One solution? Buying insurance leads.
Paid insurance leads are potential clients whose contact info you get by paying someone for it. That can give your agency access to more prospects than you can find on your own, helping you spend more time making sales than looking for clients.
But there are important considerations to keep in mind before you start forking over your cash for leads. Let’s take a look at how paid leads work, the benefits and downsides of working with lead providers, how to buy leads, and best practices for maximizing your results.
How Do Paid Insurance Leads Work?
Paid leads are typically generated by lead providers (also known as lead vendors), which are businesses that charge to collect and evaluate prospects. These lead providers may sell one or more types of insurance leads to agents.
Types of Insurance Leads
Aged leads: Generally 30, 60, or 90 days old—though some might be even older. Typically, these leads are from prospects who submitted a request for information (or otherwise got in touch with an insurance agency or lead vendor) but never seemingly converted.
Exclusive leads: Only sold to you or your agency. These leads are generally warm (or, in some cases, even hot) and include contact details for high-quality prospects that are actively interested in purchasing an insurance policy.
Shared leads/non-exclusive leads: Other insurance agents and agencies also have access to these leads. With shared leads, you might need to compete to close the deal—which makes it important to act fast.
Live transfer leads: Targeted leads (based on parameters you define, like location, interest in specific insurance products, and demographics) who contact a call center when they’re ready to get coverage. From there, the call center takes on the responsibility of qualifying the lead to determine if the prospect is genuine; if so, the center transfers the prospect to you— where you then get the opportunity to close the sale.
Real-time leads: Organic leads that are contacted at the same time they’re generated—usually through a third-party partner, like an insurance policy comparison website. In these cases, a prospect might fill out a form with the expectation of receiving a response right away. As a result, real-time leads are likely to convert, but they demand your immediate attention.
Search leads: Generated via search engine optimization (SEO)—a process in which your website uses specific keywords to drive qualified traffic—and/or paid search campaigns (in which you pay to advertise your agency in search results). Search leads can be cold or warm, though they’re often rate shopping or looking for advice.
Pros and Cons of Buying Insurance Leads
Paying for leads can be an effective way to grow your book of business and drive revenue, but there are some considerations to keep in mind before you partner with a vendor. Here are the top pros and cons of buying leads: