Blog, Facebook, Finance, Marketing, The Thin Green Line, Yabber

The Real Cost of Pay Per Lead Services in the Mortgage Industry

We object to pay-per-lead generation services because the ability to attract, cultivate, and convert clients on your own is ridiculously easy. In this article we'll show you how our services are far more effective than pay-per-lead or similar services for just 3% of the fee of a competing service (that's 97% less over a full 12-months, and may be up to 50X more cost-effective in the first month alone)... and we'd argue adds over 100X more value to your business.

The first question is this: how are we able to provide a superior service for less? First we use our own in-house technology designed specifically for finance brokers, and second, we don't overcharge. We made the decision long ago that everything we did would empower businesses with the digital assets that they need to grow organically, but also supported by best-practice and compliant technology. Our goal is simple: give brokers the tools they need to succeed so they no longer need us.

The Typical Comparison

We'll use one particular company for our comparison. They have a number of lead-generation packages available, but we'll look at their 'Mega Pack' - 50 leads per month. Over a full 12-months the direct cost to you (assuming you purchased a single pack every month) would be $95,995 (yes, nearly $100.000), and this includes the $595 signup fee.

We've inherited countless brokers that previously used this product and they don't have a single tangible asset to show for their spend. They aren't provided with any tools to enhance their lead generation unless there's a clear budget assigned to the program. Their landing pages are horrendously poor and shared under the same domain as competitors, and the adverts we've inherited in all cases were run on dodgy Facebook pages set up in isolation of your primary account... so there was no social or brand exposure. Worse still is that they limited the effectiveness of their top-of-funnel capture by asking ridiculous quiz style questions designed to do nothing but make their job easier (it'll end up costing you a ton).

Facebook Advertising: In the entire time we've operated not a single client has lost access to their Facebook ad account (and we introduced Facebook advertising to the finance industry in Australia, so we've been doing it a long time). This clean record is a result of advertising that is compliant with applicable legislation, but also compliant with Facebook's own advertising policies. We've inherited triple-digit brokers from other services that have all had their accounts banned - a marketing agency should never introduce non-compliance of any kind into a broking business. A typical approach used by some of the worst industry offenders would have you set up a Facebook 'Community Page' or similar to circumvent Facebook's policies and protect your primary page - this is utterly ridiculous; you should always promote your primary social page as part of your advertising efforts as it drives brand awareness, likes, and boosts engagement. Setting up another page to shield yourself against having a page shut down is a very clear indication that the representation has no idea what they're doing.

Note: We were going to include some of the landing pages provided by the other mob but we were seriously concerned that somebody might see the images and associate the mediocrity with us... so we left them out. The pages are bad - real bad. In the most recent case we've inherited, the Facebook pixel used was a common one shared between brokers; this meant that your engaged traffic was shared with that of your competitors - a seriously unethical tactic... but one that is common practice among the lead-generation crooks.

If the company used for our comparison delivered as expected over a 12-month period you'll see up to 600 leads.

Let's compare this against Belief's core product.

At the moment we're running a special where a broker has a full and complete 12-month subscription to Yabber , and we provide our brokers with an extremely powerful mortgage broker website that is designed to convert (the website is yours forever). There's a couple of hundred primary pages, and around 100'000 back-end pages with integrated calendars, live bank product data, and other tools that form part of a real and immersive funnel experience. Your landing pages, of course, are integrated directly into your website (a landing page should never ever be hosted on a third party service).

Our current special, and it won't last that much longer, is just $2800 + GST for the full package. That's it for a full 12-months of software and support - no more to pay... and it includes far more than just Facebook support. We provide you with the turnkey systems to create industry-leading campaigns at a fraction of the cost of any competing service, and certainly far more effective than any dodgy pay-per-lead of third-party-hosted lead-generation system.

If we were to compare this 'other' product with Belief's package, in just the first month of the 'Mega pack' we would already have $5150 left over to play with, which would return around 735 leads at a rather 'expensive' $7 a lead (we've seen them under a dollar, but they'll generally float around the $4 - $5 mark, depending up on a large number of variables). To be clear: compared to the other product, we would give you an amazing website (yours forever), and you would return 735 leads (that's 685 more than the other mob), for exactly the same investment. This comparison excludes the conversions driven via our post-subscription and relationship-based settlement tools.

We've been doing this forever and absolutely guarantee that our funnels are more effective. Our marketing systems are unquestionably the most powerful funnels in the broker market.

So, in our first month we've provided you with a mortgage broker website that is yours forever with enough budget to attract 735 leads of your own, of which we'd expect anywhere between 30% and 60% to convert into clients... and our funnel will always convert more than any competing product.

If you were to apply the remaining budget for subsequent months you would only have to invest only a few hundred dollars to see the same 50 leads, and if you wanted to invest the crazy sum of $7950 per month you would probably attract around 1135 leads per month (at a highish $7 per lead).

Over a full year, our product is at least 10X more effective, and costs less than 3% of what you'd pay the other mobs.

In the case of the product we've evaluated, they also provide 'Maxi' and 'Micro' packs, and in each case we end up providing infinitely more value (their lower priced packs have a higher lead cost).

If you were to invest in a 'Mini pack' just four times through the year you would pay around $15,400, and you would expect to see 80 leads. Our system would return you with a broker website (worth at least 30K, and your forever) and then provide sufficient budget to return 1800 leads (once again with a lead cost of $7). If your lead cost was lower you would obviously pay less, but even if the lead cost tripled you would still return 600 leads with the same budget.

The 'other' product validates phone numbers via SMS (a feature we removed because it disqualified too many valid clients), and they include just one autoresponder email which is simply absurd. The experience is in no way funnel-like in any respect.

I cannot begin to articulate how crap this product is.

The Markup is Ridiculous

Paying any company over $100 a lead, or even $30 a lead, is just utterly ridiculous. When a company blatantly charges up to $179 a lead when it adds no tangible value to your business, it is completely contrary to any customer-first or best-interest obligation that you yourself are familiar... particularly when the product itself is so poorly constructed. If the same level of transparency and legislative framework that brokers are familiar with was applied to the digital market it'd see most lead-generation businesses go broke overnight (with many of them ending up in prison).

Changing the Industry

For a long time we've sat back and ignored the damage that the marketing charlatans have introduced to the finance industry, but we've decided that enough is enough. While we took the approach for years and years that it 'wasn't our business', we've ended up inheriting hundreds of brokers that were let down by bottom-of-the-barrel solutions. We're genuinely hoping that these clowns simply vacate the industry and apply their mediocrity elsewhere.

Our value and service is unmatched.

Conclusion

Your business needs its own systems to support paid and organic lead generation. Period. And we provide this to you - including an industry leading mortgage broker website with features you simply won't find elsewhere, and at a cost that is significantly lower than virtually all competing services.

There are only two industries that refer to their clients as users: the illegal narcotic trade, and digital services... and it's easy to understand why when lead-generation is thrown into the mix. Lead generation services are designed like an addictive drug; they rely on your business not having the capacity to generate your own business, but the damage the services inflict on your business health is akin to the damage a narcotic will have on your body. Your business can easily implement the systems necessary to take back control of your marketing and lead generation, and without it, you simply won't grow.

Featured Image: Rural Bank, John Street, Coonabarabran, NSW, c.1959. Rural Bank is wholly owned by the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Group, Australia’s leading community banking group. [ View Image ]

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