The tells that the records you are paying for are recycled, shared, or barely checked, and the specific thing to do about each one.
Bad supply announces itself, but the signals are easy to misread as sales problems. These are the seven that matter, with what each one actually indicates.
| Sign | What it indicates | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers do not recall enquiring | Aged data, or a misleading landing page | Ask for the source URL on those records |
| They mention other brokers calling | Shared supply, or resale after a window | Check the exclusivity term in the agreement |
| Numbers disconnected or wrong | Verification is nominal | Claim replacements, ask which check runs and when |
| They wanted something you do not sell | The page and your product do not match | Read the live page yourself |
| Records arrive in daily batches | The supply is aged by design | Ask for delivery on submission |
| No source field on the record | The supplier may not own the source | Ask which domain produced it |
| The supplier will not define invalid | The replacement policy is discretionary | Get criteria in writing before more spend |
Three of those seven produce symptoms indistinguishable from a slow process. Before raising any of them with a supplier, calculate your median minutes from lead arrival to first attempt, and split last month's records into those called within an hour and those called after four hours.
If the fast group performs materially better, the supply is probably fine and your capacity is not. Given the MIT Sloan finding that contact odds fall by a factor of 100 between five and thirty minutes, that gap is expected rather than surprising.
The order that saves a quarter: Speed check, then attempts-per-lead check, then supplier conversation. Brokers who reverse that order spend three months and an onboarding on a new supplier before discovering the problem travelled with them.
Batch delivery. It looks like an administrative detail and it is a quality decision. A supplier who delivers yesterday's enquiries at 9am has built a product where every record is already hours old, and the response-time research says most of the value is gone by then.
It is also self-concealing. Batch-delivered supply produces low contact rates that look like poor data, and the supplier can point out, accurately, that the records were verified.
A supplier running a clean operation answers all five with facts. One running a lead mill answers with reassurance and redirects to price.
The strongest signals are consumers not recognising the enquiry, consumers mentioning other brokers, disconnected numbers, and people who wanted something you do not sell. Before concluding any of these, check your median time to first attempt, because a slow process produces symptoms that look identical to poor supply.
Usually one of two things: the record is aged, so the enquiry has faded, or the landing page described something different from what you sell. Ask the supplier for the live URL of the page. An operator who owns the consumer brand can send it immediately.
Yes, though it presents as an administrative one. Delivering yesterday's enquiries in a morning batch means every record is hours old on arrival, and the response-time research shows contact odds fall by a factor of 100 between a five minute and a thirty minute response. Ask for delivery on submission.
When verification is demonstrably nominal, meaning repeated disconnected or wrong numbers, or when consumers report other brokers calling on supply sold as exclusive. Both are failures of what you contracted for. Falling appointment rates with a healthy contact rate is not a supplier problem and changing supplier will not fix it.