The Moving Leads Ecosystem in 2024

Welcome to the opaque and frustrating world of getting moving leads for your company.

Having spent time with hundreds of movers in Q1 2024, we understand that business is down for most movers. From van lines to independents, movers are searching for more leads. Quality, profitable moving leads are now a premium.

The following information is laid out with the hopes that it helps sales, marketing, and executive teams at moving companies how the world of moving leads works and what channels they can optimize

No moving company is the same if one thing is true in the moving world. One channel may work well for one company and be a waste for the next. The variables of budget, market, services, etc., all factor into what channels work.

Use this guide to familiarize yourself with the inner workings of generating moving leads and use your own judgment on their cost/benefit.

*All information below is the synthesis of feedback from our conversations with movers. We tried to strip opinion from the write-up.*

Let’s jump in.

First, it’s essential to cover some marketing/lead jargon. The following lead sources are the most common in the moving industry. We’ve mixed some marketing channels with the lead sources as they are usually linked together (e.g., property listing data and direct mail).

• Lead Generators
  • Angi, Yelp, Moving.com, moving brokers

• Inbound (Owned & Paid) Leads
  • Drivers: PPC, SEO, referral, Google Local

• Proactive (Outbound) Leads
  • Drivers: Property listing data (direct mail), Realtor data, property managers

Lead Generators

Website aggregators

Almost as old as the moving industry itself is the idea of “buying” leads. If you know how Google and Bing work, the business model for these lead providers is simple (but not easy to replicate).

In short, companies such as Movers.com, Billy.com, and Moving.com have optimized their sites for SEO and to appear as a top search result when someone needing moving services searches for “moving companies” or “moving help.”

They rank well on Google organically by virtue of being an early website, having valuable moving content, and spending money to advertise on Google and display ads on various sites. They have positioned their sites as knowledge experts on moving, so search engines give them the juice.

These companies have resources that leads can review, which keeps them engaged. They hope to move prospect movers to submit information on their move. Once the information is captured from the prospect mover, the company sends out that data to movers who can service the origin address.

On the backend, the site has a huge network of movers and brokers who have signed up to participate in receiving leads.

It gets murky how the passing of these moving leads is prioritized. Each site is different, but it usually considers the price the site assigns to the lead (larger home or high competition zips = more money) and the trust of the movers near the origin address.

The lead is then passed to a handful of participating movers, becoming a “first to contact” race. As we know, the speed of connecting with a lead significantly impacts the booking rate.

While these lead generators capture a good number of leads, the quality is usually not vetted, and the process for passing the leads is always a black box. You may never know how pricing works per lead or how many other moving companies receive that lead.

As with all programs, ask about SLAs upfront and always test the quality of leads before dedicating a large budget to this area of lead generation. Also, movers with less focus on their website and limited sales teams may want to look into lead providers as these prospect movers don’t need to go into your website or other touchpoints to find your information.

As prospect movers become increasingly sophisticated in researching home service providers, they’ll usually kick the tires and submit bad information to intake forms.

Trusted Networks

Operating similarly to website generators, networks such as Angi, HomeAdvisor (now a part of Angi), and Yelp have brand-trusted spaces for researching local businesses.

By building vetting features for their sites (such as proprietary reviews) and having a huge pool of service providers, these sites have become huge businesses. They are household names and have a level of trust from prospect movers who rely on these companies to review and vet their service network.

Prospect movers will search for movers in their local area or submit their information on an intake form. Once the prospect submits information, these sites will send the information to their network of service providers.

Once again, the prioritization of service providers depends on the price they assign to the lead (and who has the highest bid in the local area) and the service provider’s trust.

These leads are better quality since the sites usually require premium memberships or more steps before submitting information. However, it’s no secret that these leads’ prices can be high ($50-$100), sometimes higher than Google Guaranteed leads. This is only for the lead itself, and now a mover must book the survey and compete against the other service providers that receive the lead.

The success of using these networks tends to depend on the competition in your zip codes and whether you have a system dedicated to reaching out to these leads as soon as you get them. Also, if you’re a moving company that can profitably service smaller moves, there tends to be a lot of room to grow with these providers. Large movers will not take studio / 1br homes, and it could be a cheaper lead to buy.

As with all moving lead generators, it’s worth asking about SLAs and the lead passing process. Testing is always key. Spend two weeks and set aside a few hundred dollars to call moving leads from these sites. See if you notice patterns – types of homes, zip codes, response rate, and services needed. It doesn’t require a lot of volume to know the quality you’ll receive on this side.

Van Line Leads (Coming Soon)

Brokers (Coming Soon)

Proactive / Outbound Leads

Property Listing Data

What’s the beauty of the moving industry?

We can easily ID a huge portion of potential movers.

We’re talking about property listing data. Naturally, when someone sells their home, they’ll need to move their items to another location. So, all homes for sale are potential leads.

Most movers understand this and have a finger on their local real estate market. But how can leads vary across markets and providers in this space?

First, it doesn’t serve much as a lead source unless you proactively and consistently collect local real estate market data. With so many movers going after homes for sale, you must have timely data and a system to act on this data to see an ROI. This needs to be iterated; speed wins with home listing data. There are fewer homes for sale, and whoever gets in front of homeowners first has the best chance to turn them into leads.

No open APIs or data feeds exist for Movers (or any service providers) to tap into real-time property listing data. Companies such as Moovsoon.com have enterprise-level software that collects data from many sources, brings it into a single database, and cleans it for quality. They then segment it based on a mover’s market and needs.

These companies eliminate the need to go through real estate sites and download data. They also “append” data points, so movers aren’t dealing with new builds, vacant homes, or homes outside of their profile. In short, you can set zip (only target homes in zips you want to service) and home (owner-occupancy, size, price, no-new builds) and get consistent and updated data.

These services differ at the output level. For example, many movers will have Realtor connections that send them lists weekly. This cheap (or free) option works for data you can use to send out mailers. However, having property listings within 24 hours is crucial for a successful outbound strategy. More on that below.

Systems like Moovsoon package property data in the dashboard, where movers can filter, image search, and track all data within their target markets. The premium that comes with these services is the cleaning of the data and the speed at which it arrives at your team.

When comparing costs to lead aggregators, you’ll usually pay a flat rate for data in your market instead of per lead since these are projected leads. This is the fair approach for leads that aren’t guaranteed to need moving services.

We allude to the drawbacks above. These are homes for sale and are only proxies for leads. A homeowner may be using their own truck to move down the road or may scoff at the idea of paying for moving services. There has been no intent to move from these homeowners, and movers are assuming a level of error regarding how many homes for sale need moving services.

Realtor and Stakeholder Data

Going a level deeper than property listing data is collecting stakeholder leads. With every rental or home sale, the same parties are usually involved during the transaction. For home sales, listing Realtors have become the #1 target for referrals.

Realtors become their homeowner’s trusted source for relocating information. Usually, they have a shortlist of vendors that can help with decluttering, staging, storage, utilities, and moving. If movers can prove their quality and trust to Realtors, they can find many more free leads coming their way.

However, there are many Realtors in the world, and service providers must keep on top of this lead group if they want consistent referrals. Much like the services that provide property listing data, these services, like Moovsoon, will send targeted realtor data to movers to ensure they engage the right contacts and the most active stakeholders in their markets.

Unlike property listing leads, movers cannot spray and pray to Realtors, and this lead strategy is only worthwhile if there is a strategy in place (read below)

Outbound Strategies

The moving leads discussed above are only as good as their marketing strategy. Unlike lead generator leads, which only require closing the lead, property, and realtor leads need cold outreach.

That’s why property listing leads are sometimes synonymous with direct mail companies. Usually, movers will target a specific area for property listings and have that lead company automatically send direct mail to the homeowner. On top of the fees for collecting and cleaning property and/or Realtor data, these providers charge fulfillment fees for marketing to these moving leads.

At Moovsoon, we like to make the process more sophisticated and suggest the following steps as best practices. Movers should define their target zip codes and preferred profiles of homes inside these zip codes. That way, you can create marketing tailored to these communities (using local promo/language) and keep your budget contained with a lower volume.

For Realtor leads, we suggest using your channels (which can be synced to Moovsoon) to do one-to-one outreach. Do not spam Realtors! Show them how you can benefit their homeowners and how you’ve done successful work in the area before.

We’ll keep it high-level since this is just a review of moving lead sources, not strategies. But visit our resources for a deeper dive into moving outreach strategies.

The biggest thing to iterate about these lead sources is that they technically are leads. These are likely prospect movers. A mover can’t buy these leads and expect a return. These are data points that must be proactively engaged. At Moovsoon, we are often approached about our “leads.” We always tell prospects that we’ll do the best cleaning and filter to find homeowners who need to move and will give you all the tools to get in front of them. But this requires effort from your team to turn data points (home listings / Realtors) into leads.

Inbound Leads

Owned Inbound

Nothing beats an inbound lead.

These leads have arrived at your company’s touchpoints – website, Google profile, phone number, email, etc. – and have reached out or submitted information. They are the highest intent leads and are in search of moving services. And guess what? You’re a mover – boom!

There is a hierarchy of inbound leads. Prospect movers who found your company via an organic web search (meaning they did not click on an ad), a referral, or by directly searching for you are high-converting leads.

These are the leads all movers crave. This requires a heavy investment in SEO, web development, review collection, and brand building. Once you have optimized for these channels, prospects will know your company (aka—high brand awareness in the market) or will easily find you on a Google search.

Search engine optimization (SEO) makes your website more desirable for Google and Bing, ranking it higher organically. This includes a complicated mix of speed improvements, keyword optimization, generating relevant content, and being hyper-local. There are many SEO firms, and we’re happy to point you in the right direction. SEO is quite complicated. Don’t get duped! Reach out to our team for recommendations.

The best strategy for local movers is to collect consumer reviews as soon as they complete a move. This will rank you higher on local Google searches, and it doesn’t require a heavy investment in web development and content marketing. Once again, reach out to the Moovsoon team about easy strategies for collecting reviews. Or check with your CRMs, such as SuperMoving or SmartMoving, about their review collection process.

A mover should always optimize for organic inbound leads. This is how you create a sustainable operation and keep customer acquisition costs low.

These leads have a few drawbacks, but it requires a lot of energy and focus to get your company to generate this quality of leads.

We often see newer brands or organizations shifting their focus to brand building using outbound strategies to build brand awareness with homeowners and Realtors. It’s a powerful combination to do cold outreach while optimizing your website and review process. You can shorten the time it takes to build a quality brand on search engines.

Paid Inbound

This last lead process is the most controversial in the moving world.

The phrase “pay to play” probably rings too true for movers.

Paid leads come from pay-per-click campaigns, paid ads, or local service ads. These are the Meta (Facebook), Google, and Bing search ads on which movers tend to spend a lot of money. These ads appear when a prospect mover types in such keywords as “mover near me.” The paid results will be displayed at the top of the search page or Google Maps listings. Unless it’s a Google SLA, most campaigns are charged based on cost per click. Meaning, if a prospect mover clicks on your ad (anywhere) you pay whether they become a lead or not.

While these sites have fine-tuned algorithms and allow for hyperlocal targeting, the decrease in moving leads in 2024 has shot the pricing up 30% YoY for these leads. If these ads aren’t set up correctly with the right targeting, budgets can be chewed up. We advise always having someone review your setup at the very least.

Google’s LSA (local service ads) only require you to pay per lead and send these high-intent leads to only one mover. This means the prospect mover must submit their information to you before you pay Google. However, there is no way to filter if that is a studio vs. a 4br home.

Unfortunately, ad costs for movers will continue to climb as these sites rarely decrease ad pricing. The best practices we see involve using local property listing data to drill down to the areas in your market that are seeing the most activity. This allows movers to focus their marketing dollars on areas they want/can service. Also, having quality reviews and a functioning website signals to Google and Meta that you’re a reputable mover, and they will prioritize your brand on the results page. You’ll also increase your conversion rate if a prospect mover lands on your page, as you’ll appear as a high-quality brand.

Moving Leads in 2024: Summary

In 2024, profitable moving leads are in high demand as business slowed down for many moving companies. Channels for acquiring moving leads greatly vary based on factors like budget, market, and services provided, making it imperative for companies to optimize their lead generation methods.

Many companies turn to lead generators like Angi, Yelp, Moving.com, and brokers. These websites rank highly on search engines due to their status as moving knowledge experts. However, the quality of leads may not always be vetted, and the process of passing leads can be ambiguous, making it crucial for companies to evaluate the cost-benefit ratio.

Another strategy is to use trusted networks such as Angi, HomeAdvisor, and Yelp. These trusted brands offer higher quality leads but at a higher price, making the lead generation strategy dependent on competition and speed of response.

Property listing and Realtor data present another avenue for moving leads, capitalizing on the fact that homeowners are potential movers. Companies like Moovsoon.com offer enterprise-level software that collects and filters relevant data, but it requires proactive engagement from moving companies to convert these data points into leads.

With heavy investment in SEO, web development, review collection, and brand building, inbound leads are the highest converting ones. However, optimizing for organic inbound leads requires significant energy and focus, necessitating a sustained commitment from the moving company.