Marketing and presence
Buying leads
Should you pay for leads from a marketplace, and how do you make it pay?
Six short steps. No email or account.
- Who needs it
- Trades and services with spare capacity and enough margin to absorb lead costs.
- When it matters
- As a supplement, not a foundation. Businesses dependent on bought leads have no asset of their own.
- Compare first
- Shared or exclusive
- Matters most when
- growing, mature
Is this the right tool for you?
Lead marketplaces and referral services send you enquiries from people looking for your service, often quickly. The catch is that the same lead may go to several competitors, quality varies, and costs mount on leads that never answer or were never serious.
Signs you need it now
- You need work now and referrals and your own marketing are not enough.
- You are new in an area and have no reviews or visibility there yet.
- You have capacity to respond to enquiries within minutes during the day.
- You have tried paid leads before and could not tell whether they paid off.
When another area fits better
- You would rather build your own visibility that you control and keep. Read the getting found locally guide
- You prefer to control targeting and budget by running your own ads. Read the paid advertising guide
Recognise two or more of these? Sort out buying leads next.
Tell us how your business runs and get a plan that puts buying leads in order with everything else: what to set up first, your must-haves and what to compare.
What matters at your size
Working alone
Leads can fill a new business's calendar, but only if you can respond fast. Start with a tight service area and job types, and track every lead to the result.
A small team
Assign someone to respond instantly, dispute poor leads promptly and compare cost per booked job against your other channels.
Several teams or locations
Treat marketplaces as one channel among several, with budgets by area and service, and move spend to your own channels as they grow.
How the way you work changes the choice
- Home services and trades
- The most common users. Leads are often shared with competitors, so the first to call back with a clear price usually wins.
- Professional services
- Directories and matching services can bring clients, but lead volumes are lower and profiles and credentials count for more than speed.
- Specialist or high-value work
- Exclusive or pre-screened leads cost more each but waste less time. Compare on cost per won job, not cost per lead.
What to compare
Shared or exclusive
Shared leads mean competing against several firms on price within minutes.
Dispute process
Bad leads are inevitable. How refunds work determines the real cost.
Customer ownership
Check whether you can market to the customer afterwards.
Cost and setup effort
- Pricing models vary: per lead, per booked job, subscription or a share of the job. Read how disputes and refunds for bad leads work before you sign up.
- Watch for minimum commitments, auto-renewal and budgets that keep spending when you are fully booked; know how to pause.
- Your profile, photos and reviews on the marketplace affect whether customers choose you. Budget time to complete them.
Trade-offs to weigh
- Shared or exclusive leads
- Shared leads cost less but you compete on speed and price; exclusive leads cost more but convert better.
- Rented or owned
- Marketplace leads stop when you stop paying and the customer relationship partly belongs to the platform; your own website, reviews and list keep working.
- Speed or selectivity
- Taking every lead fills the calendar quickly; filtering by job type and area protects margins and time.
When to sort it out
As a supplement, not a foundation. Businesses dependent on bought leads have no asset of their own.
Your next step
Answer six short questions about how your business runs. You get an operating plan: where buying leads fits among your priorities, the must-haves to hold every option to, and what to compare when you choose.
Often decided alongside
Other parts of marketing and presence.