Common Questions

Buying annuity leads isn’t something you should do blindly.

Below are answers to the 38 questions agents, advisors and FMOs ask us most often: what our leads cost, how they’re generated, qualified and scrubbed, and what we’ve learned from selling annuity leads since 2010.

Jump to a section:

• About our leads and pricing (1–8)
• Territory and lead flow (9–14)
• How we qualify and scrub our leads (15–20)
• What the consumer was told, and compliance (21–24)
• Getting results from our leads (25–32)
• Ordering, delivery and refunds (33–38)

About our leads and pricing

1. How are your annuity leads different from other programs I’ve tried?

We do one thing: annuity leads. We’ve sold them since 2010, and more than 3,000 insurance agencies and financial advisory firms have purchased them.

• They respond to annuity advertising. The word “annuity” is in our brand, our domain and our ads. That lowers response and improves lead quality.
• Our marketing is built to reach people with money. Our copy, positioning and campaign strategy are designed to resonate with higher-income, higher-net-worth consumers and to earn their trust. Larger cases are what move the needle for your practice.
• We scrub before we sell. We have three full-time employees who do nothing but scrub leads, and they spend 20–30 minutes on each one looking for reasons the lead should NOT be sold.
• Our ads don’t promise rates of return. We don’t use too-good-to-be-true rate or income claims to get consumers to respond.
• We’re not an FMO. We don’t want your contracts, and there’s no recruiting pitch attached to buying our leads.
• The terms are simple. Leads are exclusive and cost $300 each. There’s no long-term contract and no prepayment, you set daily and monthly caps, and we bill weekly in arrears.
• Our founder knows the business. Scott Brooks, MBA, CFP®, began in the financial industry in 1998.

4. How are the leads created?

Most of our annuity leads today come from online digital campaigns. We’ve used radio, television, online and other media over the years, and the mix keeps changing.

Whatever the medium, our campaigns are written and positioned to resonate with higher-income, higher-net-worth consumers. A small share of households holds most of the money. If our advertising doesn’t reach them, our clients don’t get in front of the larger cases that matter most to a practice. The campaigns are also built to earn trust, which is hard to come by today.

Cost per lead matters, but what happens AFTER we generate the lead matters just as much. When we evaluate a media source, we look at:

• What it costs to generate a qualified lead, and how many it can produce
• How much money the prospects are considering investing
• What percentage of responses survive our qualification and scrubbing
• What occupations and backgrounds we’re seeing
• What our agents and advisors experience when they follow up
• How often clients request refunds, and whether they keep buying

A campaign can produce a lot of cheap responses and still be a bad campaign. We’ve tested media that generated plenty of response but attracted too many people without enough money to invest. We’ve also had longtime clients who almost never asked for a refund suddenly ask for one after getting a lead from a new source we were testing. One incident doesn’t tell us much. A pattern does.

We also watch refund patterns by advertising source. If a new source starts producing more problems than we’re used to, we want to know why, and it affects where we advertise.

Our interests are aligned with yours. We don’t want a client who buys 10 leads. We want one who gets value from the leads and stays for years.

We’re also testing television, podcasts and other media as branding support around our online campaigns. A consumer might find us online and then see or hear our brand somewhere else before you ever speak with them. Our theory is that seeing the same brand in several places builds familiarity and trust. We’re testing that, and we’re not going to claim results we haven’t proven.

5. Can I choose only radio, television or online leads?

No. We put our advertising dollars wherever we believe they produce the best opportunities for our clients, and that changes with performance. We aren’t loyal to any one medium.

The source of each lead is identified in the information you receive.

6. Are the leads qualified and exclusive?

Yes. Our leads are 100% exclusive and always have been. When a consumer goes through our process and becomes a lead, that lead is sent to one insurance agent or financial advisor, and only one.

In almost all cases, a prospect must tell us they have at least $50,000 they are considering investing. We ask what they are considering investing, not their net worth, because it’s the more useful question.

Someone with a $3 million net worth may only be considering $100,000 because a CD or bond is maturing. Others don’t want to tell someone they just met how much they have. In our experience, the number a consumer gives us is often conservative and covers only the money they’re thinking about moving now.

The $50,000 minimum is what the consumer tells us. It is not an independent verification of their assets.

7. What is the average age of your leads? Do you have age limits?

Historically, our radio and television leads have averaged about 64 years old and our online leads about 61. Most are between their 50s and early 80s.

Our normal upper limit is age 83, but we don’t judge a prospect by age alone. We would normally reject an 85-year-old considering a $50,000 investment. An 85-year-old with $750,000 to invest is a different opportunity, and most agents would want that call.

The same applies at the low end. Very few of the leads we sell are under 45. But a 40-year-old surgeon with substantial money to invest is not the typical prospect that age.

