Solved: Improving Lead Quality in Financial Ads (Australia)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! I had a look over the situation you described with your mortgage broker ads in Australia. It's a really common frustration, especially in the finance space where the ad platforms box you in. A lot of people blame the "Financial products and services" category on Meta, thinking it's a death sentence for lead quality. Tbh, that's usually not the real issue.

You're hitting a wall because the standard approach of tightening demographics or adding more qualification questions is like trying to fix a boat's engine by repainting the hull. It misses the fundemental problem. The leads are poor quality because your entire approach—from how you define your customer to the offer you put in front of them—is designed to attract exactly the wrong type of person.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts on how we'd approach this. We're going to completely reframe the problem away from 'dodging low-quality leads' and towards 'aggressively attracting high-value clients'. It's a different mindset, and it requires a different strategy.

You probably need to rethink your customer, they're a nightmare, not a demographic

Alright, let's get straight to it. Your approach of targeting 'doctors, nurses, allied health professionals' sounds logical on the surface, but it's precisely why you're failing. You've correctly identified a group of people who *should* be good clients, but you've treated them like a uniform blob. A demographic isn't a customer. A job title tells you almost nothing about their immediate, pressing problems.

A 28-year-old resident doctor drowning in student debt and working 80-hour weeks has a completely different financial reality to a 45-year-old specialist surgeon running their own private practice. Lumping them together under 'doctors' and showing them the same generic mortgage ad is a recipe for disaster. The resident doctor might click out of idle curiosity, but they can't act. They become your tyre-kicking, low-quality lead. The surgeon, who is exactly the client you want, scrolls right past because your ad is irrelevant to their complex needs and signals that you're just another generic broker who won't understand their situation.

To stop burning cash, you have to get obsessed with their specific, urgent, and expensive nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. You need to become an expert in their pain.

Let's make this real. Here are some potential 'nightmares' your ideal clients are living through:

• The Specialist Doctor Nightmare: Dr. Evans is a surgeon. She earns a high income, but it's a messy mix of private practice drawings, public hospital salary, and locum work. She wants to buy a larger family home, but the last two banks she spoke to got confused by her payslips and gave her a lowball assessment based only on her base salary. Her nightmare is that her financial success is actively preventing her from achieving her family goals because lenders don't understand her. She feels punished for her complex career path.


• The Ambitious Business Owner Nightmare: Mark runs a successful construction company. He needs to pull $250,000 in equity from his home to buy a new piece of essential machinery. Without it, he'll lose a major contract. His nightmare is the thought of spending weeks drowning in paperwork, chasing up documents, and dealing with a slow, unresponsive bank, all while his business-critical deadline looms. Every day of delay costs him money and sleep. He doesn't need a mortgage; he needs a fast, painless cash injection to solve a business crisis.


• The Time-Poor Professional Nightmare: Sarah is a lawyer, partner at her firm. She knows she should refinance her mortgage to a better rate, but the thought of researching options, comparing lenders, and filling out forms is exhausting. Her nightmare is twofold: she's losing thousands every year by staying with her current lender out of sheer inertia, but she's also terrified of making a bad choice in the little free time she has. She feels trapped between inaction and the risk of a poor decision.

See the difference? We're no longer talking about job titles. We're talking about deep-seated frustrations and high-stakes problems. When you understand the nightmare, you can craft a message that acts like a dog whistle. It will be ignored by 99% of people but will be utterly irresistable to the 1% you actually want to talk to. This is the foundation. If you get this wrong, nothing else we discuss will work. Forget demographics. Find the pain.

I'd say you need to calculate what a good lead is *actually* worth

The second reason you're stuck is a fear of high costs. You're getting cheap, low-quality leads and trying to figure out how to get 'better' cheap leads. That's the wrong game. The real question isn't "How low can my Cost Per Lead (CPL) go?" but rather "How high a CPL can I confidently afford to acquire a truly great client?"

The answer is rooted in a simple but powerful concept: Lifetime Value (LTV). You need to know what a client is worth to your business over the long run. Once you know that number, you can stop making decisions based on fear and start making them based on maths. It liberates you to invest properly in attracting the right people.

For a mortgage broker, the LTV calculation can be complex with upfront and trail commissions. But we can simplify it to get a powerful working model. The key is understanding the relationship between what a customer is worth and what you can afford to pay to get them. This is your LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio.

