The data fields a finance lead should include before you pay for it
A finance lead is a set of data fields, and the fields decide whether your first call is triage or discovery. Before you pay for one, get the provider's field list in writing and hold it against the four groups below.
Every finance lead is a row of data, and the row is either complete enough to triage or it is not. The fields fall into four groups: who the person is and how to reach them, what entity is borrowing, what the deal is, and how the enquiry was produced. Most providers are strong on the first group, patchy on the second and third, and silent on the fourth.
The test is simple. If the deal fields are missing, you are doing the provider's qualification. If the provenance fields are missing, you are doing their audit. Either way you have paid for unfinished work.
Contact fields
Full name, a mobile confirmed by SMS code before release, and an email. The mobile carries the value; the rest is how you follow up after voicemail.
Entity fields
ABN, GST status, time trading and, ideally, entity type. They show whether a trading business sits behind the enquiry and which lender thresholds it clears before you dial.
Deal fields
Finance type, amount, purpose and timeframe as the base set, plus the niche fields below. The difference between a first call that triages and one that starts from zero.
Provenance fields
Source channel, submission timestamp, verification method and an exclusivity flag. They describe how the lead was made, which is what you are paying for.
The base deal fields are the same across products. What changes by niche is the one or two extra fields that decide which part of your panel the file belongs to.
- Business loans. The entity fields do the heavy lifting: ABN, GST status and time trading, with purpose split into working capital, expansion, equipment or a tax bill. Amount is usually a single figure, because the owner knows the gap.
- Asset finance. Asset type and make or model, estimated value, deposit, amount and settlement timeframe, with the asset flagged new, used or demo. Condition and deposit are the fields that move a file between lenders.
- Commercial finance. Deal type, meaning purchase, refinance, restructure or tax debt, then property type, approximate value and an LVR range, plus the existing debt position including any ATO debt. The full list is on what a qualified commercial lead includes.
These rarely appear on a sales page because they are awkward to promise, and they separate a freshly generated enquiry from a recycled record.
- Source channel. Search, social, a partner site or a purchased list. Search and social convert on different timelines; a list is not an enquiry at all.
- Submission timestamp. Date and time the form was completed, in the enquirer's local time. A lead delivered next morning with no timestamp is hiding its age.
- Verification method. Not just "verified" but how: an SMS code typed back before release, or a check on the digits afterwards. Verified vs unverified leads covers why the method, not the label, decides your contact rate.
- Exclusivity flag. Whether the enquiry has been sold to anyone else, and whether the provider checked it against their other clients before routing it.
- Review status. Whether a person looked at the submission against the stated criteria, or it went straight from form to inbox with nobody in between.
A field can exist on paper and be useless if it arrives as free text. Amount should be a number or a bounded range, not "as much as I can get". Timeframe should be a fixed choice, this month, this quarter or later. Purpose should be a category with a notes field beside it, not a paragraph you classify yourself.
A hypothetical example makes the point. Two leads both say business loan. One reads: amount $120,000, purpose equipment, timeframe this month, ABN yes, GST registered, trading three years. The other reads: "need a loan for my business asap". Same borrower, maybe, but a worse lead, because every answer now has to be extracted on your first call.
- A sample lead exactly as it lands in an inbox, personal details blanked, not a mock-up from the website.
- The full field list in writing, each field marked mandatory or optional. Optional fields arrive blank more often than providers admit.
- The verification method, and when it happens: before the lead is released, or after.
- Whether free-text answers are read by a person before delivery, and the written criteria a lead is qualified against.
- The published contact rate and how it is measured, so you know what a lead is worth before you hear a price.
If any item takes longer than a day, the fields probably do not exist as described.
Every lead we deliver carries full name, SMS-verified mobile, email, finance type, loan amount, loan purpose, estimated timeframe and notes from submission. Business loan leads add ABN, GST status and time trading; asset finance leads add asset type, make and model, value, deposit, settlement timeframe and new, used or demo; commercial enquiries add property type, approximate value and LVR range. Each enquiry is generated in Australia from our own Google and Meta campaigns, passes SMS verification, automated scoring and a human qualification review before it ships, and is sold once, dedup-enforced across all clients. It arrives in your inbox or CRM in real time, and our published contact rate is 72.5%.