Buying insurance leads works when three habits are in place: a long-term view, an obsession with your numbers, and relentless process. When an agency feels burned, one of those is usually missing, and the leads take the blame anyway. This guide walks through all three.
Every agency owner who's bought even one lead has felt burned. You buy a batch, work it hard, and half of them never pick up. So you blame the vendor and shut off the spend.
Here's what our Chief Growth Officer Evan Smith learned after two decades of buying, selling, and working leads: when it comes to buying insurance leads, the leads are rarely the problem. The agencies that make lead buying work all share three habits.
Evan broke them down with Heath Shearon on the Insurance Town Podcast: a long-term view, a numbers obsession, and process dedication. Miss one, and you'll feel burned every time.
Evan's been on every side of the lead equation. He's run call centers, sold leads, bought leads, and built systems for companies across financial services, real estate, and insurance.
One thing never changes. Everyone who buys leads either gets burned or feels like they did.
The folks who feel burned usually didn't have the right tools, temperament, or training. They were sold something easy. Lead buying is anything but easy. It's like IKEA handing you particle board and screws with no instruction manual.
This isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. Sometimes it works fast, if you already have great process and the right agents in place. Most of the time, it comes down to three specific habits.
Give it 30 to 60 days, minimum. One bad batch doesn't sink the operation.
Too many agencies test aged leads, see thin results in a week, and want to turn everything off. Real-time leads with proper follow-up over 30 to 60 days is when you actually know if it works.
The biggest agencies in the country are buying far more leads than you'd guess. They treat it as math. Today's batch doesn't get a vote. To learn the new rules, check out this blog.
Working leads is a math problem. Publicly traded lead companies exist because their customers buy, work, and close leads at a profit.
Successful buyers know their target cost per acquisition cold and work backward from there. They track everything: dials, contacts, transfers, and every step in between.
We ran the numbers. See how to turn your agency into a margin expansion machine in this video.
This is where most agencies fall apart. The ones that succeed run consistent follow-up, a proven cadence, and no cherry-picking.
There's no such thing as a bad lead. There's just an expensive one. A lead that's garbage for one agency can be gold for another. The difference is process.
Learn how to supercharge your process and grow into a $10 million agency in this video.
The advantage of buying leads is simple. Your chief marketing officer is now just your credit card.
As many leads as you can fit on your Amex, as many people as you can get to work them. You just have to keep it a math question, and you need a process that doesn't depend on whether your best agent showed up today.
For years, working leads at scale left you three options: build a domestic call center, hire an offshore team, or don't scale. All three came with staffing, training, turnover, and management overhead.
Now there's a fourth option. AI that acts as your call center, handling the process and the math for you.
That's what Mav does. Instant response over text, consistent qualification, and follow-up that actually happens, every time.
One agency went from 3,000 leads in a pilot to 70,000 leads per month within a year. At 1% conversion, that's 700 policies a month. Across its customers, Mav reports a 30% higher lead conversion rate and a 24% lower cost per acquisition.
These three habits separate agencies that scale from agencies that stay stuck. Long-term view. Numbers obsession. Process dedication.
Get those three right, and leads work. Miss even one, and you'll feel burned—even when the leads are fine.
The good news? You don't have to spend two decades learning this the hard way. Other agencies are already running this model. You can too. The question is whether you're ready to commit to all three habits, not just one or two. See Evan's full conversation with Heath on Insurance Town!
These three habits separate agencies that scale from agencies that stay stuck. Long-term view. Numbers obsession. Process dedication.
The good news? You don't have to spend two decades learning it the hard way. See Evan's full conversation with Heath on Insurance Town.
Want to see the fourth option in action on the leads you already buy? Get Started.
For a P&C insurance agency working purchased leads, yes. 11x.ai is built for B2B outbound prospecting and net-new lead generation. Mav works the insurance leads you already bought, qualifies them, and transfers ready ones to a licensed agent.
That's the whole point. Mav engages the leads you buy instantly over text and voice, qualifies who's interested, and hands them off live. It doesn't generate or sell leads.
Mav qualifies and routes so your licensed agents advise and close. It takes the chasing and follow-up off their plate so they spend more time with ready buyers.
Give it 30 to 60 days with real-time leads and consistent follow-up. One slow week isn't a verdict. Track your cost per acquisition and work backward from there.
Text-first outreach has to respect consent and TCPA best practices, and rules shift by state and situation. Mav's workflows are built to be consent-based and TCPA-conscious. For your specific setup, confirm with your own compliance review or qualified counsel.
