The five stages of a campaign
Lead generation for mortgage brokers moves through the same five stages every time, whoever runs it. None of it is clever. The point is that each stage is written down, so you can pick any lead in your CRM and say what it passed and when.
- Capture and qualification, through a form built for one product rather than a general contact page.
- Phone verification by SMS, so the number is live and belongs to the person who filled in the form.
- Duplicate checking against records already sent, before anything is charged.
- Delivery into your CRM while the enquiry is still fresh.
- Weekly optimisation and scaling, with spend moved toward the sources that hold up.
What does qualification actually check?
Qualification decides whether the rest of it is worth anything. PrimeLeads uses up to 98 data points to check an enquiry, which is our own published figure. Some come from the form. Others come from checks that run behind it, before the lead is sent anywhere. The stage is described in full under mortgage lead qualification.
Two more of our published numbers explain why we bother. Among high income property enquirers, 51.8% fail on finance. Among enquiries cleared by our PrimeProof checks, fewer than 5% fail. Both figures are ours, measured on our own traffic.
Phone verification sits inside this stage. We confirm by SMS that the number given is live and answered by the person who filled in the form. It is a small check that strips out a lot of noise, because the cost of a dead number is paid by the broker who dials it.
How does a lead reach your CRM?
Leads are delivered live. As soon as an enquiry clears verification it goes into the system you already work in, so your first call happens while the person still remembers filling in the form. How that works is described under CRM lead delivery.
Each lead is exclusive. It goes to one broker. It is not sold again to three others in the same postcode, so you are not the fourth caller that morning.
Duplicate checking runs before delivery. If the same person enquires twice, or has already been sent to you, the second record does not become a second charge.
What happens when a lead is wrong?
Some leads will be wrong. A number goes dead, a form gets filled in by mistake, someone gives a story that does not hold up on the phone. Flag it. We review invalid leads within five business days, and confirmed invalid leads are replaced or credited.
The review has a deadline because a claims process without one is just a slow no. Keep your notes on the record. A short line about what happened on the call is usually all the review needs.
What to have ready before the first lead
Two things decide how the first fortnight goes, and neither of them is ours. The first is who picks up. A lead called back at ten minutes is a different conversation from the same lead called at seven that evening, so agree who is on the phone and when. The second is where the record lands. Map the fields into your CRM before day one, not after a hundred leads have piled into the wrong place. Check consent and privacy handling on your side while you are in there.
The weekly loop
Once delivery starts, the work turns into a weekly loop. We look at which sources produced leads that answered the phone and which did not, then move spend to match. Sources that fade get cut. The ones that hold up get more.
Your feedback is the useful half of this. Tell us which leads booked a meeting and which went nowhere, and it goes back into the targeting. Accounts that send nothing back get tuned on our data alone, which is a slower road to the same place.
Scaling happens in steps rather than one jump. Volume rises only once the leads at the current level are still holding up.
Is pay per lead the right model for you?
You agree a fixed cost per lead before anything runs. There is no retainer, no monthly management fee and no lock-in. If the leads stop earning their keep, you stop buying them. That is a sharper feedback loop than a retained agency gives you. The model is set out in full on the page about pay per lead in Australia, and there is a short answer to how much you should pay for lead generation.
The model suits a broker with the capacity to call fast and the habit of following up for months rather than days. It suits nobody who plans to email once and wait. Mortgage lead generation supplies the conversation. What happens inside it is still your job.