Solved: Low Lead Quality in Financial Ads (Australia)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on the situation with your mortgage broker ads. It's a really common problem, especially in the financial services category on Meta, so you're definitely not alone in hitting this wall. What you're experiencing is pretty much the default result if you don't fight the algorithm tooth and nail.

I've had a good think about this and I reckon the issue isn't just one thing, but a combination of how you're defining your audience, what you're offering them, and how you're telling Meta who to find. Let's get into it.

Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demographic

Alright, let's get straight to the biggest issue I see here. You've tried targeting doctors, nurses, and other professionals. On the surface, this makes perfect sense. They have good incomes, they're stable, they should be ideal mortgage clients. But it's a trap. It's probably the most common mistake we see people make when they try to go 'upmarket'.

The fundamental problem is that a "doctor" is not an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). It's a demographic. It tells you nothing of value about their current situation. A 28-year-old junior doctor with £100k in student debt is a completely different universe from a 55-year-old surgeon who owns three investment properties and is looking for complex financing for a fourth. Lumping them together under "doctor" means your ads are generic and speak to no one.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. By their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. Your ICP isn’t a person; it’s a problem state. When you understand the nightmare, you can craft a message that they simply can't ignore.

Instead of thinking about job titles, let's think about scenarios. Here are a few 'nightmare' ICPs for a mortgage broker in Australia that are far more valuable than just 'doctor':

• The "Complex Income" Business Owner: This is a founder who has been in business for 3-4 years. They pay themselves a modest salary but the business is profitable. Their accountant is clever, so their taxable income looks low. They've just been laughed out of a meeting with a major bank because the loan officer couldn't make sense of their financials. Their nightmare? Being punished for their own success and fearing they'll be stuck renting forever while their friends with 'safe' PAYG jobs buy their dream homes.


• The Ambitious Property Investor: This person already owns one or two investment properties. They've found the perfect next opportunity, but their current bank has told them they've hit their serviceability ceiling. Their nightmare? Missing out on a deal that could set them up for life because their current lender doesn't understand sophisticated portfolio structuring. They feel trapped and frustrated.


• The Returning Aussie Expat: They've been working in London or Singapore for ten years, earning a great income in a foreign currency. They're moving home and want to buy a place for their family. They have a massive deposit. But every lender they talk to treats their foreign income like it's Monopoly money. Their nightmare? Being treated like a financial leper in their own country and the stress of trying to coordinate a massive life decision from the other side of the world.


• The "Medically-Zoned" Professional: This isn't just any doctor; this is the specialist who wants to buy a practice and needs a commercial loan, or wants to leverage the equity in their home to buy into a partnership. They face unique lending criteria that most brokers don't understand. Their nightmare? Getting generic advice that doesn't account for their specific industry's lending policies, potentially costing them hundreds of thousands.

See the difference? Each of these profiles has a deep, emotional problem. They aren't casually browsing for rates. They are actively, desperately looking for a specialist who can solve their very specific, very expensive problem. These are the people who will pay for expertise, who won't ghost you, and who will refer you to everyone they know. Your entire advertising strategy needs to be rebuilt around finding and speaking directly to one or two of these nightmare scenarios.

We'll need to look at your Offer... and probably delete it

Now that we've defined *who* we're talking to, we need to change *what* we're saying to them. You are absolutely right that the offer is one of your best mechanics for improving lead quality. But I suspect you've been tweaking the wrong parts. Trying offers like "Lower Your Rate" or "First Consultation Free" is still playing the same game. It's a race to the bottom.

The "Request a Demo" or in your case, "Request a Consultation" button is probably the most arrogant Call to Action in marketing. It presumes your prospect, a busy, stressed-out individual dealing with a major financial problem, has nothing better to do than book a meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction and low-value. It instantly positions you as a commodity, another broker they need to get a quote from.

Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution before they even speak to you. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing.

