Best Practices in Major-Life Purchase Lead Buying

Jornaya is taking a look at how consumers make major-life purchase (MLP)

decisions. MLPs are big-ticket items that entail a complex buying decision with

a high degree of financial and emotional risk (e.g. a car, loan, insurance, degree,

among others). These decisions take significant consideration and research and

require a unique marketing approach.

Based on our experience analyzing millions of customer interactions across

brands, performance marketing agencies, and comparison shopping sites, we

are publishing a number of reports that outline strategies to help MLP marketers

succeed. Based on an analysis of June 2017-May 2019 data, this report focuses on

lead buying trends. The outcome of the analysis reinforces the need to adopt best

practices, which are the focus of this report.

A B O U T T H I S R E P O R T :

LEAD BUYING TRENDS

Wouldn’t it be great if every consumer was the same? Unfortunately, we

all know too well there is no average. People are different. Behavior is

unique. Especially when it comes to making major-life purchase (MLP)

decisions, like buying a house or deciding on an insurance policy.

Shopping journeys are lengthy, complex, and involve multiple online

and offline interactions. Consider the mortgage consumer journey,

which often begins months before a credit score is pulled. Or the life

insurance journey where consumers research and visit more sites

across multiple device types prior to buying. While these consumers

are learning about your organization on your site, they’re also on a

variety of additional comparison shopping and research sites before

and after visiting your site.

These are touch points that you don’t get to see. But imagine if you had

a wider view of your customers and prospects. One that enables you

to appropriately identify and respond to each consumer in the smartest

and safest way. This deeper understanding of the consumers’ level of

intent and ability to engage with them accordingly greatly impacts the

success of your marketing strategy—and it all begins with the lead.

Know More About Your Customers

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You know you have to be both cautious and skilled as you invest in your lead generation program. But you might not always know how and when a

lead was generated or what the consumer’s behavior was prior to completing the lead. This makes it difficult for you to truly understand the value of

each lead and optimize lead performance for your business.

To shed some light on the value of a lead, we analyzed lead data compiled from Jornaya’s network of lead creators, aggregators, and call centers

from June 2017 to May 2019, as outlined in Figure 1.

From that analysis, and as an independent witness to over 200M

consumer events a month across 30,000 web domains, we have

been able to identify what high-performing brands are doing in

their lead buying practices. Their best practices include:

• UNDERSTAND THE ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND QUALITY OF A

LEAD TO IMPROVE LEAD PERFORMANCE

• LEVERAGE REAL-TIME INTELLIGENCE ABOUT THE LEAD

SOURCE AND THE CONSUMER’S BEHAVIOR

• ENSURE INDEPENDENT THIRD-PARTY PROOF

OF TCPA CONSENT TO PROTECT AGAINST CONSUMER

COMPLAINTS AND DEFEND AGAINST POTENTIAL

LAWSUITS

Know More About Every Lead

Figure 1: Number of Lead Sellers in the Jornaya Network

Read on to see how these leading practices are giving MLP

marketers and their organizations a competitive edge.

882

216184

221163

0

200

400

600

800

1000

Other (Home Services,Real Estate, Auto)

MortgageInsuranceEducationOverall(last 24 months)

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It can be difficult to navigate the terminology associated with lead generation. To ease any confusion, here are the definitions we use in this report.

Lead Generation Glossary of Terms

• Query: The act of performing an application program interface (API)

call, a real-time request and response that unlocks Jornaya data

about a lead, which include the lead origin and history information

(such as age, duration, etc.).

• Lead Age: The time that has elapsed between last consumer

interaction on the lead form (usually submit button) to when a lead is

queried upon receipt by a lead management system (LMS).

• Lead Aggregator: A company that buys leads from multiple

companies, combines them, and then sells them to a buyer. The

buyer knows the leads are aggregated but not the original

company that created them (an aggregator may also create leads,

i.e. a lead generator, aggregator, seller).

• Lead Buyer: A company that buys leads from someone else (may

or may not also create leads themselves).

• Lead Dupe: Lets a client know if they have purchased that exact

same lead before in a set period of time. This is different from

purchasing the same consumer information more than once.

