Checklist

Twelve questions to ask any finance lead provider before you buy

Price is the last thing to ask a finance lead provider, not the first. These twelve questions, asked in order, tell you whether the quote is even worth reading.

Last updated: 23 August 2026

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The short version

A finance lead provider will happily spend the first call on price and volume. Neither means anything until you know where the enquiry came from, whether anyone else received it, whether the mobile works, and what you are committed to if the leads are poor. The twelve questions below run in the order that decides the deal.

Ask all twelve on the first call and compare providers on the answers rather than the per-lead quote. A provider that goes vague at question two is telling you what the other ten would have been. For a shorter cut, see how to choose a provider.

Questions 1 to 4: where the lead comes from

These four decide whether you are buying an enquiry or a record.

1. Did you generate this enquiry yourselves, and from which channels? The answer you want is specific: their own paid search and social campaigns, run in Australia. Aged lists, incentivised surveys, scraped ABN data and "partner networks" are the wrong answers. Ask to see the live ads: ASIC's reissued RG 234 (9 June 2026) expressly covers lead generators and search and social advertising (ASIC, June 2026), and an ad that promises what you could not say yourself arrives as an enquiry with that promise attached.
2. Is each lead sold once, and how is that enforced? Exclusive is a word; enforcement is a system. Ask whether the same person can be sold to another client a month later, and whether duplicates are checked across every client on the books rather than only within your account. The economics are in exclusive vs shared leads.
3. Which niches do you generate yourselves? A provider that generates mortgage enquiries and "also does commercial" is usually relabelling. Ask which campaigns are live today for what you write, whether business loans, asset finance, commercial property or ATO tax debt, and what share of last month's volume was in that niche.
4. Can I target by state, metro or postcode? Geography decides whether you can meet the borrower and whether you are paying for enquiries from the other side of the country. Ask how tight the targeting runs and how an out-of-area enquiry is handled.

Questions 5 to 8: verification and what arrives with the lead

A lead is only as good as the number on it and the fields around it.

5. Is the mobile confirmed by SMS code before delivery? Not validated, not formatted: confirmed, meaning the person typed a code sent to that handset before the lead was released. Ask what happens to an enquiry that never completes the code. If those ship anyway, the verification is decoration.
6. Who reviews the lead before it is sent: software, a person, or nobody? Automated scoring catches the obvious, such as a personal loan typed into a business loan form. A human review catches the rest. Ask whether both happen and what is rejected at each step. Qualified should mean qualified against the stated criteria, and you should know the criteria.
7. Which fields arrive with every lead, without exception? The floor in any niche is full name, verified mobile, email, finance type, loan amount, loan purpose, timeframe and the person's own notes. Niche fields sit on top: ABN, GST status and time trading for business loans; asset type, value and deposit for asset finance; property type, approximate value and LVR range for commercial. Ask for a field-by-field answer and check it against the fields a lead should include.
8. Can I see a real delivered lead before I pay? Not a template. A delivered enquiry with identifying details masked, the fields populated and the timestamps intact: submitted, confirmed, sent. Read it with the sample lead checklist. A thin sample predicts thin leads.

Questions 9 to 12: commercials and accountability

Only now does price belong in the conversation, because only now can you read it.

9. How is the lead delivered, and how long after the person submits? The answer should be inbox or CRM, as it happens, not held back for a morning round-up. An enquiry that reaches you hours later has already cooled.
10. What is your contact rate, and how do you define it? Contact rate turns a lead price into a cost per conversation. Ask what counts: a live conversation, any call that connected, or a voicemail left. As a hypothetical example, a provider counting voicemails could quote 90% on the same leads another would honestly call 60%.
11. What am I committing to? Lock-in contracts, setup fees, monthly retainers, and how small you can start. Pay per lead with nothing locked in lets you judge quality on the first deliveries. A contract signed before you have seen a lead moves the whole risk onto you.
12. What is your replacement policy? Ask it plainly and get it in writing: which failures qualify (a wrong number, an enquiry outside the stated criteria, a duplicate you already hold), how you lodge one, the window for doing so, and who decides. No answer means the failures are priced in and left with you. The evasions to listen for are in lead provider red flags.

Reading the answers

Walk away

No named source channel, no enforcement behind exclusivity, no SMS confirmation before delivery, no sample. None of these is negotiable.

Get it in writing

Fields answered with "all the usual", a contact rate with no definition, a failed-lead answer of "case by case". Each becomes a sentence in the agreement.

Rank on cost per funded deal

Combine the answers to questions 10 and 11 with the quote and work out what a settled deal costs in leads. Rank providers on that, not on price per lead.

Where La Vitesse fits

We would rather you ask us all twelve than skip to the quote. Against this list: enquiries are generated in Australia from our own Google and Meta campaigns, sold once to one broker and never resold, with dedup enforced across every client; every prospect confirms their mobile by SMS code before the lead ships, followed by automated scoring and a human qualification review; delivery is to your inbox or CRM in real time, targeted by state, metro or postcode; pay per lead, no lock-in contracts, no setup fees, no monthly retainers; and our published contact rate is 72.5%. Pricing is quoted on a call, by niche and volume. Start with business loan leads or commercial finance leads.

Common questions

Which of the twelve questions matters most?

Question one. If the provider did not generate the enquiry from its own campaigns, nothing else can be verified: exclusivity cannot be enforced on a lead someone else also owns, and the fields are whatever that source happened to capture. Settle the source first and the remaining eleven become checks rather than hopes.

What should a replacement policy cover?

Four things, in writing: which failures qualify, usually a wrong or unreachable number, an enquiry outside the stated criteria, or a duplicate you already hold; how you lodge one; the time window; and who decides. Ask before you pay, not after the first bad week, and treat "case by case" as no policy.

Is it unreasonable to ask for a sample lead before paying?

No. A sample should be a real delivered enquiry with identifying details masked, the fields populated and the timestamps intact, not a blank template. Read it for which fields are filled, how long passed between submission and delivery, and whether the SMS confirmation is shown. A provider that refuses has told you something.

What contact rate should I expect from a finance lead provider?

There is no market benchmark worth relying on, because providers define contact differently. Ask for the definition first: a live conversation is the honest measure, a connected call or a voicemail is not. Then ask whether the number is published and measure your own over the first deliveries. La Vitesse publishes a 72.5% contact rate, the only performance number we publish.

When does price belong in the conversation?

Last. A per-lead quote is unreadable until you know whether the lead is exclusive, whether the number is confirmed, what fields arrive and what the contact rate is, because those inputs turn a lead price into a cost per conversation and then a cost per funded deal. Two quotes far apart can land on the same cost per settled deal.

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