October 21, 2026 – Finally, some good news breaks for brands who value inbound traffic from Google Search for franchise lead generation. Google announced that it is placing more links in the AI Overviews and AI Mode which now dominate the search experience there. Brand icons, where available, show alongside the links.
October 14, 2026 — Understanding return on investment is essential to evaluating franchise lead generation alternatives, given soaring costs. According to Franchise Update Media’s Annual Franchise Development Report (AFDR), the average cost per franchise lead increased to $351 in 2025, from $271 in 2024
September 9, 2026 – Since our first glance in May 2026 at how franchise search behavior is changing as AI-enhanced search options proliferate, we have gathered much more data directly from prospects themselves. The insights below are from four months of data, May through August 2026.
August 26, 2025 — Now, when an individual uses Google search to learn about franchises, the odds are now very high that they will not see a link to your offering.
August 12, 2026 – Despite the hundreds of franchise options across dozens of categories on franchise directory websites, most individuals narrow their focus during a website visit and ultimately inquire about only one or two concepts. This franchise buyer behavior has been consistent over more than six years of customer journey analysis of websites and mobile apps.
June 17, 2026 – Since our last review of preferred initial contact channels in July 2025, more franchise prospects are saying they prefer a phone call for initial contact, and marginally fewer franchise prospects have been indicating that they preferred to be emailed first by a franchise they have expressed interest in. This preference is seen in surveys from January to May 2026 by Franchise Insights.
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May 27, 2026 – In a surprising contrast with surveys of the general public about their broad use of AI, franchise prospects are more dependent on traditional tools for researching franchises of interest.
May 20, 2026 – Along with the rest of consumers, persons searching for businesses have now had more than two years of experience with Google’s AI Overviews along with chatbots and AI-enhanced browsers. How might this have changed the process of finding the right franchise and thereby franchise lead generation? There may be clues in the preferences of the general population for chat over traditional search.
May 13, 2026 – Now that first quarter earnings reports from Google and Meta are behind us, there are a few hints about how the franchise lead generation ecosystem is changing. One insight is that franchise development teams have embraced Google AI Ad Tools ahead of Google’s advertiser base.
April 29, 2026 — For anyone who found the series of articles on the 2026 Franchise Development Lead Generation survey too long to consume, or missed some, we are providing a very brief summary with references to the sources for deeper inquiry.
March 25, 2026 – Looking back at usage rates of the top franchise development lead generation channels from 2022-2026, it is clear that after diversifying supply sources over the last several years, franchise teams have made significant adjustments in view of shocks to the supply ecosystem.
March 18, 2026 – Franchise systems responding to the 2026 Franchise Development Lead Generation Survey reported increased overall spending on lead sources in 2025. When asked about 2026 plans, more than 45% of teams reported increasing budgets for one or more of their chosen sources as they seek to diversify and assure a stream of qualified prospects for franchise growth.
March 4, 2026 – When asked about 2026 plans, more than 45% of teams reported increasing budgets for one or more of their chosen sources. Franchise directories or “portals” as a category grew in 2025 usage to 74.4% and are expected to grow further in usage to 78.8% in 2026. This difference of 4.4% is the highest absolute growth in usage among the top four source platforms. Among sources surveyed, only Google is expected to decline in usage in 2026.
February 24, 2026 – If you are not using AI tools to enhance your franchise lead generation process, you will be in a small minority by the end of this year according to the 2026 Franchise Development Lead Generation Survey. More than 88% of brands surveyed will be using at least one AI tool by the end of 2026.
February 22, 2026 – Faced with aggressive goals for system growth, increased competition, and technological transformation of lead generation, franchise developers employed AI to gain advantage and lower costs. As evidence, only 11.3% of respondents said they will not be using AI by the end of 2026.
February 16, 2026 – Most systems responding to the 2026 Franchise Development Lead Generation Survey reported increased spending in 2025, along with changes in usage, where higher costs per lead were a factor for most sources.
February 11, 2026 – When asked about spending changes among the largest sources of prospects in 2025, about 23.3% of franchise development teams already using Meta, Google, franchise directories (portals) or brokers said there was no change in their spending on these sources. On the other hand, 76.7% made tactical changes in their budget allocations.