• Lead Duration: Amount of time a consumer took to fill out form

• Lead Event: What the consumer did on the site such as what

information they filled out on the form and what they didn’t share.

• Lead Frequency/Velocity: The number of times a particular lead

has been audited across the network (similar to entities).

• Lead Generator: A company that creates leads.

• Lead Origin: Whether the lead was generated on a webpage by

the consumer or within a call center by a call center representative

(filling out the lead form on behalf of the consumer).

• Lead Provider: Anyone who sells leads (could be a generator,

aggregator, etc. also could buy leads).

• Lead Seller: A company that sells leads to another person/

company that may or may not have created the leads themselves.

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In many cases, lead quality is a mystery. Lead quality is a factor that allows you to identify how likely your prospects are to become your paying

customers. The higher the quality of your leads, the more likely they become your customers. Low-quality leads, such as old or recycled leads,

fraudulent leads, manufactured leads, and manipulated leads, just drain resources and increase the overall cost to acquire new customers.

Understand the Origin, History, and Quality of a Lead to Improve Lead Performance

LEADING PRACTICES

Figure 2: Time Between the First Buyer Query and Last

Buyer Query in Education, Insurance, and Mortgage

Consider our research on the time between the first buyer and last buyer of

a lead (see Figure 2). Between 2% and 10% of lead buyers have a significant

competitive disadvantage in the three industries analyzed, Higher Education,

Mortgage, and Insurance. 

In Insurance, we see that nearly 30% of leads analyzed have a lag time ranging

from 1 hour to over 30 days, between the time when the first buyer purchased

a lead and when the last buyer purchased the exact same lead event. A closer

look at this data enables buyers and sellers to understand the processes and

investment in the lead generation tactics. For example, some lead sellers

perform additional quality assurance processes before selling a lead, including

calling the consumer before selling or transferring the lead. This could explain

why leads arrive from 1 hour to 30 days after a competitor.

Understanding lead age and lead duration are essential to optimizing your

marketing and sales processes. It’s also important to monitor your relative

competitiveness in the market to ensure you know when the lead was

generated and how much time elapsed between your purchase of the lead

and your competitors. 

Education Insurance Mortgage

10-60minutes

1-24hours

1-7days

>30days

2% 2%

>1% >1%

4%

10%

7%

9%

>1%

4%

>1% >1%

0

2

4

6

8

10

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Data reveals that for most sales organizations optimized for online lead generation, leads perform best when delivered within seconds or minutes

after the consumer completes the form. Some firms develop strategies based on acquiring lower cost aged leads and find a return on investment.

Either way, to achieve maximum performance from your sales organization with online leads, knowing the true age of a lead enables you to know

more about the consumer behavior behind the lead.

Knowing how many other companies received a lead enables you to

optimize your sale strategies based on a competitive market, and helps

you better manage your relationships with your providers to ensure

that they are adhering to your contract agreements. And, knowing

the time a consumer spends on a form enables you to optimize your

buying strategy with your lead sellers based on that behavior. You can

identify leads with very short and very long durations, then work with

your providers to identify any lead funnels from which you don’t want to

receive leads and those for which you want to bid higher.

Generally, we see that leads with very short and very long durations

underperform. When we aggregate the shortest durations (1-4 minutes,

as outlined in Figure 3), we see a total of:

• 59% of consumers exploring Higher Education

• 48% of consumers exploring Insurance

• 64% of consumers exploring Mortgage

Figure 3: Shortest Lead Duration in Education,

Insurance, and Mortgage

Education Insurance Mortgage

1 - 2 MINUTES 2 - 3 MINUTES 3 - 4 MINUTES

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

26%

20%

13% 13%

17% 8%

22%

25%

17%

Armed with new consumer journey intelligence, marketers can work more confidently with lead providers to improve these metrics or take action on the

data to only buy leads that fall within the ideal duration and age parameters and then reinvest those dollars in better leads.

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Leverage Real-Time Intelligence About the Lead Seller and the Consumer’s Behavior

LEADING PRACTICES

“There are leads we don’t get in touch with during the first 10-days of our contact strategy—but when we see the person behind that lead showing renewed interest on day 20, this is a

valuable signal to re-engage them with a timely and relevant text or email.”

J E R E M Y B O W L I N GNational Sales Manager at Union Home Mortgage (UHM) in

Optimizing Outreach Around Consumer Intent (Jornaya. 2018)

DATA IN ACTIONBehavioral data is valuable because, unlike demographics,

behavior changes all the time. Understanding behavior allows

marketers to respond to actual intent, rather than rely solely on

educated guesses based on demographic segmentation. In fact,

behavior becomes even more important when it comes to major-

life purchase journeys. Simply put behavior doesn’t lie or force you

to make broad assumptions about targeting a group or audience.

You can know and act instantly to ensure each prospect receives

the proper treatment for their shopping journey. And, with the right

software the entire process can be programmatic to scale with

your marketing and sales processes.

Behavioral information can be collected about an individual’s online activities.

This includes shopping behaviors and information on where consumers are in

their shopping journey. The data that helps identify where someone is in their

journey and understand more about their behaviors is critical.

When marketers gain the ability to identify and take action on consumer

behavioral data, buying low-intent leads is no longer part of the “cost of doing

business.” Brands that leverage this data in real-time decision making gain

efficiencies and can better focus their time and budgets on productive leads

or better align how much to pay for leads with the expected quality level.

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As an example, our research of the consumer journey across the auto, life, and health insurance

lines of business reveals a number of important findings and potential implications. A closer look at

the auto insurance buying journey, reveals:

Generational Differences: Millennials in the group had lower frequency of site visits

witnessed than boomers. In fact, the journey for each group continues after the lead event, up

to 30 days post lead.

Marital Status: Shopping journeys appear to be slightly more active for single folks

Education: Consumers with college experience have lower frequency of insurance site visits

compared to those without any college experience.

The data above is helpful but reinforces that there is no one single journey a consumer takes prior to purchase. Access to behavioral data signaling

where the consumer is in their shopping journey—especially those that inform you when your customers are actively shopping on comparison and lead

generation websites—has moved the top of the funnel even higher.

When marketers are able to determine patterns in behavior, they can then use those characteristics as indicators for future consumers that hit the

acquisition funnel from their company’s website or third-party source and price, prioritize, and treat those leads accordingly. This shopping journey data

we provide can be leveraged in real-time, so marketers can make better marketing decisions.

Geographic Regions: The lowest shopping frequency was observed in the Pacific Northwest and the highest in the

Southeast States (29% more active than PNW)

Credit Status: Consumers with good/better credit are less active online during their auto insurance journey compared to

consumers self-identifying themselves as having “poor” credit. Further, consumers having “poor” credit were much more

active online across our entire network (i.e., insurance, mortgage, education, etc.).

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Ensure Independent Third-party Proof of TCPA Consent to Defend Against Complaints and LawsuitsWithout compliance, everything else in the acquisition process either becomes inefficient or much higher-risk. Without

a way to ensure consent was provided, and without persuasive proof of that consent, the brand is taking on the risk of

being sued for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) simply by answering the outbound phone call.

When it comes to TCPA violations, plaintiffs don’t care who pays out a settlement—lead seller, lead buyer, or both—and

courts have held that responsibilities extend to everyone in the marketing chain that touched a particular consumer.

TCPA compliance is about risk mitigation and management. Your TCPA solution must provide compelling proof that

the consumers you dial have provided prior express written consent that will stand up in a court of law. A crucial

component of protecting yourself from the TCPA is having a TCPA compliance solution in place that the publishers you

buy leads from already use or are amenable to implementing.

LEADING PRACTICESCOMPLIANCE IN ACTION

One large mortgage

lender had only 36% of

leads being generated

with a disclosure approved

by their brand. Using

data from Jornaya TCPA

Guardian, they worked

with their lead seller

partners to greatly reduce

the risk and achieve

compliance of greater

than 90% of leads with

an approved disclosure

message.

