Not to mention the filters agents request such as area, demographics, health, etc., etc.,

This has always been a limited supply far less than demand.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

The lead industry to difficult to run correctly. If we want it to be "clean" we have to understand that demand far exceeds supply. There are only a few legitimate ways for lead vendors to deal with this:

1) 1 year contracts for all agents with say 30 lead per week minimums. Cancel and you're off to collections

2) Waiting lists - you want leads? Fine - you should get some in say....August.

3) Jack the prices - $10, $18, $28 for shared leads

Anytime there is not enough to something either the price goes up or supply runs out.

However, here is the real issue. This isn't popular but we're the real problem. Agents sign up, get 8 leads - cancel; sign up, get leads for 2 weeks, cancel.

Agents sign up, only want ages 30 to 55, non-smokers, no health conditions, only families, no leads before 10am, no leads after 5pm, never on weekends, still get 22 leads and cancels.

Agents sign up for 200 leads, accounts goes on pause. So now we have vendors incurring expenses and can't keep 3 agents in the same state on the source all at once.

Let's say a vendor wants to do this the right way - ONLY real leads and only shared with 3 agents in the state of FL. That vendor signs up 3 agents and:

Agent 1: Gets 18 leads, wants to return 16 because he can't close them. Vendors says no, agent files for a chargeback.

Agent 2: Gets 2 leads that day, pauses account for the next 4

Agent 3: Gets 6 leads, billing fails

That's the reality. Out of 100 agents how many have the skills and financial resources to stick with a good lead source. 2. The other 98 either can't close a barn door with a tractor or have "$268.65" available balance on their card.

Not saying the vendors aren't engaged in unethical activity, just also showing the other site of the story. We have to understand that if the industry really does get cleaned up we still have more demand than supply so we'd have to accept contracts and higher prices with no ability to pause your account.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

"no ability to pause your account"

I would never use a lead vendor that insists on that and I don't recommend anybody else do that either. If your lead vendor resorts to that, go elsewhere.

Now...if you can drop your zips to one that rarely gets leads...then shift back again...that's fine.

WebNanny was used in this post
WebLeadSource was used in this post

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

While that's fine it'll never work that way if we want a clean industry. A vendor cannot generate 100 leads in a 24 hr period of time but only sell 60 of them that come through during business hours. No legit vendor can "eat" all leads that come in after hours and weekends.

Worse than that, a vendor cannot have 3 agents in a state, generate 100 leads but those 3 agents combined only want 25 leads that day.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

While that's fine it'll never work that way if we want a clean industry. A vendor cannot generate 100 leads in a 24 hr period of time but only sell 60 of them that come through during business hours. No legit vendor can "eat" all leads that come in after hours and weekends.

It's not incumbent upon the buyer to make sacrifices so that the seller's business model will "work".

There are very easy solutions to these problems. If there is less demand for leads after business hours, then drop the price - or raise the price during business hours.

Supply and demand always works.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

True, but if you pay for a billboard, say $1,000 a month you can't call the advertising company back and say "listen, 40 leads came after 6pm so...

Same with mailers - pay $1,000 to have mailers sent but people call on night and weekends. You get back with the mailer company and say "I need a $200 credit - had people calling me after biz hours."

We are running a business and buying leads is a form of advertising. It can't all be simply shut off after 5 and on weekends.

That said, I think your idea is perfect - $8 shared during business hours and say $3 after hours. Great idea.

 

[Norwayguy]

healthagent I agree with you that lead vendors how costs and agents dropping the service causes problems wanting to pause etc.. However its a chicken before the egg problem Agents cancel accounts or pause etc because that is there only recourse to the crap that persists in the lead industry...I would gladly agree to a contract for a time period and a higher price if people were not being forced or slammed into wanting quotes. All I'm asking for is the ability to reach people at least if people are reachable I have a chance of closing but I've fought my share of credit requests and lost because you can't verify that the number does not belong to the person requesting quote...I hate answering machines that only give the telephone number so many people screen there calls and I think if they are getting calls based on people bogusly putting there number down it is much easier to delete the message than to answer and call back telling us to stop....I actually respect the people that give me time and temps number at least I don't spend weeks calling with no possiblity of a credit down the road.

So yes we can be part of the problem but as things are set up now the vendors sell crap realizing that probably only 2 in 7 crappy leads get caught and when caught all they do is credit you for what they stole they have no penalties etc..

 

[GreenSky]

It's not the fault of agents - it's the greed of lead companies. Rather than raising the price but providing quality, they took the easy way out and are reselling to other lead providers, telemarketing leads, and selling insurance themselves.

I did very will with ASAP leads until the end of January when they changed their business model which effectively screwed agents. (Yes, a FEW agents buying a TON of leads still do well but the ROI is way down).

I have decided to put my money into websites and find other ways to generate business. I will not spend another dollar with these dishonest, lying bastards. (I'm holding back).

Rick

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Agreed. It didn't take too long to figure out that 80% of all leads don't answer and you can't submit for credit simply because people don't answer.

That became literally a license to steal for some affiliates and as long as the leads were rolling in a lot of vendors looked the other way.

It's pretty tough to self-police when you're running a lead company rolling around in money knowing that if you nix one of your larger affiliates you're also killing your lead flow.

Imagine running an agency and firing one of your top producers who's responsible for 15% of your overrides.

Now it's all a huge catch-22; leads suck, agents cancel, profits are down so the leads are worse and more agents cancel. It's now a dog chasing its tail and won't change until we all figure out a solution that benefits everyone.

Some lead vendors think they're beating the system by trying to screw agents but it's simply a ticking clock until they go out of business.

These vendors now live and die off a few large contracts and if they lose one they take a huge bath. But they decided to go that route instead of "corning" the independent market by staying honest which was a piss poor business decision - especially since they don't make as much per lead on large accounts.