A2Z guide on how to make money selling leads in 2022 (Beginner’s Guide)

Have you ever filled out a form online consisting of your contact details (usually email)?

If yes, you would have been a potential lead (customer) for a business out there looking for your information. 

In this process, someone must have made money selling leads to that business looking for your information. 

My inbox is filled with all such sorts of emails (marked spammed) that are sent by such businesses. My best guess is yours must be too, isn’t it?

But, how much money can anyone make selling leads?

A quick search on YouTube reveals some amazing figures for making money selling leads (Upto $10000/month)…🤑

But how far is it possible and is it the right business model for you in 2022?

In this post, we have covered the following on how to make money selling leads in 2022 (beginner-friendly):

• What is the meaning of the lead generation business?
• What are the types of leads?
• How much money can you make selling leads online (realistically) in 2022?
• What are the industries to target for a lead generation business?
• How to start a lead generation business in 2022?

Let’s get into the details…

What is a lead generation business?

A lead is simply a targetted individual who could be the potential customer for a business entity.

Consider this example,

Let’s say you are a “Financial Planner based in New York” looking to acquire customers.

How would you do that?

Here are some of the broad options that you would look out for:

1. Run an ad in a local newspaper stating your place, timing and services offered (costs around (costs around $ 1000).
2. Opt for a digital marketing campaign by hiring digital marketers (costs around $2000 – $3000 depending upon digital marketing services hired).
3. Try other modes of marketing that involve offline mediums such as banners, and posters (costs around $8 per sq ft).
4. Pay for ads online such as Google Ads, and Facebook ads, and run the campaign to acquire customers (costs around $1000 on a low budget).

Among all the options discussed above, how good are your chances of acquiring customers?

Chances are, you would acquire customers with a low ROI (meaning more costs but fewer acquisitions).

This is where the Lead Generation model of business comes in.

Get a customer from someone’s referral which is usually on the basis of trust and a long-term relationship. (costs around $10-$50 per referral with a high ROI potential)

Let’s look at this in detail…

How does lead generation work?

Now let’s look at the above scenario from the perspective of a customer.

You are looking for a financial planner to secure your future, what would you do first?

Among all options listed above, you would consider talking to someone in your circle of people who has consulted with a financial planner recently.

Upon the referral (recommendation), you would meet a financial planner.

Here is the catch, the financial planner got business because of someone’s referral (your friend).

In this entire process, you are a prospective customer (lead) for the financial planner.

Your friend who recommended you to the financial planner helped to generate a lead for the financial planner.

And the financial planner would be happy to pay a certain sum of money for this.

A key thing to note here is that the lead is a potential customer for the business and not a definitive one.

Now, this is not something new to us, in fact, we are trying to be a potential lead for someone on an everyday basis.

Here’s another example.

Example

This takes us back to the very first question we raised, “Have you ever filled out a form online consisting of your contact details (usually email)?”

Whenever you have filled anything online, it has always been for a purpose.

Be it subscribing to a newsletter or subscribing to something for daily updates, you are giving in your details to someone else.

Let’s say you are looking to finance your new car. 

You start looking over the internet to find the best rates and how much you would have to pay. 

Here’s what you come across:

You filled in a similar form looking for the Best Car Finance options available by giving the details such as:

• Name, 
• Email, 
• Mobile Number etc.

Once you fill in the form, your details are captured with all relevant details.

These details can be sold at a price to companies providing finance for cars because you can be a prospective customer (lead) for them.

I hope we are clear on the basics of how does lead generation business model work.

Did you Know?

You can make money selling domain names and earn huge money just like the domain name “Tesla” sold for a whopping $75,000 from a domain seller.

Which businesses require leads?

Basically, any business which is not selling a product directly to customers (trading) would require leads to operate.

Some of the best examples of businesses that would require a lead are:

• Car Insurance
• Health Insurance
• Consulting
• Personal Finance
• Home Loans etc

All these businesses need mostly one-on-one interaction (over calls) with the prospective customer (lead) to finalize a deal.

I can’t remember how many countless times I have received a call or an email from these above sectors seeking my interest.

This won’t be as easy as it sounds to selling internet data online.

Now let’s look at the monetary aspect of making money selling leads online.

How much money can you make selling leads

You can make around $10 – $50 for each lead that is being sold.

This means how much you can make every month depends upon the quality and quantity of leads that you sell.

If you are able to sell around 1000 leads in a month you can make an estimated $50000 every month (depending upon the niche).

But the money that you make mostly relies on several factors that play a key role in this.

The video above is a helpful resource that talks about making money online selling leads.