1. Clearly understand how the firms you work with are driving calls to you and where the original consumer data and phone number originate from.

2. Ask if the firms you’re working with are dialing consumers that have filled out an online or mobile lead form.

3. Ensure you can trace call data to the original lead form.

4. Acquire the appropriate permissions to transfer or make outbound calls.

5. Know definitively that the consumer consented to be contacted on the lead form and have persuasive proof

the appropriate consent took place.

Steps to Protect Your Brand

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Use this list to ensure compliance. For the questions below, every “no” answer indicates an area that should be reviewed in greater detail by legal counsel and/or compliance staff.

Yes No

Signed Written Agreement1. Does the lead generator obtain a clear and conspicuous agreement that accurately reflects that the consumer will receive a telemarketing phone call?Content of Signed Written Agreement2. Does the agreement state:

• The identities of the telemarketers • That the telemarketing call may be by automatic telephone dialing system• That the telemarketing call may be by an artificial or prerecorded voice.• That the person is not required to sign the agreement (directly or indirectly), or agree to enter into such an agreement as a condition of purchasing any property, good, or services.

Form of Written Authorization3. Does the lead generator obtain authorization with one of the following, or with another means:

• A signed paper agreement, or• An electronic means to provide a signature in compliance with the E-SIGN Act, such as a form that can be sent via electronic mail, a process on the website, or non-prepopulated check box.• Can the consent form and written authorization be saved and printed by the signatory?

Additional Considerations4. Does the consent collection area appear on the same page as the contact information collection form?5. Is there an express disclosure of the number of possible callers?6. Does the consent indicate that i may be revoked at any time?7. Does the consent disclose that the consumer’s wireless carrier may impose charges?8. Is the disclosure presented before the consumer provides his or her contact informations, including phone number?9. Is the lead website optimized for mobile viewing?10. Are any unique requirements for consent required under applicable law followed?

TCPA Checklist

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1. Know the age of your leads. If you’re measuring speed-to-lead

from the moment you received a lead post, you’re missing a key data

point. It’s not about when you received the lead, but rather when the

consumer actually submitted the inquiry.

2. Be proactive in avoiding fraudulent leads and those that are not

TCPA compliant. Consumers who didn’t fill out the form or who filled

it out 6 months ago may have no intent to buy from you. Also, these

leads put you at risk for TCPA complaints. Only purchase leads that

are TCPA compliant according to your compliance requirements. And

manage that compliance in real-time as each lead enters your system.

3. Don’t get duped. Many marketers assume that a duplicate is the

result of recycled data or that the same consumer means it’s the same

inquiry. But it could be the same consumer with a brand new inquiry,

which is actually indicative of a high-intent consumer. It’s important to

know the difference. You never want to buy the same lead event twice

but you may want to buy the same consumer lead twice to optimize

your outbound strategy.

4. Understand if leads are shared versus exclusive and if they

aggregated. Know if your leads are being shared with some of your

competitors. If they are, you need to determine how many other

competitors that lead is being shared with. And understand if your lead

seller partner is aggregating leads or providing you 100% owned and

operated leads. Both can be monitored in real-time to ensure alignment

with your lead seller partners

5. Know the level of consumer engagement. Know how long the

consumer spent filling out the form, and know whether a consumer

filled out the form directly or it was completed by a call center

representative.

TOP TIPS FOR LEAD BUYERS

Whether it’s the amount of time a consumer spent on the web form or the amount of time elapsed from the consumer completing

a form until you receive it, real-time event-level attributes help to indicate various measures of consumer intent. Additionally, these

attributes help you detect fraudulent activity and identify when a consumer has—or has not—provided consent to be contacted

through the use of an auto-dialer.

New data, accessible through data-as-a-service (DaaS) companies, can deliver a more relevant and effective strategy based on

the consumer’s specific behaviors and preferences.

Accessing this type of behavioral network intelligence to gain a wider view of every consumer’s shopping journey makes it much

easier for MLP marketers to take smarter actions and make safer decisions to value and engage each consumer lead properly.

CONCLUSION:Delivering a More Relevant and Effective Marketing Strategy

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