LeadCrowd vs The World: How We Compare to Other Lead Gen Firms

If you’re looking to buy leads in the financial services sector, whether that’s for mortgages, insurance, pensions, equity release or estate planning, you might have considered using a lead generation firm. But how do you select the most suitable for your needs? This helpful comparison will get you started.

How do lead generation firms work?

Lead generation companies operate in many sectors, however, they are particularly active in the financial services industry. In general, all lead generation companies, ourselves included, sell leads to financial advisers, financial planners and other types of brokers, to save them the significant time, hassle and expense of sourcing their own leads.

However, not all lead generation companies are created equally. There are distinct differences in terms of:

• The type and quality of the leads offered

• Price and charging structure

• Exclusivity of leads purchased

• Flexibility - such as whether or not you’re bound to a contract or have to commit to a minimum leads purchased per month arrangement

Below, we look at how LeadCrowd stacks up against our top competitors in the lead generation space.

Who are LeadCrowd’s top competitors?

There are a plethora of lead generation companies operating in the financial services space, but each have unique methods of operation, pricing structures and lead quality. Here’s how our top competitors stack up against us:

1. Unbiased

Unbiased is known as a consumer-facing website used to source financial advisers or mortgage advisers. However, they also offer the leads generated from their site for sale to IFAs via a monthly contract plan. Monthly membership fees start from £87 for a self-employed individual, with an additional cost per lead of a fee of £43+ for each lead (all plus VAT). They also offer larger plans for regional and national firms.

Leads purchased are exclusive to you, but there is no guarantee of how many leads you will receive per month, this is dictated by your own criteria.

How we compete: At Leadcrowd you are not bound to a membership, we only charge per lead, and you can buy as few or as many leads as you like.

2. VouchedFor

VouchedFor are known as a review website, however they also offer an enquiry service to potential customers. Those members of the public who create a profile can ask specific questions related to their financial needs, which VouchedFor then sells on to IFAs and brokers. They don’t have a per lead cost and membership is £45+VAT per month. However, they do not guarantee a minimum number of leads per month, quoting 8+ additional customers per year.

How we compete: While queries from a review site are likely to have high intent, there is no guarantee that you’ll receive any suitable leads through this service. In contrast, at LeadCrowd our qualified leads are plentiful and available on demand, whenever you need them.

3. Simply Online Leads

Simply Online Leads generate financial services leads on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) bidding model, allowing clients to purchase real-time leads without long-term contracts or minimum order requirements. They generate these enquiries primarily through their own internal PPC, SEO, and social media campaigns, offering both standard data leads and live transfers where the customer is pre-qualified before being connected.

How we compete: While SOL operates a similar PAYG model to us, they don’t offer leads to suit such a wide range of budgets. Our marketplace offers unsold real-time leads at a significantly lower price, which is ideal for newer advisers, or those working part time hours.

4. Lead Pronto

Lead Pronto offers both digital marketing and lead generation services to a variety of sectors, predominantly in home improvements, but with some financial and legal services. They operate a flexible Pay Per Lead model and a Revenue Share option, where they only earn a commission when you close a sale. They use a multi-channel lead collection model, utilising PPC, SEO and social media across each industry.

How we compete: While Lead Pronto offers a flexible opportunity to buy leads, they don’t specialise in financial services leads, meaning they will likely generate fewer relevant opportunities. They do provide mortgage leads, but do not advertise the availability of leads from any other financial sector. On the other hand, we operate exclusively in financial services, providing leads from across the market; from insurance to pensions, and from mortgages to estate planning.

5. Performance Leads

As the name suggests, Performance Leads operate a strictly performance-based lead buying model. This means customers typically pay finders fees only on completed, revenue-generating jobs rather than upfront for advertising. Their approach utilizes a multi-channel strategy using data analytics, A/B testing, and targeted content to identify and qualify audiences before passing them on.

How we compete: While Performance Leads offer strategic regional targeting to help you find the right demographic of customer, we offer a highly granular targeting criteria. This allows you to target a radius of a particular county, and even specific postcode areas, if you’re looking to find leads in a specific area of the country.

6. Lead Tech

Lead Tech offers a far more involved bespoke growth plan, including forecasts and projections for scaling your business, as well as leads, sourced from multiple marketing channels such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads and Bing Ads. They also offer an appointment setting service, using their generated leads to connect you directly with customers.

These services are provided on a contract basis, with different levels of contract arranged bespoke to your needs.

How we compete: While contracts may work for some larger firms, we understand that there are lots of independent IFAs and mortgage brokers operating on a smaller budget. That’s why we provide our leads with maximum flexibility. We don’t expect you to buy a minimum amount of leads per month or even year, they’re just available if and when you need them, 24/7.

7. Online Mortgage Advisor

This brand used to sell leads but no longer operate in this space. We can provide you with the mortgage leads they once supplied, along with other types of finance including bridging finance, protection insurance, secured loans and equity release.

How to decide which lead generation firm is right for you

This table provides a quick and easy comparison of the main factors most advisers are focussed on when they are looking to buy quality financial leads:

Can’t I just generate my own leads?

Yes, you can of course generate leads for yourself if you have a professional website with strong SEO and a substantial PPC budget. However, this can be costly and time consuming. Lead generation companies usually employ a specialist marketing team and financial writers to produce the right type of web content to attract genuine leads.

As well as the direct financial outlay, such as paying for Google Ads to target specific keywords, there is a level of specialist knowledge required to successfully market a website, especially in a sector as highly competitive as financial service. However, larger firms with an in-house marketing team to generate their own leads may also benefit from using a dual approach, both generating and buying leads, to maximise growth opportunities.

Are you a mortgage broker or financial adviser who needs leads to build their business? Sign up for an account on LeadCrowd for free and begin sourcing the enquiries you need today.