When a lead falls outside our guidelines, our team asks one question: if I were the agent paying for this lead, would I be happy or unhappy to receive it?

8. What information is provided with the lead?

• Full name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Year of birth
• Amount they are considering investing
• Whether they want income now or later
• Whether they already own an annuity
• Their time frame for making a decision
• The best time for an annuity specialist to reach them
• Which media source the lead came from

We also ask whether the prospect works as a financial advisor or insurance agent.

Want to know if your territory is open? Call (888) 288-1712 and we’ll tell you, along with an estimate of your lead flow.

Territory and lead flow

9. How many leads should I expect to receive?

Most clients receive about 1–4 leads per week. Volume depends on the ZIP codes you cover, the population in them and demand in your market.

Clients who receive more typically cover 5–10 million in population. In rural markets, we recommend covering at least a 90-mile radius.

Leads trickle in because you can’t have quality and quantity at the same time. We would rather send you fewer leads and have you happy than lower our standards to raise volume.

10. How do you determine which agent or advisor receives a lead?

Leads are routed by ZIP code. Most clients pick a primary ZIP code and a radius. Our minimum territory is 60 miles, and clients who want maximum lead flow usually cover 90–110 miles.

We measure ZIP code to ZIP code, not driving distance. Before you sign up, we can send you a file showing every ZIP code and county in your territory.

If your territory borders a state where you aren’t licensed, or one you don’t want leads from, tell us and we’ll exclude those ZIP codes.

11. Do you offer protected territories?

Yes and no. We limit the number of clients in a market. In most major metro areas, that means about 2–3 clients.

Contact us and we’ll tell you whether your area is open and what your lead flow might look like.

12. Can I change my ZIP codes after I sign up?

Yes. You can expand or shrink your territory at any time.

13. Can I cap my leads or pause my account?

Yes to both. You should never buy leads from a company that won’t let you cap your account.

You set a daily cap and a monthly cap. When the monthly cap is reached, our system stops your lead flow and resumes it on the first day of the next month. Contact us any time to change your caps.

You can also pause when you go on vacation. A short pause of a few days does not cost you your territory.

14. How long does it take to begin receiving leads?

Most new clients receive their first lead within 4–10 days. We set up new accounts within 24 hours.

If we’re already advertising in your area, the first lead usually arrives in 3–6 days. If we need to expand advertising into a new territory, it can take about a week longer.

Check your territory: call (888) 288-1712 to find out whether your area is open.

How we qualify and scrub our leads

15. How are radio and television leads qualified?

Radio and television prospects call in and go through our call-center qualification process. They are asked 11 qualifying questions and told that an annuity specialist will contact them. The only optional question is their email address.

After the call, one of our internal team members independently reviews it before the lead is approved for sale.

16. How do you scrub radio and television leads?

One of our three full-time scrubbers listens to the call again and spends 25–30 minutes on the lead. They check that every qualifying question was asked and answered, improve the notes, and run the searches described in question 19 to find industry professionals.

Historically, only about 35–50% of inbound annuity calls become leads. The other 50–65% are rejected because the caller works in the industry, falls outside our age or investment guidelines, gave incomplete information, wouldn’t answer our questions, or didn’t want an annuity specialist to contact them.

17. How are your online annuity leads qualified?

Online prospects complete a 12–20 question process before they can become a lead. We track the time, and they spend longer on it than callers typically spend with our call center.

That’s intentional. We make it harder, not easier, to become a lead. It reduces response, gives us more information, and leaves the people who are serious.

We are also one of the few lead providers that requires a street address online. Most competitors collect only an email address. Requiring it lowered our response by about 30%, but it gives our scrubbing team one more thing to check. Around 90% of our leads have a mailing address.

The address helps us spot leads that don’t add up. If someone reports a very large investment amount and nothing else about them supports it, we look closer before we sell the lead. It works the other way too: someone who reports a modest amount may have considerably more than they told us. An address doesn’t prove anyone’s finances. It’s one more piece of information we weigh.

Prospects must give the amount they’re considering investing, and in almost all cases the minimum is $50,000. We reject around 60% of otherwise valid online submissions before they were sold.

18. How do you scrub online leads?

A team member spends 20–30 minutes on each online lead. We verify the phone number, then check what the prospect submitted against the databases and tools we subscribe to.

We look for inconsistencies. Does the name tied to the phone number match the name on the form? Does the rest of the information make sense? Is there any sign the person works in financial services? When something doesn’t match, we dig further.

Scrubbing isn’t always black and white. When a prospect falls just outside a guideline, we look at the whole picture — age, occupation, investment amount — and use our experience to decide, as described in question 7.

Someone has to do this work. We believe it should be us, not the agent paying for the lead.

19. What steps are in your scrubbing process?

Our process has 17 steps. Here are most of them. Some apply to every lead, and some depend on whether the lead came in by phone or online.

Verifying the lead is real

1. Listen to the full call again and improve the notes (call-in leads)
2. Call the phone number to confirm it isn’t disconnected, and listen to the name on the voicemail
3. Run the lead through a business database we subscribe to, and compare the name submitted with the name at that address
4. Check where the form was submitted from against where the lead lives (online leads). A browser in Arizona and a lead in New York may be a problem
5. Review the email address, and phone-verify the lead if anything looks off
6. Have a second team member review the lead before it’s released

Checking for insurance agents and financial advisors

• Search the prospect’s name and ZIP code
• Search the email address
• Search the telephone number
• Check the state Department of Insurance
• Search FINRA records
• Search SEC/IARD records for fee-only planners
• Search LinkedIn around the prospect’s ZIP code
• Repeat the search for the spouse, under both maiden and married names

We check the spouse because industry professionals sometimes submit a spouse’s information instead of their own.

We do this for every lead, whatever the source. We ask every prospect whether they work as an advisor or agent, and we’ve found that those who do lie about it roughly half the time. So we scrub.

An industry professional posing as a consumer can waste weeks of your follow-up. We’d rather catch that person before you receive the lead.

20. How quickly will I receive a lead after the consumer responds?

It depends on when the consumer responds, because every lead is scrubbed by a person before it’s sold.

Leads that come in during business hours are normally turned around within a few hours, depending on how many are coming in. Leads that come in at night or on a Sunday take longer.

We know turnaround matters. Our team is fully staffed on weekdays, works weekend shifts, and is on the job every day of the year except Christmas Day.

See the full process: How We Scrub Our Leads

What the consumer was told, and compliance

21. What are you offering in the ads, and what does the consumer expect? Can I see the commercials?

Our prospects respond to advertising specifically about annuities. We never use an unrelated offer just to collect contact information.

Every prospect is told the same thing: one annuity specialist will follow up within one business day to customize the information we promised for their situation, their state and their risk tolerance. That specialist is you. It’s done on purpose, so you start the relationship as their single point of contact.

We don’t release our current commercials or ads. Competitors have copied our advertising more than 100 times, so we protect it.

What every new client does get is an introductory script. It explains our brand, what the consumer responded to and what we promised, and it gives you a recommended opening for the first 30 seconds of the call. If the consumer expects one thing and the agent opens with something different, the conversation goes sideways quickly.

22. How do you handle consent and TCPA compliance?

We hired a law firm that specializes in the TCPA to review our lead-generation process, and we implemented their recommendations. That includes the consent disclosures they recommended, placed right next to the call-to-action buttons consumers click.

You remain responsible for your own compliance when you contact a lead, including your firm’s and your state’s rules. If you have a specific question, call us.

23. Do you send annuity product information to the leads?

No. You decide what product information is appropriate for each prospect’s situation.

Our role is to generate, qualify and deliver the lead. We don’t make product recommendations on your behalf or get in the way of your sales process.

24. Is Annuity Rate Watch or CANNEX approved by my broker-dealer or compliance department?

Many broker-dealers, banks and FMOs have approved materials from Annuity Rate Watch, and CANNEX is widely used across the industry.

Every firm’s requirements are different, so confirm approval with your own broker-dealer or compliance department before using any material.

Getting results from our leads

25. What is the average case size?

Our best estimate is about $250,000, and it varies a lot by producer and market. In California, Washington State and the Northeast, some clients have historically averaged around $500,000.

About 40–45% of our leads already own an annuity.

Remember that the amount a prospect gives us is what they’re considering investing now, not their total assets. When someone struggles in our program, it’s usually not because the prospects lack money. It’s because converting the opportunity is hard: making contact, booking the appointment, building trust and closing.

26. What is the average conversion rate on the leads?

Results vary substantially by producer. Historically we have seen:

• Strong producers close about one out of every three to four leads
• Average producers close about one out of five to ten
• Below-average producers close about one out of eleven to twenty

These are historical observations, not guarantees. Sales ability, follow-up, market and experience all affect results.

To see how our better producers work leads, watch:

Article: Don’t Wing It: How To Work Our Annuity Leads

Video: How Top Producing Financial Advisors and Insurance Agents Work High-Quality Leads

27. How many leads should I use to fairly test the program?

We recommend 10–20 leads. At $300 each, that’s $3,000–$6,000.

Here’s why. We’ve had clients close two of their first ten leads, and the two were leads seven and ten. If that person had quit after six, they would have lost their entire return. You have to let the numbers work for you.

A client of ours with a PhD in statistics told us the right sample was closer to 25 or 30. We say 10–20 because the clients who have worked that many are the ones most likely to have earned a positive return.

That’s our recommendation, not a requirement. There’s no minimum, and you can try the program and decide for yourself.

