The Challenge

This Midlands-based mortgage brokerage had built a solid business primarily through estate agent referrals and word of mouth. After five years of steady growth, they had expanded from a sole trader to a team of four advisers — but their referral network couldn't keep pace with the team's capacity. Two of the newer advisers were regularly sitting with empty diaries, waiting for work that didn't always materialise.

The firm's principal had tried running Facebook ads in-house. After spending around £2,000 over two months and generating a handful of low-quality leads, he concluded it wasn't the right use of his time. He needed a way to generate a predictable volume of mortgage enquiries without the overhead of managing advertising campaigns himself.

The firm's goals were straightforward: establish a reliable lead pipeline that could provide enough work to keep all four advisers busy, at a cost per acquisition that made commercial sense.

The Approach

We recommended starting small — 10 leads per week across general mortgage and remortgage categories, covering the West Midlands region. This gave the firm enough volume to test the quality of our leads and refine their internal processes before scaling up.

Month 1 — Building the foundation: We set up CRM integration so leads were delivered directly into their Pipedrive system in real-time. Each new lead automatically created a task for the assigned adviser to call within 5 minutes. The firm designated one administrator to handle the initial SMS acknowledgement if an adviser was in a meeting, ensuring no lead went more than 5 minutes without contact.

During the first month, the firm received 42 leads. Contact rate was 68%, and they booked 11 appointments — resulting in 4 completed mortgage applications. The cost per lead was £28 on average, giving a total lead spend of £1,176. With an average proc fee of £550, the four completions generated £2,200 in revenue — a 1.9x return.

The principal was honest: the return wasn't spectacular. But the process was working, and we both agreed the key was to refine the follow-up before adding volume.

Months 2-3 — Process refinement: We worked with the team to improve their follow-up sequence. The biggest change was introducing a structured 7-day contact cadence: call on receipt, SMS 30 minutes later if no answer, call the next morning, email the afternoon, call on day 3, SMS on day 5, and a final call on day 7. Previously, advisers were calling once or twice and then moving on.

The results improved noticeably. Contact rate rose from 68% to 74%. Appointment booking rate among contacted leads increased from 38% to 45%. By month 3, with the same 10 leads per week, they were completing 6-7 mortgages per month from purchased leads.

Months 4-6 — Scaling up: With a proven process and clear data on conversion rates, the firm began increasing volume. They moved from 10 to 20 leads per week in month 4, then to 35 in month 5. By month 6, they were taking 50 leads per week — split across general mortgage, remortgage, and first-time buyer categories.

Each scaling step was deliberate. They added volume only when their existing capacity could handle it without degrading response times. When they moved to 35 leads per week, they hired a dedicated lead handler whose sole job was to make the initial contact call and qualify the enquiry before passing it to an adviser for the detailed conversation.

The Results

After six months, the firm's performance metrics had stabilised at:

  • 50 leads per week (approximately 217 per month)
  • 72% contact rate — up from 68% at the start, driven by faster response times and better follow-up
  • 14% lead-to-completion rate — meaning roughly 30 mortgage completions per month from purchased leads
  • Average cost per lead: £27
  • Average cost per acquisition: £193
  • Average proc fee: £580
  • Monthly lead spend: approximately £5,850
  • Monthly revenue from leads: approximately £17,400
  • Return on lead spend: 4.2x (before staff costs)

The purchased leads now account for approximately 60% of the firm's total deal flow, with referrals and organic enquiries making up the remainder. The principal noted that purchased leads actually improved their referral business too — more completions meant more satisfied clients, which meant more recommendations.

Key Learnings

Start small and build process first. The firm's performance at 50 leads per week wouldn't have been possible without the process improvements made at 10 leads per week. Scaling before the process was right would have led to wasted leads, poor conversion, and probably a decision to stop buying altogether.

Speed requires infrastructure. At 50 leads per week, responding within 5 minutes to every lead required a dedicated person. The firm's investment in a lead handler (approximately £24,000 per year salary) paid for itself many times over through improved contact and conversion rates.

Track everything from day one. The firm's CRM data allowed them to make evidence-based decisions at every stage. They knew exactly what their conversion rate was, where leads were dropping off, and what the financial return looked like. Without this data, scaling would have been guesswork.

Not every lead type performs equally. The firm found that remortgage leads converted at 18% while general mortgage leads converted at 11%. First-time buyer leads sat at 13% but with longer conversion timelines. This data allowed them to adjust their volume mix to maximise return — taking more remortgage leads and fewer general mortgage leads as they scaled.

Patience pays off. Month 1 returned 1.9x on lead spend. By month 6, that had improved to 4.2x. The improvement came from process refinement, not from lead quality changes. The leads were the same quality throughout — what changed was the firm's ability to convert them.