What you pay for, and what you do not
A retained agency charges for activity: the month, the ad management, the report. Pay per lead charges for the record that lands in your CRM. No lead, no charge. A lead outside the agreed criteria, no charge either. The month can be quiet or busy and the invoice follows the leads, so the risk of a slow month sits with the supplier rather than with you.
The definition is the contract
The model only works if the word lead is pinned down before anything runs. At PrimeLeads a lead has to pass four tests. If a record fails any of them it is not a lead, and you do not pay for it.
- A person asked to be contacted about a home loan, and their consent is on the record
- Their mobile was verified by SMS at the point of enquiry
- The record was checked against leads already sent to you, so a repeat is not a second charge
- The enquiry was screened on finance before delivery, and it is exclusive to you
What it costs
The price is a fixed cost per lead, agreed before the campaign starts. We do not publish it, because it moves with the loan purposes, states and volume you choose. There is no retainer and no lock in. Invalid leads are reviewed within five business days, and confirmed invalid leads are replaced or credited. The short version of the mechanics is under how does pay per lead work.
Pay per lead against the alternatives
Running your own ads costs time as much as money. You build the form, watch the spend, verify the numbers and chase the follow up, on top of writing loans. A retainer buys an agency's time and leaves the result open. Pay per lead buys the result and leaves the agency to manage its own time. Which is right depends on whether you have the hours to run a campaign, or the appetite to pay for one before it works.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits a broker with the capacity to call within minutes and the habit of following up for months. It suits a broker who wants to test one state at low volume before deciding anything. It does not suit anyone planning to email once and wait, and it does not suit a broker who wants a promise about volume or settlements, because we make neither.
Choosing a supplier on this model
Most suppliers now say pay per lead. Fewer will define a lead in writing, name the checks, or state a dispute window. Those three things are the difference between the model and the slogan, and they are the basis of the questions on the page about mortgage lead generation companies. How the exclusive part is kept is under exclusive lead generation. Whether the model is worth it at all for your book is the subject of how much you should pay for lead generation.