February 9, 2026 – For lead generation sourcing in 2025, franchise development teams coalesced around four major platforms, after much experimentation in 2024. From the 2026 Franchise Development Lead Generation Sources Survey, however, respondents reported abated experimentation in TikTok, while LinkedIn continued to grow in usage.
January 21, 2026 — An astonishing percentage of prospects who request information on franchise portal websites become a referral visit to a franchisor’s website afterwards. In our December 2025 survey, about 89% of portal lead submitters made post-inquiry visits to the corresponding franchise development websites of their interest. This referral percentage historically ranges from about 65-75% in over six years of monthly data.
December 17, 2025 – This week, we attempt to provide a concise review of the basics of how franchise development teams can get through to interested prospects. A comprehensive action plan is beyond the scope of this article, but we are attempting to provide a “first aid” list of the 20% of suggestions that might yield 80% of the results, by channel.
December 10, 2025 – Despite following best practices for franchise lead generation and nurturing to reach qualified buyers, sales teams face massive interference from the torrent of spam emails, texts and calls directed at anyone with a pulse.
Understanding return on investment is essential to evaluating franchise lead generation alternatives, given rising costs. According to Franchise Update Magazine, the average cost per franchise lead increased from $155 in 2022 to $251 in 2023, and $271 in 2024.
October 28, 2025 — Headlines this week report layoffs at Amazon, UPS, and Paramount, while a government shutdown continues for almost a month. Tens or hundreds of thousands of skilled workers will be looking for better opportunities, with many taking advantage of this opportunity to take control of their destinies and “be their own boss.”
September 10, 2025 – Over the summer of 2025, only 35-46% of individuals submitting inquiries to franchises said they were contacted by all of the franchises they indicated interest in within seven days, as reported by the FranchiseInsights.com “mystery shopping” surveys from June to August 2025.
August 27, 2025 – After perusing among hundreds of options across multiple categories on franchise directory websites, most individuals narrow their focus and ultimately inquire about only one or two concepts. This franchise buyer behavior has been consistent over more than five years of customer journey analysis of websites and mobile apps.
August 20, 2025 – In the July 2025 Startup Sentiment survey, Grit, or “persistence towards a goal despite obstacles” was cited by 58.5% of respondents. In this survey of individuals seeking franchises, 55.4% also attested to their “willingness to follow a proven system”, an essential ingredient for succeeding at franchise ownership.
August 12, 2025 — Since we last wrote about the potential impact of Google’s AI mode on franchise lead generation, Alphabet reported earnings for the second quarter of 2025, and shared key metrics to dispel the notion that generative AI was displacing traditional search.
July 30, 2025 – According to a 2020 study by Pew Research, only 19% of Americans will take a call from a number they are unfamiliar with. In April 2021, Apple launched its “block unknown callers” feature, followed by “live voice mail” in September 2023, which allows recipients to screen unknown calls without picking up.
July 16, 2025 — With AI-induced changes to consumer behavior and the search marketing ecosystem, alternate channels of lead referrals become even more essential and valuable. Referred visits to your franchise development website yield informed prospects who demonstrate clear intent – they are aware of your offering, and want to learn more.
June 18, 2025 — Interest in franchise ownership spans all adult ages, but the most likely cohort for taking the leap is around middle age. Self-reported demographics of prospective franchise owners from January through April 2025 show that the most popular ages for exploring business ownership range from the mid-40s up to 60.
June 11, 2025 — Almost exactly a year since we wrote about the introduction of AI Overviews and generative AI to franchise search, Google introduced AI Mode, its generative AI offering to the search experience in browsers and the Gemini app which began rolling out to all U.S. desktop and mobile users on May 20, 2025.
May 20, 2025 — With the growth of chatbots and AI-enabled research, the pathways that lead to discovery of your franchise are certainly changing. Since Google’s launch of AI Overviews just over a year ago, search queries have grown by almost 50%, yet click-throughs have dropped by 30%.
April 30, 2025 – Franchise development teams are largely maintaining or increasing their expansion plans in 2024-2025. They have responded to changes in the lead generation ecosystem by aggressively diversifying their paid sources, in the face of rising cost per lead, to achieve growth goals and complement organic growth.