28. Why do some people fail in your lead program?

The most common trait of people who struggle is a low appointment ratio: under 20%. Clients who do well typically book appointments with 30–70% of our leads. These are observations from our experience, not guarantees.

Lack of assets usually isn’t the problem. Clients who follow up consistently and know how to work purchased leads do better than people who make one or two attempts and give up.

We’ve worked with thousands of agents and advisors since 2010 and have seen the same mistakes over and over. We made a video about them:

Video: The 8 Biggest Mistakes Financial Advisors Make When Working Leads

29. What type of agents and advisors tend to do well in your program?

People with experience working leads have an advantage. They already understand fast response, repeated follow-up and appointment setting.

Successful clients also give the program enough time and budget to judge it properly. If you need to close the first lead to make the numbers work, this probably isn’t the right time to buy leads.

We put together real examples of what has and hasn’t worked for our clients:

Video: 9 Case Studies From the Trenches — What Does and Does Not Work When Working Annuity Leads

30. Who is most likely to struggle in your program?

People who dislike prospecting, follow up inconsistently or struggle to build relationships with new prospects have a harder time. So do people who skip our videos on working leads.

Lead generation gets you in front of an interested prospect. It does not replace the producer’s sales and relationship-building skills.

If you’re considering our program, we strongly recommend watching:

Video: Annuity Lead Generation Best Practices

31. Are some markets easier than others?

Yes. Smaller cities and rural markets have often been easier because prospects receive fewer competing solicitations. Large, competitive metro areas can take more persistence.

That said, we’ve had clients succeed and struggle in every type of market. The right person tends to do well anywhere, and knowing the local market helps.

32. What can I do to improve my chances of success and maximize my ROI?

Fast response, consistent follow-up, and good relationship-building matter most.

Start with the introductory script we give you. The first 30 seconds of your call should connect naturally with what the prospect saw and requested from us.

In tougher markets, we also suggest sending a professional “shock and awe” package before you speak with the lead. Two videos go deeper:

Overnight Package — How to Improve Your Contact and Close Rate With Shock & Awe Marketing Packages – Our most popular video!

Video: 7 Strategies to Maximize Your Return on Investment When Working Annuity Leads

Ready to see whether your territory is open? Call (888) 288-1712.

Ordering, delivery and refunds

33. How do I sign up?

Download our current lead agreement 2026 Lead Agreement, complete it and return it by email or fax.

Once we receive it, we set up your account and send your login, marketing materials you can use, and the introductory script for opening the conversation with a new lead.

We follow up within one business day. If you don’t hear from us, contact us to confirm we received the form.

34. How do I receive my leads, and how long is the information available?

Leads are delivered by email the moment they’re approved. You can add an assistant, marketer or backup address.

We can also text you the prospect’s name and phone number as a backup notification. We recommend it in case a lead email lands in your spam folder.

Our system can post leads straight into your CRM, provided your CRM can accept incoming data. Some of our clients do this and some don’t. Ask us and we’ll look at yours.

Important: lead information is removed from our system after 60 days under our data-retention and privacy policies. Download or back up anything you need for your records before then.

35. Do you keep call recordings?

We keep call recordings for 30 days and can review them when needed, including for a refund request.

Most online leads complete our online process and never speak with the call center, so there is no recording for them. Some online prospects do call in, and a recording may exist for those leads.

36. What is your refund policy, and how often do clients request refunds?

Refund requests have run below 1% of the leads we’ve sold: roughly one for every 100-200 leads. That’s low because of the time we spend scrubbing before a lead is sold.

A lead qualifies for a refund if the person turns out to work as a financial advisor or insurance agent, or if the phone number is disconnected. You have 7 days to submit the request in our system. A team member reviews it and may follow up, including calling the lead.

We try to be reasonable, and your history with us is part of the picture. A longtime client who has bought many leads with almost no refund requests is in a different position from a new account that starts with a string of questionable ones.

If an account develops a pattern of refund abuse, we reserve the right to close it and end the relationship. Scrubbed annuity leads are expensive to produce.

37. Are you affiliated with an FMO or IMO?

No. We work with agents, advisors and FMOs across the industry, but we are not an FMO or IMO. We don’t care where you place your business, and we won’t ask you to move your carrier contracts.

If you’re a marketer at an FMO, we’ll send you our coverage map showing open areas, and you’ll have direct access to Scott. Many marketers use our lead program to help their agents grow.

38. Do you have references? Are there people I can speak with?

Yes. Start with the roughly 40 client testimonials on our website. All but one include the original audio, and the other is a letter a client sent us, so you hear the client instead of reading something anybody could have written.

If you’re still skeptical after that, contact us. In some cases we can arrange for you to speak with a marketer at an FMO who sends us business and knows our track record.

We want you to understand what you’re buying before you become a client.

Still have a question?

Call us at (888) 288-1712. We’ll tell you whether your territory is open and answer anything this page didn’t.