Aged Life Leads vs. Fresh Life Leads

Brokers hoping to close the most deals on life insurance policies have two options when it comes to buying leads.

There’s fresh or “real time” leads, which are delivered to agents within hours or days of the prospect opting in.

The other choice is aged life insurance leads, which can be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months or a year old.

As you can see from Google Trends below, at the time of this post, the Google search trend online for people looking for life insurance leads is increasing over time.

So how do you know which type of life insurance lead is the best for you? Let us break down some of the factors agents look at when comparing leads to see whether aged or fresh life leads come out on top.

Cost Difference of Aged Leads vs. Fresh Leads

One of the reasons lots of brokers prefer to use aged leads as opposed to fresh ones is the significant cost difference.

Aged life insurance leads can be purchased in bulk from anywhere from .50 cents to around $2.00 a piece (depending on the age of the lead), while getting fresh leads can run you as much as $20 to $25+ per lead.

It may seem like paying a higher price for leads will result in higher quality, but that often isn’t the case for life insurance leads. 

Fresh leads are delivered in real time so brokers can pounce on those potential prospects right after they request a quote. This is great for other types of leads, when prospects are ready to purchase when they opt in. 

But when it comes to life insurance, most people aren’t ready to purchase a policy a couple minutes or hours after they request a quote. Fresh life insurance leads just aren’t “sales ready,” which can be frustrating for brokers trying to work those leads.

In the end, working with aged leads as opposed to fresh ones is a numbers game. For the cost of a few dozen fresh leads that may result in one or two conversions, an agent could instead purchase hundreds or thousands of aged leads to yield a decent return on a modest investment.

Conversion Rate of Aged Leads vs. Fresh Leads

Overall, aged leads tend to have a lower conversion rate than fresh ones. Because aged leads are a few weeks or even months old, the prospect may have lost interest or found another policy by the time you speak to them.

However, in the case of life insurance leads, plenty of agents find that they close more deals for cheaper cost with a bulk purchase of aged leads than with fewer fresh ones, despite the lower conversion rate.

For example: An agent spending $100 on 100 aged life leads and closing 4% (4 deals) compared to an agent spending $1000 on 40 fresh leads and getting the same closing rate (5% x 50 = 2.5 sales).

Smart agents understand that sometimes, a “no” from a prospect just means “not now.” This can be especially true for life insurance. Life insurance leads often need some nurturing before they’re ready to close a deal, so an aged lead can still hold a lot of value. 

A lot of the time, brokers who got the leads fresh gave up on them after one or two calls that didn’t result in a sale. So these leads end up being resold as aged leads when they’re still perfectly qualified. A savvy broker can still convert these leads by building the necessary trust over time to close a deal.

As previously mentioned, the low cost of aged leads makes up for the lower conversion rate, because you can purchase lots of leads in bulk to come out on the other side with more conversions for the same initial investment.

Competition for Aged Leads vs. Fresh Leads

Competing with other agents for the same leads can be a real pain, and it’s a major friction point for prospects. When someone puts in for a life insurance quote and then is bombarded by calls from a dozen different agents, they can get irritated enough to stop picking up the phone entirely.

The flip side of this is that competition with other agents drops off quickly as leads age. Over 95% of agents don’t bother calling leads after the first week. This offers agents who purchase aged life insurance leads a unique opportunity to nurture and build trust with prospects who aren’t talking to any other agents.

For agents who want to get the most out of their lead budget, aged life insurance leads beat out fresh leads for their cost-effectiveness and lower competition for sales.

Ready to give aged life insurance leads a try? Click here to purchase.