April 30, 2025 – Looking back at usage rates of the top franchise development lead generation channels from 2022-2025, franchisors have diversified their sources in response to many changes in the ecosystem.
April 30, 2025 – In a year-over-year analysis of franchise lead generation, interest in franchises shifted to a number of border and coastal states, particularly California, New Jersey and Michigan according to new data from FranchiseInsights.com.
April 9, 2025 – Most systems responding to the 2025 Franchise Development Lead Generation Survey anticipated increased spending in 2025, to which higher costs per lead were a factor for most sources. In 2025, 87% of franchisors expect to employ Google paid advertising (including YouTube), up from 82.5% in 2024, despite 24.6% of them reporting that lead costs increased somewhat, and 7.3% significantly.
March 26, 2025 – When asked about advertising plans for 2025, 100% of franchise development teams already using the major franchise lead generation sources expected to increase their spending somewhat or significantly in 2025.
This is following a difficult 2024 where, despite challenging business conditions and the distractions of an election year, more than 58% of franchisors surveyed either stuck to their growth plans (50.0%) or increased them. Franchises increasing their expansion plans (8.3%) included all tiers of system sizes, and 98% of them increased their spending in 2024 across the four largest third-party advertising platforms.
March 19, 2025 – When asked about advertising plans for 2025 in our annual Franchise Lead Sources Survey, over 95% of franchise development teams already using either Google, Meta, LinkedIn or TikTok expected to increase their spending somewhat or significantly in 2025.
February 25, 2025 – Retail sales dropped 0.9% in January 2025, the largest drop since March 2023, given that much of the country was covered with snow and the Palisades fires raged from January 7-31. If your franchise development team noticed a marked decrease in lead generation and prospect responsiveness in January, weather across the U.S. and fires in California were key among the reasons.
January 29, 2025 – Franchise prospects want to know who is calling before accepting a call. More than thirty-seven percent (37.2%) of respondents indicated that they preferred to be emailed first as an initial contact by a franchise they have expressed interest in, according to the recent December 2024 Franchise Insights Mystery Shopping survey.
January 23, 2024 – Since we last reported on the motivations of aspiring franchise owners in August 2024, interest rates have eased, and a contentious election was resolved. But the primary driver for those seeking business ownership has not changed.
January 14, 2025 – If your franchise sales team is noticing a decrease in lead generation in recent days, they are not alone. Despite a great start to the year, California is experiencing a significant drop in inquiries – down 21.3% through January 13, according to proprietary data from the Franchise Ventures lead generation platform of franchise investment inquiries in the United States.
January 7, 2025 – The rising trend in near-term intentions to start businesses bodes well for franchise development in 2025. In late December surveys, a record 93% share of respondents plan their business startups within 12 Months.
October 30, 2024 – One consistent observation on franchise buyer behavior over almost five years of website journey analysis is how quickly researchers parse among many options to narrow their focus to a few for further inquiry. Most prospects only focus on a single concept when requesting information about franchises, despite the thousands of offerings across dozens of categories in the franchise directories of the Franchise Ventures lead generation platform.
October 9, 2024 — Inbound inquiries to your franchise development website yield more informed prospects who demonstrate intent – they are aware of you, and want to learn more. How can you get more of these referred visitors?
August 21, 2024 – Like most individuals, franchise prospects want to know who is calling before accepting a call. Thirty-six percent of respondents indicated that they prefer to be emailed on initial contact by a franchise they have expressed interest in, according to fresh data in the recent July 2024 Franchise Insights Mystery Shopping survey.
July 31, 2024 — As in prior surveys, “low cost of entry” and “higher earnings potential” were ranked most important by individuals seeking business ownership. But control over working conditions – including “flexibility of work schedule” and “ability to work from home” were the two next most important characteristics.
July 17, 2024 – After two successive months of higher prospect initial contact attempts, rates dipped as reported by the latest FranchiseInsights.com “mystery shopping” survey in June 2024. More than half of respondents say they were contacted by all of the franchises they inquired about in April and May, at 50% and 57.1% in April and May, respectively.
July 2, 2024 — In our June 2024 survey, almost two-thirds (66.3%) of respondents claimed “willingness to follow a proven system”, an essential characteristic for succeeding at franchise ownership. Grit, or “persistence towards a goal despite obstacles” was cited by over half of respondents (50.6%) of respondents, followed closely by “team leadership experience” at 47%.
June 19, 2024 – Franchise buyer behavior has changed in many ways in the four years since the global pandemic began. One aspect, however, has stayed the same: most prospects still only focus on a single concept when requesting information about franchises, despite the thousands of offerings across dozens of categories in the franchise directories of the FranchiseVentures lead generation platform.
May 29, 2024 — Cost per lead is often a key decision factor when evaluating franchise directory websites (portals), assuming quality standards are met. But leads submitted at franchise directory websites also result in substantial referral visits to franchisor websites, in addition to being a significant source of leads submitted at development websites…
May 22, 2024 – “AI Overviews” have arrived for Google search results, after months of testing. Announced at Google’s I/O conference May 14, the experience will become available for most searchers over the next few months. The impact on Google’s $200 billion advertising is unknown, but presumably they would have thoroughly tested the impact on paid search revenues.
May 15, 2024 – Persons inquiring about franchises were mostly satisfied with their experiences, according to recent mystery shopping surveys over the six months ending in April 2024. Over half (50.9%) said they were either “satisfied “or “very satisfied”, and only 17.4% said they were “unsatisfied or very unsatisfied.”
April 24, 2024 – In four months of survey data from January to April 2024, only 14.4% of respondents are “very likely,” and another 15.4% say they are “likely” to take a cold call from you. The traditional “call first” approach will likely lead to your frustration with about one third of franchise leads, and reduce the chances of more productive conversations with informed prospects.
March 27, 2024 – Most franchise prospects (42.4%) prefer to be emailed on initial contact by a franchise they have expressed interested in according to fresh data in the March 2024 Franchise Insights Mystery Shopping survey. Another 30.6% indicated a desire for a phone call for the initial contact. This order preference is consistent with prior monthly “mystery shopping” surveys, including when we last shared franchise prospect contact preferences data.
The optimal order for following up with franchise prospects is about playing the odds. Segments of the pool of franchise leads prefer one of the nine permutations of three contact methods (email, voice and text), but to have the highest expectations of fruitful contact, especially given the 24/7 nature of lead flow, it pays to listen to what prospects want overall.
February 28, 2024 – When asked about advertising plans for 2024,about a third of franchise development teams expected to increase their spending somewhat or significantly at Google, Meta or LinkedIn. This is following 2023 wherein, despite tumultuous business conditions and shocking news headlines, more than 58% of franchisors surveyed either stuck to their growth plans (50.0%) or increased them.
February 14, 2024 – Signs from a number of metrics (time spent, monthly active users) and media reports are that we may have reached “peak” social media as measured by postings, monthly active users and time spent. The Wall Street Journal posits in a recent article that users are doing a lot more lurking than posting these days and foresees more of the same in this election year, along with mounting concerns about privacy.
January 31, 2024 – The most reliable options for franchisors to directly acquire prospects in recent years – email and text marketing, paid search and social media – are all undergoing significant change, as are the dominant mobile and desktop platforms offered by Google and Apple (and a few others hardly worth mentioning).
January 24, 2024 – In our last article, we highlighted some of the headwinds facing advertisers who generate franchise leads from Google. Traffic exclusivity from Apple, antitrust and regulatory court proceedings threaten Google in 2024, along with greater competition by other players like Microsoft who aim to use artificial intelligence to get a bigger piece of the search marketing pie.
January 17, 2024 – One of the most reliable pathways to filling the franchise sales funnel is under siege in 2024. Not only has it fallen to second place behind Microsoft in consumer “mindshare” regarding AI, it faces potentially disruptive regulatory threats, while committing unforced errors of its own in the name of privacy.
January 10, 2024 – Signs are that we may have reached “peak” social media as measured by posting activating and consumer surveys. The Wall Street Journal posits in a recent article that users are doing a lot more lurking than posting these days and foresees more of the same in an election year along, with mounting concerns about privacy.
December 28, 2023 – From a review of web traffic to content viewed over the past year, we developed a “Top Ten” list of the most popular topics among our insights in 2023 based on the readership of articles by category.
