How can we create the perfect affiliate program for insurance leads?

Hey all!

New in the forums

I've been working with insurance lead generation for years, generating leads for companies like AWL, Datalot, Quinstreet and MediaAlpha.
If any of you have experience generating leads for these types of offers, you probably know about the challenges: these offers are demanding white hat traffic (SEM, Facebook, SEO), while paying black hat fees ($2 CPC, $3-4 CPL etc).

These buyers are also scrubbing all the leads, only crediting their affiliates for a fraction of the leads they generate. We know this by manually submitting leads (sorry ) and seeing the exact numbers.

If there ever is a dispute with their buyers, they will financially take it out on their affiliates, leaving you unpaid a month later (they all pay on NET-30 or NET-45 terms).


So, to cut to the chase - we are looking to set up our own network of affiliates. We want to pay a flat fee per auto insurance lead, and we would accept all types of traffic. There would also be no scrubbing of the leads. Our only requirement would be that the leads are real consumers interested in receiving new quotes on their insurance.

My questions to all of you are:
1. How much would you have to be paid per auto insurance lead for this to be interesting for you?
2. What traffic sources would yield the cheapest leads?
3. What payment terms would you want?

And if you have any suggestion to how we could make this a highly attractive offer, that would be much appreciated!

Sorry for the really long post, and thanks for your time

First of all, read my thread "https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/the-main-problem-with-cpa-offers-and-cpa-networks.850415/".

Then, don't scam affiliates with shitty excuses. Just tell upfront, that from 10 leads we get from you, we will only pay you for 6 leads because F you, thats why.

Though, if you are not prepared to be upfront with affiliates, well, I can always find a way to game the system.

Like I was doing. Manually submitting each lead several times in different offers in order to make it profitable for me.

This way, everyone can pay me 6 out of 10 leads I send them and I still make money.

Thanks a lot for the reply. Gonna read your thread now!

This was actually what we were thinking as well - 100% honesty upfront. Our network will have a lower pay per lead than some other networks, but that's because we'll pay for 100% of the leads (no scrape/scrub).
After being in this industry for a while, I've dealt with all the BS from all the networks. $10 per lead is more like $2.5 with the bigger networks, and they'll find any excuse not to pay what they owe.

How much were you making per lead when you were manually submitting to several offers? (I'm interested to know as I would like to know how much we should pay per lead to keep affiliates happy)

Michael Michaels said:

Thanks a lot for the reply. Gonna read your thread now!

This was actually what we were thinking as well - 100% honesty upfront. Our network will have a lower pay per lead than some other networks, but that's because we'll pay for 100% of the leads (no scrape/scrub).
After being in this industry for a while, I've dealt with all the BS from all the networks. $10 per lead is more like $2.5 with the bigger networks, and they'll find any excuse not to pay what they owe.

How much were you making per lead when you were manually submitting to several offers? (I'm interested to know as I would like to know how much we should pay per lead to keep affiliates happy)

Click to expand...

Technically, what they said is correct. They paid $10 per lead, but you only had 1 lead credited out of 4 leads submitted, which is essentially, $2.50 per lead hahaha

After doing all the crap, I found out that the shit above applies to lots of cpa networks. Like, they say they pay $10 per lead, but only end up getting credited 1 out of 4 leads submitted, which is $2.50 per lead.

What the networks say they pay per lead is all bullshit as they know they shave/scrub leads and pay whatever they want and ending paying up less than what they advertise they pay.

I'm not in insurance or solar anymore as it was all bs, but yea, CPA NETWORKS, stay true to your publishers!

I hear you.

We're thinking of paying a flat $5 per auto insurance lead, and paying for 100% of the leads.
We also want to offer weekly payments, and make sure there is never any hassle to get paid.

Do you think we'll be able to attract publishers with that offer, or do you think the $5 sounds low compared to the $10-15 others are offering (even though they shave 70%)?

Michael Michaels said:

I hear you.

We're thinking of paying a flat $5 per auto insurance lead, and paying for 100% of the leads.
We also want to offer weekly payments, and make sure there is never any hassle to get paid.

Do you think we'll be able to attract publishers with that offer, or do you think the $5 sounds low compared to the $10-15 others are offering (even though they shave 70%)?

Click to expand...

Let me tell you something. The offers that paid me the most were the ones that paid $3 per lead. The success rate on them were like 85% or something like that.

So yea, $5 per lead at 100% leads paid, it's the way to go. THOUGH, it would still not be profitable for me to only focus on this $5 offers, but yea its a good start

Great. Thanks for your feedback. It helps a lot!

Michael Michaels said:

Great. Thanks for your feedback. It helps a lot!

Click to expand...

Anytime bro!

@Michael Michaels When are you planning to have this available?

you guys able to generate any final expense / funeral insurance / burial insurance life insurance leads?