You know I like to be fair and balanced and let the readers make the final decision–you had to know this was coming.
The last post was so compelling why wouldn’t you buy all your leads from a lead exchange, like LeadPoint or RootExchange?
Well the biggest reason is that it has not become a full-service marketplace (yet). It truly is an eBay for Internet leads, but you don’t buy all of your stuff from eBay–right? There is a tendency in any auction, versus a true marketplace, to attract remnant merchandise. Most believers in Lead Exchanges (count myself as one) think that this phenomenon is at worst case an important (and potentially highly profitable) component of any marketing portfolio and in the best case is merely a n early evolutionary stage to a genuine marketplace.
If you only buy from a lead exchange you may be missing out on premium online media buys that attract affluent mortgage buyers and refinanciers. I can guarantee you that not a lot of Yahoo!Finance, Wall Street Journal, or Forbes Mortgage Marketplace Ad buys are currently going into the available lead exchanges. Consequently, if you are looking for jumbos and super-jumbo mortgages in CA then you may not find them in an exchange and certainly not at a competitive rate considering the laws of scarcity.
The other thing you may miss out on is some of the strong consultative best practices expertise that still resides at the larger lead providers like LowerMyBills and LendingTree. Although, I have seen much of this talent floating out to the smaller providers.
At the end of the day, there is still a lot of premium Internet Ad buying going on in the mortgage space and the lead exchanges have not become the primary hub of lead distribution. Until then you may want to consider and watch each for their best contributions to your marketing spend and sales production.
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