A healthy business model, especially for high-touch services, often aims for a 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio. This means for every $1 you spend to acquire a customer, you should get at least $3 back in lifetime gross margin. Some businesses can run on 2:1, others aim for 5:1, but 3:1 is a solid benchmark.

Let's run through an example calculation:

• Average Commission Per Client (LTV): Let's say, between upfront and a few years of trail commission, the average new client is worth $4,500 to you in revenue.
• Gross Margin: As a broker, your direct costs are low. Let's assume a 90% gross margin. So, the gross margin LTV is $4,500 * 0.90 = $4,050.
• Target LTV:CAC Ratio: We'll aim for 3:1.
• Maximum Affordable CAC: $4,050 / 3 = $1,350. This is the absolute maximum you can spend to acquire one new paying client and still maintain a healthy business.
• Sales Conversion Rate: Now, how many qualified leads does it take to get one client? Let's say you're good at your job and you convert 1 in 5 qualified leads into a closed deal (a 20% conversion rate).
• Maximum Affordable Cost Per Lead (CPL): $1,350 / 5 = $270.

Read that again. Based on these numbers, you could afford to pay up to $270 for a single, qualified lead. Suddenly, those $10 leads from Meta that go nowhere don't look like a bargain, do they? They look like a complete waste of time and energy. You'd be infinitly better off getting one $250 lead that converts than 25 useless $10 leads.

This single peice of maths changes everything. It gives you the confidence to ignore the cheap rubbish and focus your budget on channels and strategies that can deliver genuinely qualified prospects, even if they cost more upfront. Now, play with the calculator below to find your own numbers.

You'll need a message they can't ignore

Now that we've defined our ideal client by their 'nightmare' and we know what we can afford to pay for them, we need to craft the actual message. This is where most financial services advertising falls flat. It's a sea of generic promises about "great rates," "expert advice," and "fast approvals." This kind of copy is completely invisible to the high-value clients we've identified because it doesn't speak to their specific, painful problem.

To cut through the noise, you need to deploy a simple but devastatingly effective copywriting framework: Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS). You don't sell the mortgage; you sell the solution to the nightmare.

1. Problem: You enter the conversation already happening in their head. State their specific nightmare clearly and concisely. They should read it and think, "Wow, that's exactly me."
2. Agitate: You twist the knife. You remind them of the frustration, the cost of inaction, the stakes involved. You make the pain feel more real and urgent.
3. Solve: You introduce your service not as a commodity (a mortgage), but as the specific, tailored solution to the agitated problem.

Let's write some ads for the 'nightmare' personas we developed earlier. Compare these to the generic stuff you're probably running now.

Targeting Persona: The Specialist Doctor (Dr. Evans)

• Generic Ad (The 'Before'): "Sydney Mortgage Broker for Doctors. Get competitive rates and expert advice for medical professionals. Contact us for a free quote!" (Boring, blends in, doesn't address her real issue.)


• PAS Ad (The 'After'):
  • (P) Headline: Banks Don't Understand a Doctor's Payslip.
  • (A) Body: Tired of being penalised for your complex income? Mainstream lenders often only look at your base salary, ignoring lucrative locum work and bonuses, leaving you with a smaller loan approval than you deserve. Don't let a bank's rigid formula dictate your family's future.
  • (S) Call to Action: We specialise in securing mortgages for medical professionals. We know how to present your unique income structure to the right lenders to maximise your borrowing power. Book a free 15-min Strategy Call to see what's really possible.

Targeting Persona: The Ambitious Business Owner (Mark)

• Generic Ad (The 'Before'): "Unlock Your Home Equity. Fast and easy refinancing options for business owners. Low rates available. Enquire now!" (Doesn't understand his urgency or context.)


• PAS Ad (The 'After'):
  • (P) Headline: Need Business Capital? Your Home Equity is Trapped by Bank Red Tape.
  • (A) Body: That critical piece of equipment, that growth opportunity... it won't wait. But your bank wants weeks of paperwork for a simple equity release. Every day you wait is a day your competitors get further ahead. Stop letting your mortgage hold your business hostage.
  • (S) Call to Action: We streamline equity release for business owners. Get the funds you need to grow, without the soul-crushing paperwork. Download our free guide: 'The 5-Step Equity Release Plan for Aussie Business Owners'.