So, we delete "Request a Consultation." What do we replace it with? A value-first asset. A tool. A piece of content so specific and so helpful that your ideal client can't help but click. This is how you pre-qualify leads on autopilot. Someone who uses a tool for calculating borrowing power with business income *is* a business owner thinking about borrowing.

Here are some concrete ideas for a mortgage broker:

• The "Un-bankable" Borrowing Power Calculator: Build a calculator on your landing page that is specifically designed for self-employed individuals. Let them input different scenarios for director's salary, dividends, and retained profit. Show them a realistic borrowing estimate that the big banks' calculators would never provide. The CTA at the end isn't "Book a call," it's "Submit these results to our team for a free structuring plan."


• The "Property Investor's Debt Trap" Audit: A simple quiz or checklist that helps investors identify if their current loan structure is holding them back from growing their portfolio. It would ask questions about cross-collateralisation, interest-only periods, and lender concentration. At the end, it provides a "Risk Score" and an offer to have a specialist review their portfolio to unlock hidden equity.


• A Downloadable PDF Guide: "The Ultimate Guide to Securing a Mortgage as a Returning Aussie Expat": This isn't a flimsy two-page brochure. This is a comprehensive, 20-page guide covering everything from foreign income verification, to exchange rate policies, to setting up local bank accounts. You ask for their email in exchange for the guide. Now you have a list of highly qualified expats to nurture. This is a classic lead magnet and it works for a reason when the content is realy valuable.

These offers do the heavy lifting for you. They filter out the time-wasters and attract only those with the specific problem you are built to solve. It changes the entire dynamic of the first conversation. You're no longer a salesperson chasing a lead; you're an expert who has already provided value, discussing the next steps with an appreciative prospect.

I'd say you need to change your Ads and your message

With a nightmare ICP and a value-first offer, you can now write ads that actually work. Your ad copy needs to stop sounding like a bank and start sounding like a solution. It needs to speak directly to the pain you identified earlier. We use a simple but powerful framework for this: **Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS)**.

1. Problem: State the nightmare directly. Enter the conversation they're already having in their head.
2. Agitate: Twist the knife. Remind them of the frustration, the cost of inaction, the thing they fear the most.
3. Solve: Introduce your value-first offer as the clear, simple first step out of that nightmare.

Let's write some ads for our ICPs:

For the "Complex Income" Business Owner:

Headline: The Bank Said No. We Say Yes.

Body: Tired of bank managers looking at your business financials like they're written in another language? It’s soul-crushing to build a successful company only to be told you're too "risky" for a mortgage. Stop letting outdated lending rules dictate your family's future. Our specialist brokers understand complex income streams. Use our free "Business Owner Borrowing Calculator" to see what you're *really* eligible for in under 60 seconds.

For the Ambitious Property Investor:

Headline: Your Bank Is Holding Your Portfolio Hostage.

Body: Hit a serviceability wall with your current lender? Watching perfect investment opportunities slip through your fingers is a painful experience. Most banks don't know how to structure a growing portfolio correctly. Don't let their lack of vision limit your wealth creation. Download our free guide: "5 Costly Structuring Mistakes That Stop Investors From Buying Their Next Property."

This kind of copy works because it's polarising. It will be completely ignored by 99% of people on Facebook. But for that 1% who are living that specific nightmare, it will be the most compelling ad they've seen all year. That is how you get quality leads.

You'll need a better Targeting Strategy

Now, how do we find these people on Meta? Forget job titles. We target the *nightmare*. We need to think about the digital breadcrumbs our ICP leaves behind.

What software do they use? What publications do they read? Who do they follow? What other interests do they have that correlate with their nightmare scenario? This is where real targeting expertise comes in.

Let's build some audiences for our ICPs:

• For the "Complex Income" Business Owner: We layer interests.
  • Layer 1 (Software): People interested in Xero, QuickBooks, MYOB, Stripe, Shopify.
  • Layer 2 (Behaviour): And must also be a "Facebook Business Page Admin".
  • Layer 3 (Intent): And must also be interested in "Realestate.com.au", "Domain", or "Property Investment".
  This audience is now incredibly specific. It's not just a business owner; it's a business owner who uses accounting software and is actively looking at property. That's a strong signal.


• For the Ambitious Property Investor:
  • Layer 1 (Interests): People interested in "Property Investment", "Negative Gearing", "Michael Yardney", "PropertyChat Forum".
  • Layer 2 (Behaviours): And must also have "High-end device preference".
  • Layer 3 (Demographics): And must also be in the 35-60 age bracket.
  This gets you past the dreamers and closer to the serious players.

The "Financial Services" special ad category in Australia limits some of this, but interests and behaviours are still your best bet. The key is creative combinations that act as a proxy for your ideal client.

Once you start getting leads from your new value-first offers, the real magic begins. You can then create Lookalike Audiences. But not a Lookalike of all website visitors. You create a Lookalike of *only the people who completed your borrowing calculator* or *only the people who downloaded your investor guide*. You're telling Meta: "Forget the 99% of people who visit my site. Go and find me more people who look *exactly* like my most qualified prospects." This is how you scale with quality.

You probably should understand what a good lead is actually worth

This brings me to my final point. You're worried about lead quality, which is often a code for "these leads cost me money but don't convert." The real question isn't "How low can my Cost Per Lead (CPL) go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer is in their Lifetime Value (LTV).

A mortgage client isn't a one-off transaction. They have an upfront commission, sure. But there's also trail commission. And the potential for them to refinance in 2-4 years. And the potential for them to buy an investment property. And the potential for them to refer their friends and family. A single great client could be worth £10,000, £20,000, or even more to your business over a decade.

Let's do some rough maths:

• Average Upfront Commission: £3,000
• Average Annual Trail Commission: £800
• Average Client Lifespan: 5 years

Simple LTV = £3,000 + (£800 * 5) = £7,000

This is a very basic calculation, but it reframes everything. If a client is worth £7,000, what are you willing to pay to get one? A common ratio for LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £2,333 to acquire a single client and still have a very healthy business.

Now, let's say your sales process converts 1 in 10 *qualified* leads into a client. That means you can afford to pay up to £233 per qualified lead.

Suddenly, the £5 leads you're getting from Meta, the ones that ghost you, look incredibly expensive because your time is valuable and they have a 0% chance of converting. And a £150 lead from a highly-targeted campaign that speaks to a specific nightmare—an expat, a business owner—starts to look like an absolute bargain. It's a lead that's far more likely to convert and become that £7,000 client.

This is the mindset shift that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. You stop chasing cheap leads and start investing in acquiring valuable clients.

You'll need a clear action plan to implement this

I know this is a lot to take in. It's a fundamental shift from how most people approach advertising. It's about moving from a volume game to a value game. It requires more thought upfront, but the payoff is a predictable system for attracting high-quality clients who respect your expertise, instead of a leaky bucket of low-quality leads that drains your time and your morale.

This isn't just theory. We've seen this kind of strategic shift work time and time again. I remember one of our B2B clients who reduced their Cost Per Lead by 84% by moving from generic ads to a highly specific, problem-focused approach. Another SaaS client went from a £100 CPA down to £7 by overhauling their offer and targeting. The principles are the same, whether you're selling software or mortgages.

To make it more concrete, here’s what I would recomend you do next.

Implementing this properly takes time and expertise. It's not just about flicking a few switches in Ads Manager; it's about deep strategic work on your positioning, offer, and messaging. Many business owners find it difficult to find the time to do this themselves, which is where getting some expert help can make a huge diffrence.

If you’d like to go over how this strategy could be specifically applied to your business in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can have a look at your current campaigns together and map out a more robust plan. It's a good way to get a second opinion and some actionable advice, whether you decide to work with us or not.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh