The issue here is whether the leadgen firm will actually bother to understand your marketplace, your customers, and your solutions so they can properly qualify prospects before those potential customers reach you. Read that sentence again because it contains a lot of information.

It's easy to sign a firm up, give them a budget, and watch them blow through it quickly with no effect. On Facebook, for example, it's easy to get paid clicks. What happens after that, on the landing page and beyond, is much more challenging to get results from.

We have an agency here in town that publicly admitted they screwed up--this was years ago, when FB ads were pretty new--with a campaign for a taco restaurant. A taco for a Like of the restaurant's page. "We gave away a lot of free tacos," one of the owners told me wryly at an event. But return business? Nope.

There are professional firms that have gotten into the marketplace that solopreneurs and The Wild West have typically ran in for the past many years. They have straightened things out to a degree, but again I would be very cautious in hiring them. I would want to know what they do that doesn't just blow my budget on clicks and hops and end the buying process right there.

Here are two firms I've heard of here in North Carolina where I have lived for the past seven years:

https://www.redventures.com/what-is-red-ventures.html

http://www.responsepoint.com/

I have not worked with either so cannot recommend them specifically.

In my opinion, the best option is to develop this expertise yourself. Keep it in-house. You'll maintain control that way, as well as the institutional knowledge of what you learn.

If you need help with your referral program, I can give you effective direction on that.

Good luck!