Scaling Financial Services with smart lead management, compliance, & AI

In a time when the performance marketing landscape is rapidly shifting, Financial Services marketers face mounting pressure to deliver ROI, stay compliant, and adapt to evolving consumer expectations.

In our webinar “Financial Perspective | A consent-first approach to scale your business and bolster ROI,”Phoebe Pinder, Sales Director at ActiveProspect, and Joey Liner, Chief Consultant & Strategist at Liner Connections, explored exactly how to do that—breaking down market trends, lead buying strategy, regulatory updates, and how AI is transforming outreach.

Key takeaways

Here are the big takeaways from the webinar:

• Market volatility = opportunity for Financial Services companies that can adapt quickly. Diversify your lead sources to avoid risk and improve long-term ROI.
• Use tech like LeadConduit and TrustedForm to protect your brand, streamline lead flow, and build vendor accountability.
• Compliance isn’t optional—even without one-to-one consent, you need documented opt-in and visibility into your lead sources.
• AI is the future—but only when paired with the right infrastructure, consent, and oversight.

Let’s take a closer look at the topics presented above.

Understanding today’s market landscape

Joey kicked things off by contextualizing the state of the consumer finance industry. One year ago, the market was filled with anxiety—high interest rates, election uncertainty, and regulatory overhauls made companies hesitant to invest in growth. But with the Fed signaling possible rate reductions in 2025–2026, mortgage and refinance firms have started cautiously ramping up.

That said, rates have yet to drop significantly, and the economic headwinds remain real. Rising costs of essentials like groceries and gas have left consumers seeking financial relief—whether through home equity lines of credit, personal loans, or debt settlement. In Joey’s words: “Consumers need money. That’s the constant.”

This shift has created growth in lead volume for some financial products (like personal loans and debt settlement), while refinance and mortgage lead volumes remain more limited due to slower rate drops.

Diversifying your lead sources and vendors

A key message from the webinar: diversification is essential. Relying too heavily on one channel or lead type (e.g. shared marketplace leads) leaves you vulnerable to policy shifts and performance drops.

Instead, Joey recommends blending your approach:

• Shared leads: Still effective but should be only one piece of the puzzle.
• Exclusive leads: Higher intent, fewer compliance risks, and typically better conversion.
• Warm transfers: With the FCC’s one-to-one consent rule struck down, these are back in full force.
• Affiliate and native ad traffic: Especially powerful when driven to your own funnel where you control the messaging and compliance.
• Owned and operated sites: Give you full visibility into the consumer journey.
  

To maximize ROI, test different sources in small chunks, analyze performance, and scale what works. And make sure your team is equipped to handle various lead types—higher-intent leads need a different sales approach than bulk, lower-intent traffic.

Optimizing lead flow with the right technology

Once your leads are coming in, the next step is ensuring you’re not wasting time and money on unqualified or non-compliant contacts.

For financial services teams operating across multiple lead sources and pricing strategies, maintaining clean lead routing and usage-based billing can be a challenge. A modular billing infrastructure for financial products supports hybrid pricing models, granular usage tracking, and compliance-ready invoicing—perfect for organizations scaling outreach while maintaining precision.

That’s where LeadConduit, ActiveProspect’s lead optimization platform, comes in. Phoebe emphasized the value of filtering and enriching leads before they hit your CRM or sales team. 

With LeadConduit, you can:

• Filter duplicates and incomplete leads
• Validate phone numbers and emails
• Run third-party services like litigator scrubs
• Reject leads that don’t meet your standards
• Provide vendors with real-time rejection reasons
• Build custom reporting for vendor performance
  

This not only improves your conversion rates—it protects your relationships with vendors and ensures you’re investing in leads that actually convert.

The cost of non-compliance: Why proof of consent still matters

Even though the FCC’s controversial one-to-one consent rule has been struck down, compliance remains non-negotiable.

Joey reminded attendees that private right of action under the TCPA is still in full force—meaning any consumer can sue if they believe you contacted them without proper consent. And serial litigators are just waiting for brands to let their guard down.

To protect your business, you need ironclad proof of consent. ActiveProspect’s TrustedForm offers two essential tools:

1. TrustedForm Retain: Captures a video replay and generates a TrustedForm Certificate that documents exactly when, where, and how the consumer filled out the lead form, stored for five years.
2. TrustedForm Verify: Ensures that consent language was visible, properly formatted, and clearly presented to the user—including font size and color.
   

These tools help you confidently document proof of opt-in, whether the lead came from your own site or a third-party partner. Check out this guide to see how to set up TrustedForm.

Conversational AI: The new frontier in consumer engagement

The webinar closed with a conversation on how AI is modernizing how we engage with leads. Joey shared that conversational AI and SMS tools are gaining traction across the industry—not only for outbound engagement but also for qualification, appointment setting, and customer service.

Key benefits of AI-driven outreach include:

• 24/7 availability
• No burnout or mood swings (unlike human reps)
• Consistent messaging and compliance
• Ability to scale without scaling headcount
  

However, using AI doesn’t remove the need for compliance. Joey stressed the importance of updating consent language to disclose AI use and ensuring you have consent before triggering any outreach.

AI is also making a difference behind the scenes. With AI-powered call QA and transcription, companies can now audit every conversation for legal risk, sales effectiveness, and coaching—without hours of manual effort.

Conclusion

As performance marketing continues to evolve—especially in the Financial Services space—success depends on your ability to adapt with confidence. That means diversifying lead sources, investing in technology that enhances efficiency and transparency, and never compromising on compliance.

This webinar made one thing clear: thriving in this environment isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing it smarter. Whether you’re reevaluating your vendor mix, exploring AI-powered outreach, or reinforcing your TCPA strategy, the tools and tactics discussed can help you scale with confidence and protect your bottom line.

With tools like LeadConduit and TrustedForm, you don’t have to choose between performance and protection—you can (and should) have both. Ready to take the next step in building a more efficient, compliant lead strategy? Schedule a free demo now and see how we can help.