What factors determine how much money you can make selling leads

The following factors are responsible for determining how much money you can make selling leads:

Industry that you are associated with

Have a look at the cost associated per lead as per different industries:

Industry	Average Cost Per Lead
Financial Services	$ 160
IT, Computer, and Technical Services	$ 208
Education	$ 55
Healthcare and Medical	$ 162
Travel & Tourism	$ 106
Telecom	$ 45
Marketing Agencies	$ 99
Media and Publishing	$ 108
Business Services	$ 132

Source: LinchpinSeo

As you can see from the above list, one has to pay around $208 to acquire one single lead in the IT, Computer, and Technical services related industry (usually software related stuff).

At the same time if you are targeting a finance industry you can expect a higher return per lead in comparison to others.

So the first step for determining how much you are going to make is dependent on the industry.

Offer something upfront for free

This is a must, i.e. offer to your prospective leads the valuable information for free.

As they get along getting things for free, they will get used to receiving more such information.

Then, you can certainly charge money once you start to know they are looking for more from the lead generation form.

Anything that goes for free such as e-books, useful guides, helpful tips, and more will count later on for money.

Free Trials and using something for x no of days also work best and convert into a prospective lead really well.

Needless to say the higher the value of free content, the higher the probability of getting a lead.

Focus on generating traffic

Traffic is key to everything.

1000 visitors every month onto your Blog or YouTube with a conversion rate of 1%, would give 10 leads.

If each lead brings you $10 then you can expect to make $100 in a month from selling leads.

If you are looking to make $1000 every month, then either you can target:

• A better conversion rate than 1% or
• Higher traffic than 1000 visitors per month

Either way, it’s gonna bring you money while you are trying to make money selling leads.

So focus on bringing more traffic to make the most out of it.

Example

Here is an example, this website brings around 8 million traffic. 

The page that I have put here in the screenshot says “Funny Animal Videos”.

Now, what’s the possibility for anyone looking for Funny Animal Videos to upload some funny pet videos of their own?

Chances are you would definitely get a lot of people interested in learning about it.

How about you put a referral form capturing their details and recommending the leads a “software to make funny pet videos”.

Assuming a really conservative estimate of only 1% of the traffic for this….😀, you would be able to generate:

(1% * 8 Million) * ($50) = $0.4 million per month

Now, this is just an example from one page on the site receiving traffic for the said purpose.

Utilize all sources possible for getting leads

This is directly related to the traffic that we discussed above.

Here is a list of mediums that you can utilize to gather the desired traffic for your lead generation:

• Blogs
• YouTube
• Social Media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
• Quora etc.

As you notice above, the targetted link acts as a lead generation link for a Lawyer in Florida.

This is a Quora Discussion thread that helps to answer people and resolve the issue by giving a solution.

Most often they are referred onto someone as a lead to someone for which they would get paid for it.

Take help of proper methods of acquiring leads

There are so many ways through which you can acquire leads.

Some of these are:

• cold emails, 
• one-to-one conversations with prospective leads,
• Advertising from different mediums such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and more.
• Answering queries on different forums,
• Taking the help of SEO to rank on search engines pulling in traffic for gathering leads, etc.

Any method that is implemented must be thought into consideration by the industry that is targeted.

If you are working in the finance industry then putting in an advertisement to rank on Google would work.

At the same time if you are working to get a lead for a college or school, getting into one on one conversations with the lead will help to acquire a lead.

The method that you implement in your approach will play an important role in determining how you approach lead generation in deciding upon your ROI.

Okay now, let’s discuss the various types of lead generation models in the industry.

What are the ways to sell leads to a business

Here are the 5 ways how the lead generation business model works:

Ways to sell leads	Monetization	Applicability
Selling leads for exclusively one client	Moderate	Experts
Generating leads for sale to multiple clients	High	Intermediate
Selling leads for fixed days and then reselling them again	Moderate	Intermediate
Executing sales on the backend based on trust	Very High	Experts
Working on a hybrid model for sales	Low	Beginners

The lead generation business model works broadly under the 5 types, which are:

Generating leads for only one single client

This is as it sounds where you get the rights to sell the leads generated solely to one specific client.

You enter into an agreement with the client wherein you need to give the list of the leads only to one specific client.

This helps you to focus better on what industry you are targeting to sell.

You can start small and start expanding slowly as you gain experience along the way.

Start targeting smaller businesses such as

• Gyms, 
• Doctors, 
• Salons, etc.

These people don’t have much outreach when it comes to marketing and they run on smaller budgets.

Any help that comes along in getting prospective leads for their business will always be welcome.