November 29, 2023 – Prospect initial contact rates are up, as reported by the latest FranchiseInsights.com survey in October 2023. Almost 52% percent of respondents say they were contacted by all of the franchises they inquired about, up from 46.2% in June when we last reported this data. Aside from the efforts of franchise sales teams, what could be driving this improvement?
Oct 11, 2023 — Prospects were asked why they proceeded to visit the franchisor site(s), the overwhelming response at 50.7% was “I was very interested and just wanted to learn more.” Another 31.5% wanted to “prepare before having a conversation” with franchise representatives.
September 27, 2023 — When evaluating franchise directory websites (portals), cost per lead is often a key decision factor, assuming quality standards are met. But leads submitted at franchise portals also result in substantial referral visits to franchisor websites, in addition to being a significant source of leads submitted at development websites
September 20, 2023 — When lead sources are compared, “price”, and even “cost per sale” – are incomplete, if not misleading. There are additional critical components of value in assessing return on your investment in franchise portals or other third party lead suppliers.
September 13, 2023 – Aspiring business owners come to franchise directory sites to see what’s out there, and for the convenience of comparisons in one place, and ease of connection to franchise representatives.
Aug 2, 2023 — After ChatGPT was launched November 30, 2022, and Microsoft added ChatGPT features to its Bing search February 7, 2023, speculation swirled about the impact on Google’s dominance of web searches. Google launched Bard globally on May 10 this year after opening by invitation starting March 21.
July 26, 2023 – Apple announced a new “Live Voicemail” feature for its anticipated September iOS 17 iPhone software update. Rather than banishing the caller directly to voicemail without ringing, as the “silence unknown callers” feature does, the first several seconds of the caller’s message is presented in text on the home screen, giving the call recipient an option to pick up the call.
June 28, 2023 – As seen in recurring surveys, most franchise prospects (38.3%) prefer to be emailed for initial contact with a franchise they have chosen, according to monthly “mystery shopping” surveys by FranchiseInsights.com April-June 2023.
May 31, 2023 — In looking at data for thousands of franchise inquiries during the month of April 2023, 41.6% selected a single franchise opportunity for follow up. An additional 16.1% inquired about a second franchise, and 9.8% requested follow-up from a third concept.
May 24, 2023 — A very small percentage (5.2%) of aspiring franchise owners are already “very familiar” with the franchises they inquire about, and another 20.3% are “already somewhat familiar” with them
Norfolk, VA, May 10, 2023 – Research shows that only a fraction of franchise prospects are likely to return your call before receiving an introductory email from you. In an April 2023 survey, only 12.9% of respondents are “very likely,” and another 22.6% say they are “likely” to take a cold call. The traditional “call first” approach will likely lead to your frustration with at least a third of franchise leads.
March 15, 2023 – Aspiring business owners talking with franchise sales teams were largely satisfied with their experience, according to recent mystery shopping surveys over the last six months ending in February 2023. Almost half (48.7%) said they were either “satisfied” or “very satisfied”, and only 12.4% said they were “unsatisfied” or “very unsatisfied.”
Now that Microsoft has unveiled its chatbot-enhanced search results into new downloads of the Bing mobile app, and to Bing desktop users by signup on a limited basis, we can further analyze the impact of chatbots on paid and organic search marketing, following up on our earlier article.
Kudos to the franchise sales teams who reached out to all of the inquirers who requested information from them in February 2023. There is no doubt that they will be finding new franchisees, unlike those teams that did not follow up with an initial contact within seven days.
February 15, 2023 — What is now more interesting to Google searchers than Kim Kardashian, and almost as interesting as TikTok? Based on recent Google Search trends in the US, the answer is ChatGPT. Over one billion visits to the product occurred between its launch November 30 and February 5, 2023.
January 18, 2023 – Analyzing our content viewed over the past year, we developed a “Top Ten” list of the most popular topics among our insights in 2022 based on the readership of articles in topic categories. Along with each topic, ranked in descending popularity, are a few key and most recent articles that address each particular subject.
January 11, 2023 – It’s a new year, with new opportunities for franchise growth ahead. Yes, there are economic, legislative and regulatory headwinds, but who would bet against the collective entrepreneurial spirit, creative energy and grit of the franchise community?