Auction site to sell leads for £5

LeadsAndAgents.com, a new auction site for overseas property sales leads, is to sell leads at prices as low as £5 each.

The business, which soft-launches today, receives leads from a number of high-profile sources and re-qualifies them using a large telesales operation. Once qualified, leads are offered to agents on an ebay-style online bidding platform. Agents must increase bids in increments of £2.50 and as with ebay, the winning bidder always pays the value of the next highest bid (for example, if you bid £10 but the next highest bid is £7.50, you only pay £7.50).

It’s all about quality

Agents who have bought low quality leads in the past will be sceptical about the new business model. In a recent survey of 1,500 agents by portal EuropeanProperty.com, more than half of those who responded said they disapproved of cost-per-lead because of quality and budgeting issues.

However, LeadsAndAgents Co-founder Matthew Talmage thinks the auction business model will help to address some of the issues agents currently have with cost-per-lead. “The real benefit is transparency. The market will decide what a lead is really worth,” he says.

Qualification process

LeadsAndAgents success will depend on the quality of their lead sources and on the thoroughness of the qualification process. Talmage refuses to reveal his sources but is confident they’ll deliver results.

“All leads will be sold within a few days of our sales team qualifying them,” he continues. “It’s a very thorough process, I can’t emphasise that enough. All the leads are qualified and are only sold if they have a specific budget and location in mind.”

A key issue is how far down the sales cycle the leads are. Buyers will be asked the question and leads will be split into two groups: “0-3 months” and “4-6 months”. Prices for the latter group will obviously be lower. If they turn out to be worth less than £5 then, Talmage will need to re-look at his strategy.

15,000 leads a month

LeadsAndAgents aim to be selling 15,000 leads each month: an ambitious target but one Talmage is confident of reaching within 12 months. His aim is to be “the number one destination for overseas agents and developers requiring sales leads, after property portals.”

He may have the lead sources to build the business to this level but he’ll also need to create enough agent demand and match the leads available to the needs of agents. It will be a tricky balancing act, especially in the early stages.

Cheap leads for early adopters

Leads on established sites like Lead Galaxy can go for as much as £90 each. Basic economics says that leads on the new site will take a while to reach these kind of prices, if they do at all. Initially, leads are bound to be cheaper as there will be fewer agents bidding to push up prices. The jury is out on their quality but at £5 each, it is probably worth a try.

£30 of free leads

LeadsAndAgents.com plans to begin auctions on August 4th, with 250 leads going on sale over a 72-hour period. To encourage sign-up they are offering £30 of free leads to Globaledge.co.uk readers signing up before Friday 1st August. Type in GETOKEN into the promotion code box on this form to get your £30.

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