We're a lead generation company, so you might expect us to tell you that buying leads is the obvious choice. We're not going to do that. The honest answer is: if you have the time, the budget to test, and the willingness to learn, generating your own leads will almost certainly work out cheaper in the long run.

That might seem like a strange thing for a lead provider to say. But we believe that informed clients make better decisions, and if you try generating your own leads and succeed, you don't need us — and that's genuinely fine. If you try and decide it's not for you, you'll come back to a provider like us with a much better understanding of what good leads cost and why.

This guide gives you a genuinely balanced comparison of both approaches, with realistic numbers and honest assessments of the trade-offs involved.

Our Honest Recommendation: Try DIY First

If you have the time and at least £1,500-£2,000 to test Meta (Facebook/Instagram) or Google Ads, we'd recommend trying to generate your own leads first. Here's why.

You'll understand the real cost. Running your own campaigns teaches you exactly how much it costs to generate a lead. You'll see the ad spend, the click-through rates, the form completion rates, and the cost per enquiry. This knowledge is invaluable — whether you continue doing it yourself or eventually hire a provider.

You'll control the quality. Your own campaigns target exactly the criteria you want. You write the ad copy, design the landing page, and set the qualifying questions. No intermediary, no ambiguity about where the leads are coming from.

The unit economics are better. When you generate your own leads, you're paying the platform (Google or Facebook) directly. There's no margin for a lead provider. A lead that costs a provider £15 to generate and sells for £30 could potentially cost you £15-20 if you generate it yourself — though this depends on your ability to optimise campaigns effectively.

It's a transferable skill. Even if you don't continue running campaigns long-term, understanding digital advertising makes you a better buyer of leads. You'll know the right questions to ask providers, spot unrealistic claims, and negotiate from a position of knowledge.

Realistic DIY Costs and Commitments

Let's be honest about what generating your own leads actually involves. It's not as simple as some YouTube tutorials make it look.

Financial investment

Advertising budget: We'd recommend a minimum test budget of £1,500-£2,000 over 4-6 weeks. This gives you enough data to see patterns and make informed decisions. Going in with £200 won't generate enough leads to draw meaningful conclusions.

Landing page: You'll need a professional landing page. Options range from free (using a Facebook Lead Form) to £50-200/month for a landing page builder like Leadpages or Unbounce, to £500-2,000 for a custom-built page. A basic but professional landing page is sufficient to start.

Tracking and analytics: Google Analytics is free. Facebook Pixel is free. A basic CRM to track leads can be free (HubSpot's free tier) or low-cost (Pipedrive starts around £15/month). You'll need these to measure performance.

Total initial investment: Realistically, £1,500-2,500 for a proper test, not including your time.

Time investment

This is where most brokers underestimate the true cost of DIY lead generation.

  • Learning the platform: If you've never run Google or Facebook ads, expect to spend 15-30 hours learning the basics through courses, guides, and practice. Meta Blueprint and Google Skillshop offer free training, but they take time to work through.
  • Campaign setup: Building your first campaign — writing ad copy, designing creatives, setting targeting, configuring conversion tracking — takes 5-10 hours if you know what you're doing, significantly longer if you're learning as you go.
  • Ongoing management: Active campaigns need regular attention. Plan for 3-5 hours per week monitoring performance, adjusting bids, testing new ad variations, and reviewing lead quality. You can't just set it up and forget it.
  • Optimisation: The first version of your campaign will almost certainly not be the best. Getting to a well-optimised campaign typically takes 4-8 weeks of testing and iteration.

If you value your time at £50/hour (a conservative figure for an experienced financial adviser), the time investment alone could be worth £3,000-5,000 over the first few months.

Skills required

Successful DIY lead generation requires a combination of skills that some brokers have naturally and others need to develop:

  • Copywriting: Writing ad copy that captures attention and drives clicks. This is different from writing compliance-friendly adviser language — it needs to be punchy, benefit-focused, and platform-appropriate.
  • Data analysis: Reading campaign metrics, understanding statistical significance, and making data-driven decisions about what to change and when.
  • Creative design: Creating ad images and videos that stand out in a crowded feed (particularly for social media). Tools like Canva help, but you still need an eye for what works.
  • Technical setup: Installing tracking pixels, configuring conversion events, setting up landing pages, and connecting forms to your CRM or email system.
  • Patience: Campaigns need time to optimise. The Facebook and Google algorithms need data to learn, and early results are often poor. You need the discipline to keep testing and refining rather than giving up after a week.

Pros and Cons of DIY Lead Generation

Pros

  • Lower cost per lead. Without a provider's margin, your per-lead cost should be lower once your campaigns are optimised.
  • Full control. You decide everything: targeting, ad copy, qualifying questions, landing page design, volume, and spend.
  • Transparency. You see every metric: impressions, clicks, cost per click, conversion rate, cost per lead. No black box.
  • Scalability on your terms. Once you have a winning campaign, scaling up is straightforward — increase the budget and the volume grows proportionally (within limits).
  • Asset building. Your advertising accounts, landing pages, and optimised campaigns are your assets. You own them and can build on them over time.

Cons

  • Significant time investment. Time spent on marketing is time not spent advising clients. This is the opportunity cost that most people underestimate.
  • Learning curve. Digital advertising platforms are complex, and mistakes can be expensive. Poorly targeted campaigns burn through budget quickly with little to show for it.
  • No guarantee of success. Some brokers spend their test budget and don't generate viable leads. The £1,500-2,000 is at risk. A professional lead provider absorbs this risk on your behalf.
  • Platform changes. Google and Facebook regularly change their algorithms, policies, and interfaces. Staying current requires ongoing education and adaptation.
  • Compliance considerations. Financial services advertising is regulated. You need to ensure your ads and landing pages comply with FCA rules, which adds complexity and risk.
  • Inconsistency. Without constant attention, campaign performance can fluctuate. A week where you're busy with client work is a week where your lead pipeline might dry up.

Pros and Cons of Buying Leads

Pros

  • Immediate pipeline. Leads can start arriving within 48 hours of setup. No learning period, no testing phase, no waiting for campaigns to optimise.
  • Zero time on marketing. Every hour you would have spent managing campaigns is an hour you can spend with clients. If your hourly value as an adviser is £100+, this is a significant factor.
  • Proven quality. An established provider has already done the testing and optimisation. Their campaigns have been refined over months or years. You benefit from that investment without bearing the cost.
  • Predictable volume. You tell the provider how many leads you want per week, and that's what you get (subject to market availability). No fluctuations based on campaign performance.
  • Risk mitigation. The provider absorbs the risk of campaign failure, platform changes, and wasted ad spend. You only pay for delivered leads.
  • Compliance managed. A reputable provider handles the compliance aspects of advertising, including FCA financial promotions rules, GDPR consent, and platform-specific policies.
  • Replacement policies. If a lead is invalid, you get a replacement. If you were generating your own leads, that's just wasted ad spend.

Cons

  • Higher cost per lead. You're paying for the provider's expertise, infrastructure, risk, and margin. A lead that costs them £15 to generate might cost you £30-50.
  • Less control. You don't control the ad copy, targeting, or landing pages. You're trusting the provider to make good decisions on your behalf.
  • Dependency. If you rely entirely on bought leads, your pipeline depends on a third party. If they have issues, your business is affected.
  • Variable quality. Not all providers are equal. Some deliver excellent leads; others deliver recycled data or poorly verified enquiries. Choosing the wrong provider is expensive and frustrating.
  • Limited transparency. Unless the provider is very open about their methods, you may not know exactly where your leads are coming from or how they're generated.

Realistic Cost Comparison

Let's compare the two approaches using realistic UK market figures. These are approximations — your results will vary.

Scenario: Mortgage broker wanting 20 leads per week

DIY approach (first 3 months):

  • Ad spend: £800-1,200/month = £2,400-3,600 over 3 months
  • Landing page tools: £50-150/month = £150-450 over 3 months
  • Time investment: 8-15 hours/week at £50/hour = £4,800-9,000 over 3 months
  • Expected leads (after optimisation period): 150-250 over 3 months
  • Estimated cost per lead (including time): £30-52
  • Estimated cost per lead (excluding time): £10-25

Buying leads (first 3 months):

  • Lead cost: £10-45/lead x 20/week x 12 weeks = £2,400-10,800
  • Time investment: 0 hours on lead generation
  • Expected leads: 240 over 3 months
  • Estimated cost per lead: £10-45

The DIY approach looks cheaper per lead if you exclude your time — but when you include your time, the cost is similar or even higher, particularly in the early months when campaigns are still being optimised.

Over 6-12 months, the DIY economics improve significantly as your campaigns optimise and your time investment decreases. If you can get a well-running campaign, your per-lead cost might settle at £10-20 with only 2-3 hours of weekly management — at which point it's substantially cheaper than buying.

But that "if" is doing a lot of work. Not everyone gets there.

Who Should Do What?

Generate your own leads if:

  • You have genuine time to dedicate to learning and managing campaigns — at least 8-10 hours per week initially.
  • You have at least £1,500-2,000 that you can afford to lose if campaigns don't work.
  • You're comfortable with technology and willing to learn new platforms.
  • You enjoy marketing or at least don't find it painful.
  • You're planning for the long term and want to build an in-house capability.
  • You want maximum control over your lead pipeline.

Buy leads if:

  • Your time is better spent advising clients than managing campaigns.
  • You've tried DIY and found it too time-consuming or technically challenging.
  • You want leads immediately without a learning and optimisation period.
  • You don't have the risk appetite to spend £2,000 on campaigns that might not work.
  • You'd rather pay a premium for proven, verified, ready-to-work leads.
  • You want to scale quickly without building an internal marketing function.

Do both:

Some of the most successful brokers and firms we work with use a hybrid approach. They run their own campaigns for certain lead types or geographic areas where they've got campaigns dialled in, and they buy leads from providers for additional volume or for lead types they haven't learned to generate efficiently themselves.

This hybrid approach gives you the cost benefits of DIY where you've got it working, with the convenience and reliability of a provider filling the gaps. It also reduces your dependency on any single source — which is always smart business practice.

Getting Started with DIY Lead Generation

If you're going to give it a try — and we genuinely think you should, if you have the time and budget — here's where to start:

  1. Choose one platform. Don't try Google Ads and Facebook simultaneously. Pick one, learn it properly, and get results before expanding. Facebook is generally easier to learn and cheaper to test. Google Ads produces higher-intent leads but is more complex and expensive.
  2. Start with a simple campaign. One ad set, one audience, one landing page. Don't overcomplicate it. You can add complexity once you've got the basics working.
  3. Use free learning resources. Meta Blueprint, Google Skillshop, and YouTube tutorials from practitioners (not gurus) are all excellent starting points.
  4. Set a realistic test budget. £1,500-2,000 over 4-6 weeks. Don't judge results after spending £200.
  5. Track everything. Set up conversion tracking properly from day one. If you can't measure results, you can't improve them.
  6. Be patient. Your first campaign will not be your best. Give the algorithm time to learn, test different ad variations, and don't panic if the first week is slow.

If you try it for 6-8 weeks and decide it's not for you — because of the time commitment, the technical complexity, or the results — we'll be here. No judgement, no "told you so." You'll come back with a much better understanding of what lead generation involves, which makes the conversation about buying leads much more productive for both sides.

For more practical guidance on setting up your process before you start receiving leads (whether DIY or bought), read our guide to setting up your lead process. And if you decide buying is the right path, start with our beginner's guide to buying leads.