How much do financial advisors pay for SmartAsset leads?
SmartAsset is a marketing firm that produces content on retirement, retirement calculators, what to look for in a Financial Advisor,etc.
The prospect or searcher fills out information upon landing on their site, then that information is sold to a Financial Advisor, in most cases 5-10 of them for around $200-$400 per lead.
Here is an example of how it works.
SmartAsset sells “$1 million investable asset lead” for $200 a piece.
They are sold to 8 different advisors which means SmartAsset collects $1600 for one lead which may or may not close (see review consensus below).
If these are not closed and there is no guarantee they come out of the database if they do, they will be resold to different advisors for the same price.
According to reviews, some of these leads get recycled and re-sold to new advisors.
It is essentially a lead generation service for Financial Advisors.
SmartAsset Reviews By Reddit
Reddit is becoming the go-to for peoples experiences, knowledge and opinions and can be a great source of information.
Here is the post in it’s entirety.
Has anyone used this company for lead generation? I am pretty frustrated right now. I have spent over 10 thousand dollars in a span of 3 months. I’ve come to quickly learn these leads aren’t qualified. The leads information is not matching, sometimes it’s someone with a different name, sometimes it’s the wrong phone number, all while we pay $200 plus per lead.
99.9% don’t even answer or appear to be human even though SmartAsset indicates that there must be interest because the “lead” filled out the questionnaire to find an advisor. How many people just fill out things with just BS info just to use the website tools? I know I have. Then there is maybe that lucky time this “high networth lead” with “1-4 million” in assets answers the phone. Guess what? They never had that much in assets, they were just wondering how to sign up with their employer 401k plan. Really? Did I just pay 290 bucks for this lead?!
I took the liberty of doing a reverse search on all 90 of my leads information. I have come to find out that over 80% of the information is wrong and not matching to the real owner. Sometimes it’s the phone number, other times it’s the email.
One time I called a lead and a hotel answered. Said they don’t know anyone by the name?! Other times it’s the opposite gender pertaining to the leads name. This makes me think how many of the other leads are unqualified and just never answered. This company seems very shady and scammy.
Again maybe 1% do answer and indicate it’s them before being annoyed and hanging up. You know why? Because smart asset matched the prospect with 3 advisors to give them choices. Problem is this leads to us bombarding and spamming the person with calls.
This company charges premium prices for leads that are 99.9% unqualified.
Thoughts?
Reddit CFP SmartAsset Review Link
SmartAsset Review According To WalletHub
WalletHub is an aggregation site that reviews services, software, credit cards, etc.
Here, they have an entire page dedicated to SmartAsset Reviews.
Here are a few of the reviews left by some Financial Advisors and even some potential prospects.
They oversell the same lead to multiple advisors or sell you old, stale leads. If there is a zero stars I’ll give them than. Complete scam in my opinion.
WalletHub.com
Another verified reviewer Chris Hayes
I am writing this as more of a warning than a review. Please do not sign up with Smart Asset. I am on my last few “leads” this week and I cannot wait to be done with Smart Asset. The leads are suspect at best. Most “prospects” with whom I speak either claim to not know about smart asset, don’t have investable assets (held in annuities, etc), or have unrelated finance questions that take up your time and efforts to give away quick and free information. It’s a very lazy organization from top to bottom. Poor leads and Poor service. If you are serious about speaking with quality prospective clients, DO NOT USE SMARTASSET, they are not a serious business.
WalletHub.com
I would give this company 0 stars if I could. Stay away they will just take your money, keep your money, and when you want out they will say to bad and take more of your money. STAY AWAY!
WalletHub.com
Here is what you can try doing instead
Using third party paid inbound leads is a pie in the sky mentality.
The amount of research, input, time and resources into getting 1 good lead should cost 10x what SmartAsset charges.
Think about it this way.
If a prospect has a verified $1m in assets, what would you pay for such a lead?
$1m at 1% (or whatever you charge) is $10,000 a year.
You would and should be willing to pay 1x that and if you can hold that client for at least 2 years, you have doubled your investment.
The problem is that that is not a sustainable way for SmartAsset to keep creating revenue.
In the Financial Services world, outbound marketing is still the golden standard and should be part of your focus or junior advisors focus until you are ready to live off client referrals.