The difference is night and day. The PAS ads will be completely ignored by the low-income, unresponsive leads you're currently getting. But for Dr. Evans or Mark, these ads are a beacon in the dark. They prove instantly that you 'get it'. You understand their world, their frustrations, and their goals. This is how you pre-qualify with copy. The message itself acts as a filter, attracting the right people and repelling the wrong ones before they even click.

We'll need to look at deleting the 'Get a Quote' button

This brings us to the most common failure point in the entire advertising funnel: the offer. You mentioned using "hard qualification through lead forms or external landers." This sounds smart, but it's often counterproductive. It's born from the mindset of deflecting bad leads, rather than attracting good ones. You're putting up a wall and asking people to climb over it to prove they're worthy.

Busy, successful people like Dr. Evans and Mark have zero patience for this. The "Request a Quote" or "Enquire Now" button is one of the most arrogant Calls to Action in marketing. It presumes your prospect has nothing better to do than fill out a long form and wait for a sales call. It offers them no immediate value, only the promise of being sold to. It is high-friction and low-value, and it positions you as just another commodity broker.

You must flip this model on its head. Your offer's only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your expertise. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing.

Stop asking for their business and start offering your help. Replace your high-friction CTAs with high-value, low-friction alternatives. Here are some ideas:

• The Free Strategy Call: This isn't a sales call. It's a "Free 15-Minute Mortgage Strategy Session for Medical Professionals." In this call, you don't sell, you diagnose. You spend 15 minutes giving them genuine, actionable advice on their specific situation. You prove your expertise. At the end, the natural next step is for them to ask, "Okay, how can you help me do this?"
• The Lead Magnet (Guide/Checklist): Instead of a quote, offer a "Free Download: The 7 Biggest Mortgage Mistakes Business Owners Make When Releasing Equity." This provides immediate value, captures their email address, and positions you as an authority. You can then follow up with a targeted email sequence.
• The Interactive Tool: A simple on-page calculator that goes beyond the basics. "The Medico Borrowing Power Calculator: See how your on-call and overtime pay *really* impacts your capacity." This is engaging, provides instant value, and you can ask for an email to send the detailed results.

The goal is to change the dynamic from "please give me your details so I can sell to you" to "here is something valuable for free that will help you right now." This approach builds trust and naturally filters for serious prospects. The tyre-kickers won't bother with a strategy call or reading a detailed guide, but your ideal clients will see it as an efficient way to solve their problem.

The visualisation below shows the stark difference between these two approaches. Your current funnel creates friction and filters out the best clients. The new model removes friction, adds value, and pulls them in.

You'll need to learn how to target pain, not people (within Meta's rules)

So now we get to the heart of your original question: the dreaded "Financial products and services" ad category. You're right, it strips away many of the detailed targeting options. You can't target by income, specific job titles are often gone, and many interests are unavailable. Many marketers see this as a roadblock. I see it as a gift. It forces you to stop being lazy and relying on platform targeting, and to start being a real marketer.

Here is the contrarian truth that will change how you view Meta ads forever: for sophisticated B2B or high-value service offerings, the creative is the targeting. Your ad's message is far more powerful at filtering the audience than any interest group you could select.

The strategy here is to essentialy ignore the lack of detailed targeting options. We go broad. We might target an entire country, like Australia, and narrow only by a sensible age range (e.g., 30-60). Then, we let our 'nightmare-based' ad creative do all the hard work.

Think about it. When you run our ad with the headline "Banks Don't Understand a Doctor's Payslip," who is going to click on it?

• Not a 22-year-old student.
• Not a retired pensioner.
• Not a low-income worker.

Only people for whom that headline is painfully relevant will even notice it, let alone click. The ad self-selects its audience from the broad pool you've given the algorithm. This is the most important concept. You are using your message to qualify prospects at the 'impression' level, which is the cheapest and most efficient place to do it.

But it gets better. Meta's algorithm is a learning machine. Its goal is to get you the most conversions for your budget. When you run a conversion campaign (optimising for 'Scheduled Calls', not just 'Leads'), the algorithm watches who is converting. When it sees that the only people booking calls from your 'Doctor' ad are, in fact, high-income medical professionals, it says "Aha! I see the pattern." It then actively starts searching through the millions of people in your broad audience to find more people who look and behave just like the ones who already converted.

It will find them based on thousands of signals we could never target manually—what websites they visit, what apps they use, their purchasing behaviour, etc. In effect, you are training the algorithm to build the perfect audience for you, without ever needing to select a single interest. This is how you win in a restricted ad category. You let your creative and your conversion data do the targeting for you.