This can be a great business model, to begin with.

One can operate in this mode of business with a specific requirement to be fulfilled in a certain span of time.

How much money you can make selling leads exclusively to one client?

Let’s say you require about 100 leads in a week and each lead is agreed for a price of $10.

This means you can work exclusively on getting the leads only for that one single client.

It will generate about $1000 in a week for you if you stick to one particular client all along.

Selling the leads to multiple clients

This strategy comes in place which is similar to the first one, but here you can work with multiple clients at one go.

If you are let’s say working in the education industry, where there are 5 colleges looking for admission for students.

Once you collect the data related to prospective students (leads) who are willing to join a college, you can sell the information to these multiple colleges.

This method leads to stiff competition between the clients who would have to work to win the lead for their business.

Pricing can go on similar terms as earlier and you can earn more with these options.

Selling the leads for a fixed number of days and reselling again to new customers

This is another option available which is a kind of mixture between options 1 and 2.

What you have to do is sell the leads for a fixed number of days to a specific client, if the client can’t close onto the lead it will be open to others.

How much money can you make selling leads for a fixed number of days?

As an example, let’s say, you have got hold of 100 clients for $50.

You decide to sell these leads to limited clients but with a limitation of 10 days. 

Once these 10 days elapse you are free to resell these again to others.

But once 10 days are over the leads become 10 days old which makes their resell value drop significantly.

Whatever they can be redeemed for should be considered to get redemption value out of it.

Let’s say you are able to redeem it for only $3-$4, then reselling the 100 leads would fetch you around $300 at least.

This in totality makes you good money as it sums up to $5300 in total.

Execute a deal for selling leads based on trust

This process is entirely different and generates returns with a different approach.

It is purely based on how many leads the client is able to close at the end of the day.

How much money can you make selling leads in the backend?

Suppose you have a budget of around $10000 and you are willing to spend it on advertising.

As you spend the money you are able to get hold of 100 leads with an ad spend of $100 each.

Now you sell these leads to the client.

The client then works upon it and is able to convert 20 leads into potential customers for a sum of $10000 per customer.

You have agreed to 10% for each converted lead.

This makes you around 20 * $10000 * 10% = $20,000…🤑 (gross money)

If you deduct your ad spend from this, you will be able to make $10000 (net profit).

Isn’t it amazing and super-profitable?

Things to consider for executing a lead sale in the backend

Well as profitable as it is, there are certain things to consider before executing a deal through this route:

1. There must be enough trust and faith in the client to be able to enter this process.
2. The time is more crucial as the payment for the leads takes time.
3. Most of the success is not dependent on your efforts as the converted leads that can come through would come due to the sales team’s effort.

Work on a hybrid model 

Here comes the best part, especially for beginners.

Essentially in this method, the return is not guaranteed but the investment is zero, making it safe for beginners to tap into.

One doesn’t need to invest any money to get started using the hybrid model for generating leads.

The client gives you a sum of money to invest in getting as many leads as possible.

This means you don’t spend a single penny from your pocket up front, but rather get all the money from the client.

How much can you make from a hybrid model of selling lead?

Let’s say you have got $10000 and this is invested into the ads and other costs to generate the leads.

Let’s say you are able to get 200 leads and the client is able to convert 10 leads out of these 200.

For each lead, if the deal is for $10, you will be able to make a $100 net profit from this.

This ensures return only if the lead is converted into a customer but not otherwise.

You don’t need to spend anything upfront which is the best part of the entire process.

What is the downside of selling lead under a hybrid model?

The only downside is similar to the above method discussed, i.e. relying on the efforts of the sales team to be able to execute a successful deal.

As long as the sales team helps to convert more leads, you will make more money in the process.

Okay now you know about leads and the ways to sell leads to a business, but how to get started as a beginner…🤔

How to start a lead generation business as a beginner

Starting a lead generation business usually involves the following 6 steps:

Steps	Particulars
Select a niche and industry to work upon	Picking the right niche can give you the desired returns you are looking for
Focus on building a relationship with the client	A strong relationship with a client helps to build business long term
Fix the rate of commissions and the fees structure	This decides how much money you can earn from your business
Build marketing channels for selling leads	A strong marketing channel helps to promote your business
Give valuable information to the leads to keep them in the loop	This ensures that the lead stays connected and can convert in the longterm
Deliver the leads to the client and keep a track of their conversion	This is the final step in the lead generation business model

Find the right niche and select the right vertical to work in

This is the first and foremost step when it comes to building a business model to sell leads to make money.

Selection of the correct niche plays a key role to understand everything as to how the business can operate.

If you hold a good enough idea as to how the education sector operates, it is wise to venture into the education niche in that case.

Even narrowing your focus into sub-niches can play a huge role in success.

An example could be medical students looking for admissions in New York.

So take some time to figure out which niche you want to indulge in and work accordingly per it.

Develop relationships with your clients to nurture success longterm

Building upon a successful relationship has a lot of benefits when it comes to success in the long term.

This involves a lot of things that must be covered such as:

• Approaching the clients through the right medium to find any lead opportunities.
• Setting upon favorable terms of payment satisfying both ends in the right manner.
• Building trust with the client by selling quality leads that have high chances of conversion etc.

Once you have your niche or sub-niche figured out, it’s time to compile a list of potential clients for the same.

Start to approach each individual client if they are looking to work on a lead generation business model.

This can be accomplished by either:

• Sending an email to the sales team from the contact section of their website.
• Building connections from Forums or even contacting the right person on LinkedIn.

Once you get to know the requirement and develop a relationship with the client, you will be able to carry on long-term with the process.

Set a fixed rate of commission or payment rate as desired

This is a kind of subset of the above step.

How you negotiate upon the lead’s payment will determine how much you can make.

This would depend upon a lot of factors, such as:

• Leads quality.
• Client’s ability to convert the leads into successful sales.
• Your budget for spending.
• Your expectations of how much you want to make from the lead sales and more.

While starting out as a beginner, it is recommended to stick to the hybrid model of making money from selling leads.

This allows you to restrict your spending while giving flexibility of making some money out of it.

Once you become aware of the entire process you can leverage your knowledge to scale the business further.

Marketing is key to capturing leads

In any business no matter how good the product is, if no one is buying it then it’s as good as nothing.

Thus here comes the most crucial step, i.e. marketing.

When you have the right marketing channels in place, you will capture more leads successfully.

Marketing channels comprise of how you pull the lead to generate interest in what you have to offer.

• Building good web pages, 
• Designing eye catchy content, 
• Providing free stuff life e-books, information, etc.
• Engaging in the forums and discussion channels to give information and more.

All these play a key role in engaging the audience and help to build enough interest around them.

Capturing the leads becomes easy when you have something to offer to the leads to stick around you.

So focus on building the right marketing channel be it a website or YouTube or even Facebook.

Provide valuation information to keep the leads in the loop

If your competitor is offering x amount of information for free for which you are charging someone, you will lose out on business.

Offering valuable information such as free e-books, guides or any information relevant has a major role in generating leads.

When you are starting out focus on freebies and give as much value as possible.

The chances of conversion increase at a later stage when the leads are convinced of what you have on offer.

Free consultation, query sessions, and webinars all play a key role in clearing a lot of things on the minds of the leads.

Focus on working on these aspects to be able to make money selling leads.

Sell the leads to the clients and keep track of the progress

We arrive at the final step and one of the most crucial steps as well.

After you go through all the above steps, you must ensure to deliver the information of the leads captured on a timely basis.

Selling quality leads is also key to success as a lot of things depend upon it.

Delaying any part of the whole process can hamper your success in the long run.

So make sure your acquisition and delivery of the leads go hand in hand as you get along.

Being able to re-negotiate upon the terms of payment (if any) is also a part of the process.

Let’s have a look at whether starting a lead generation is a profitable venture or not in 2022?

Is making money by selling leads a viable business model in 2022?

The short answer would be Yes.

A quick look into the trends data reflects that the trend is upward and onward.

The reason is that it is increasingly getting difficult for businesses to acquire customers with a team.

The companies in this segment of the market spend huge amounts of money (trillions of dollars each year) for targeting prospective customers (leads).

In fact, the lead generation market is expected to grow upto around US$ 9590 million by 2028. (at a growth rate of just under CAGR 18%).

Increasing market budgets reflect the whole story of how the companies are trying hard to make the business sustainable.

Even small-scale sectors and large industries are trying their best to improve their ROI on the spending and get more customers with time.

So, if you can get along any of these industries you can make money by selling a lead in between.

Final Thoughts on How to make money selling leads

As it goes for any business, it requires time and patience to make the best of the strategies to make money long term.

Making money from selling leads has the following benefits to it:

• Offers a business with low upfront costs involved. 
• Allows you to start a business from the comfort of your home.
• Helps you to learn new skills that are more valuable when it comes to long-term businesses etc.
• Beginner-friendly way of operating the business for profits etc.

So one can definitely decide to start a lead generation business in 2022 for good returns in the future as well.

Do let me know your thoughts on this and share your opinion below.

FAQs on how to make money selling leads in 2022