The short answer
Ask who generates the traffic, how the phone is verified, how many buyers each lead has and for how long, what the consent disclosure says, what the replacement policy covers, how delivery works, what the pacing is, what happens to an undelivered balance, whether they scrub, what the payload contains, whether they sell aged data, and who owns the record afterwards. Ask in writing — a vendor who answers by phone only is telling you something.
Lead agreements are short and lead sales calls are long, which is the wrong way round. The questions below take a vendor ten minutes to answer honestly and are the whole of the diligence most brokers never do.
| Ask | What a good answer sounds like |
|---|---|
| Who generates the traffic? | We run our own ads, on these platforms |
| How is the phone verified? | A one-time code the merchant types back |
| How many buyers per lead? | A number for each product, and how long it holds |
| What does the disclosure say? | They send the text and a screenshot |
| What is replaced, and how? | A written policy with examples |
| How does delivery work? | Webhook POST, shaped to your fields |
| What pacing can I set? | Daily cap and a delivery window |
| What if you under-deliver? | Refund the difference |
| Do you scrub? | Yes, at generation, and here is the provider |
| What is in the payload? | A sample JSON, immediately |
| Do you sell aged data? | A straight yes or no |
| Who owns the record after? | A written answer, including whether they can sell it again |
The three that separate vendors
- **Buyers per lead, and for how long.** "Exclusive" often means exclusive for thirty days. Ask for the number and the duration, and get both in the agreement.
- **The consent disclosure text.** A vendor who cannot send you the exact wording under the submit button does not have a defensible consent record, and you are the one who places the call.
- **What under-delivery does.** An agreement silent on a short order is an agreement that expects to be short.
What we answer
Our own answers are on the page where we sell exclusive MCA leads and in the lead criteria, including the ones that are not flattering: no free trials, no revenue share, and a benchmark of two to four funded per fifty exclusive leads (4–8%, client-reported) rather than the best number we have recorded. To the aged-data question our answer is yes: we sell shared and aged leads as well as exclusive, as separate products at separate prices. If a vendor’s answers to the twelve questions are vaguer than that, the vagueness is the finding.