This is why your focus on the offer and the message is so critical. They are not just parts of the campaign; they are the entire targeting mechanism.

You probably should restructure your campaigns for quality

So, let's pull all this theory together into a practical, actionable campaign structure you can implement. The goal is to separate your audiences by their level of intent and tailor the messaging accordingly. We'll move away from complex audience testing and towards creative and offer testing within a simplified structure.

We'll use two primary campaigns: one for prospecting (finding new people) and one for retargeting (re-engaging people who have already shown interest). The budget should heavily favour the prospecting campaign, typically an 80/20 or 90/10 split.

Campaign 1: TOFU (Top-of-Funnel) Prospecting

• Objective: Conversions. It's absolutly vital that you choose a conversion objective. Do not use "Reach," "Brand Awareness," or "Traffic." You must feed the algorithm the right signal. The ideal conversion event would be a 'Schedule Call' event from your booking software (like Calendly). A 'Lead' event for a guide download is a good second choice.
• Budget: Advantage Campaign Budget (CBO) enabled. This lets Meta allocate spend to the best-performing ad set and ad automatically. Start with a budget you're comfortable with, enough to get at least a few conversions per week.
• Audience / Ad Sets:
  • Ad Set 1: Broad Australia (30-60): This will be your main workhorse. Leave detailed targeting completely empty. Just set the location to Australia and the age range. This gives the algorithm the biggest possible pond to fish in.
• Creatives (within the broad ad set): This is where the magic happens. You will run multiple ads, each targeting a different 'nightmare' persona.
  • Ad 1 (Video): A short video of you speaking directly to the camera, addressing the 'Specialist Doctor Nightmare'. Headline: "Your Payslip is Costing You Your Dream Home". CTA: "Book a Free Strategy Call".
  • Ad 2 (Image): A professional image of a construction site or business setting. Headline: "Unlock Business Capital from Your Home in Days, Not Weeks". Body copy addresses the 'Business Owner Nightmare'. CTA: "Download Free Equity Guide".
  • Ad 3 (Carousel): A carousel ad showcasing 3 common mortgage frustrations for time-poor professionals. Each card highlights a pain point (e.g., "Too Busy to Refinance?", "Confused by Lender Jargon?"). The final card offers the solution. CTA: "Use Our 60-Second Refinance Check".

Campaign 2: MOFU/BOFU (Middle/Bottom-of-Funnel) Retargeting

• Objective: Conversions (same as prospecting).
• Budget: A smaller, separate budget. You don't need to spend much here.
• Audience / Ad Sets:
  • Ad Set 1: Website Visitors & Video Viewers (Last 90 Days): Group everyone who has shown interest into one audience to start. This includes anyone who has visited your landing pages, watched a significant portion of your video ads, or engaged with your Instagram/Facebook page. Exclude people who have already converted (booked a call).
• Creatives (within the retargeting ad set): The goal here is to build trust and overcome objections.
  • Ad 1 (Testimonial): A video or quote from a happy client, ideally one that matches one of your key personas (e.g., a testimonial from a doctor). Headline: "How Dr. Smith Secured Finance for His New Clinic".
  • Ad 2 (FAQ/Objection Handling): An ad that directly addresses a common concern. Headline: "Think a Mortgage Broker is Expensive? Here's How We're Paid". This builds transparency and trust.
  • Ad 3 (Direct Offer Reminder): A simple ad that reminds them of the value you offered. Headline: "Still Thinking About Your Mortgage Strategy? Your Free 15-Min Call Awaits."

This structure is simple, scalable, and aligns with everything we've discussed. It trusts the algorithm, focuses on creative as the primary targeting lever, and uses a value-first approach to attract and convert high-quality clients. I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Implementing this strategic shift from chasing cheap leads to attracting high-value clients is a significant change. It requires a deep understanding of your customer's psychology, strong copywriting skills, and a disciplined approach to testing and optimisation. While the principles are straightforward, execution can be challenging.

This is where expert help can make a substantial difference. Having someone who has implemented this framework for dozens of businesses can accelerate your results and help you avoid costly mistakes along the way. You're moving from a simple numbers game to a far more sophisticated marketing strategy.

Hopefully this detailed breakdown gives you a much clearer path forward. If you'd like to discuss how we could apply this framework specifically to your business and audit your existing campaigns in detail, I'd be happy to offer you a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session. We can screen-share, look at your accounts, and build a concrete action plan.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh