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.
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights April 16, 2025 – Franchise development teams should enjoy a new tailwind in prospect optimism. Surveys in the last week of March 2025 showed a record 87.5% of persons exploring ownership agree or strongly agreed that “now is a good time for startup”. In the same survey, 74.1% of …
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.
February 5, 2025 – Franchise development faces reduced competition from employers for the best candidates. Return-to-work mandates, cost-cutting, and increasing automation by employers are compelling more individuals to conclude that now is the time to buy a franchise and move forward on the path of “being my own boss”, the leading motivator for business ownership.
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 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 1, 2025 – Monthly surveys of buyers actively seeking franchises and businesses for sale have shown an increasing inclination to start businesses in the ensuing twelve months when asked about their time frames. In late December 2024, a record 93.0% said they planned their business startups for within the next twelve months, in continuation of an upward trend since the beginning of 2023.
November 6, 2024 – Now 75% of aspiring business owners surveyed either agree or strongly agree that “now is a good time to start a business,” showing optimism about conditions now and ahead, the highest percentage in more than three years. In the October 2024 survey, 90.7% of respondents see conditions for business and franchise startups “the same or better in three 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 23, 2024 – Both political parties have discovered the effectiveness of blanketing mobile phones with fundraising texts. According to YouMail, which offers call and text-blocking apps, political texts alone may be approaching one billion per week in October 2024. How do legitimate franchise representatives get through to sales prospects who want to hear from them?
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?
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%.
April 10, 2024 – Franchise developers have been swimming upstream against a tide of employers clinging to full-time workers since the post-pandemic return to work. Over the last year, fewer aspiring franchise owners were leaving full-time jobs. In our March 2024 Small Business Startup Sentiment survey, franchise seekers who say they are leaving full-time jobs reached a four year low at 36.9%, as U.S. employers shed full-time workers.
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.
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.
February 7, 2024 – Prepare for launch! January startup sentiment data show 84.5% of aspiring franchisees plan their launches in the next twelve months, the highest percentage seen since December of 2023. The first of our Predictions for Franchise Development and Lead Generation for 2024 is looking very much on target.
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.
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?
November 15, 2023 – Consistent with prior monthly “mystery shopping” surveys, most franchise prospects (45.8%) prefer to be emailed for initial contact with a franchise they are interested in according to fresh data in October 2023. On the other hand, 30.6% indicated a desire for a phone call for the initial contact.
November 1, 2023 – As we have observed many changes in franchise buyer behavior in the three years since the global pandemic began, one aspect changed very little. Despite the thousands of offerings among dozens of categories in the franchise directories at FranchiseVentures online brands, most prospects still narrow their focus to a single concept on a visit to request further information about franchises.
October 25, 2023 – The migration of interest in franchises continues to shift northward and eastward according to new data from FranchiseInsights.com. By comparing quarterly shares by state for the first quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2023, there was a continuation of the shift in the mix of where aspiring franchisees were expecting to locate franchises – from south to north, and west to east.
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.
April 13, 2023 – By comparing the shares by state year-over-year by quarter, from January-March 2020 to January-March 2022, there was a shift in the mix of where aspiring franchisees were expecting to locate franchises – from south to north, and west to east, according to new data from FranchiseInsights.com.
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.
February 8, 2023 – As of January 2023, 76.6% of aspiring business owners are planning to launch their businesses within the next 12 months. And now, 58.4% of aspiring business owners either agree or strongly agree that “now is a good time to start a business”, consistent with the prior month, but down from the high of 73.5% as recently as February 2022.
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?
December 28, 2022 – Headlines about war, surging inflation and interest rates, and imminent economic slowdown were no match for the entrepreneurial instincts of Americans in the final months of 2022. The control over one’s destiny continues to propel entrepreneurs towards owning a business in America.
December 21, 2022 — If U.S. adults are spending almost 46 minutes a day on TikTok, surpassing even YouTube, why not advertise there? Have you experienced it yourself, or watched someone mindlessly scrolling TikTok videos? Meanwhile, Instagram and YouTube are falling all over themselves trying to tap into the demand for TikTok-like viral video content.
November 30, 2022 – Consistently, most franchise prospects (38.5%) prefer to be emailed for an initial contact with a franchise they have chosen, according to the monthly “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com in November 2022. But 36.5% indicated a preference for a phone call over a text for initial contact this month. Further, in all …
Norfolk, VA, November 22, 2022 – The percentage of franchise prospects who are very likely to return your call before receiving an introductory email has reached an all-time low. In November, only 1.92% of respondents are “very likely,” and another 21.2% say they are “likely” to take a cold call. That means about 23.1% are …
November 16, 2022 – This month a shocking and record low percentage of inquirers about franchises for sale were contacted by all of the franchise systems they requested information from, according to the FranchiseInsights.com monthly “Mystery Shopping” survey. Only 42.2% of inquirers to franchises reported that they were contacted by “all of the franchises they …
October 26, 2022 — While the headlines are about an “advertising recession” underway, with Meta to provide even more insight in its earnings report today, Google’s earnings release yesterday explains the pain felt by franchise development teams over the last year. The reported growth in Google global search revenues of 4.25% understates the impact of …
October 19, 2022 — A substantial flow of leads to franchise development sites comes from prospects originating on portal websites that are used to acquire franchise leads. In a recent article, we quantified from user surveys that 70% of prospects submitting an inquiry subsequently visited the franchise website, with 41% of those also submitting a …
October 11, 2022 – Despite soaring interest rates, volatile financial markets, declining consumer confidence and increasing lead costs, none of the U. S. franchisors responding to a recent survey say they have cut back their development budgets significantly for 2022. Moreover, one third (33.3%) have actually increased their expansion plans for this year. There was …
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA — October, 5, 2022 — A lower percentage of entrepreneurs see “now” as ideal for launching their businesses than any time in the past year. Nonetheless, 62.2% of aspiring business owners either agree or strongly agree that “now is a good time to start a business”, down from the recent high of 73.5% …
September 28, 2022 — Franchise marketers using the data on keywords that converted to visitors to tune their paid search programs suffered significant signal loss on September 1, 2022 when Google stopped providing this data in its Analytics products “to meet a higher privacy threshold.” What does this mean for franchise lead generation through pay …
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA — September 21, 2022 — In comparing lead sources, “price”, and even the holy grail – “cost per sale” – are incomplete, if not misleading. There are two other critical variables in assessing return on your investment in franchise portals or other third party lead suppliers. In a prior article, we quantified the …
August 31, 2022 – Most franchise prospects (55.3%) prefer to be emailed for an initial contact with a franchise they have chosen, according to the monthly “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com in July 2022. Further, in all but two of the 30 monthly surveys by FranchiseInsights.com over the last three years, email was the clear …
July 20, 2022 — Since we last wrote about the decline in Facebook (Meta) Lead Generation, three more months of data show that the situation may have stabilized for franchise lead generation advertisers now one year after Apple’s iOS 14.5 release, though at substantially higher costs and lower lead volumes. If you have found your …
June 29, 2022 – Since the introduction of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) features with the September 21, 2022 release of iOS 15, email marketers have been scrambling to adjust their marketing processes and expectations to the changes. While a comprehensive response is beyond the scope of this article, we are attempting a high-level summary …
May 18, 2022 — Since February 2022 when we last wrote about the decline in Facebook (Meta) Lead Generation after Apple’s iOS 14.5 release, three more months of data show that advertisers for lead generation shouldn’t expect results to improve any time soon. Meta’s own CFO estimates that consumers opting out of tracking will cost …
May 11, 2022 – In April 2022, only 53.2% of inquirers to franchises reported that they were contacted by “all of the franchises they inquired to”, just above the 53.1% lowest rate seen in April 2021, but far below the average rate of 61.3% seen over the last twelve months. Fortunately, those who reported being …
April 13, 2022 – The southward and westward migration of franchise interest during the pandemic noted in a recent article begs the question – how does that fit into the longer-term trend? The top ten states by share of franchise prospects grew slightly as a percent of all states from 2018 (59.53%) to 2020 (59.65%) …
March 16, 2022 — Most aspiring franchise buyers plan to use Small Business Administration loans and personal savings to start their businesses, at 48.9% and 45% respectively, according to the FranchiseInsights.com Small Business Startup Sentiment survey. Loans from banks or other lending institutions were identified as the third most common source at 39.8%. The percentages …
March 10, 2022 — In the February FranchiseInsights.com Small Business Startup Sentiment survey, respondents were also asked to rank eight franchise characteristics in order of importance to their ultimate selection, along with a “not important to me” option for each. On the surface, “low cost of entry” and “higher earnings potential” were ranked highest, on …
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA — March 3, 2022 — On February 24th, the day the survey launched, news headlines of the invasion of Ukraine stunned the world and roiled financial markets. Despite the uncertainty, 57.4% of aspiring business owners were resolute about starting their businesses within the next three months. Further, 76% of these survey respondents see …
February 23, 2022 — If you have not heard about the $300 billion drop in the market value in Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook), perhaps it is because you have had to work double-time to mitigate the volume dip and effective cost of franchise leads to achieve your franchise system growth goals. The introduction …
February 16, 2022 — The percentage of prospects inquiring about franchises and businesses for sale who cited email or text as their first choice for initial contact was dead even in February 2022, in a departure from recent months, and largely due to a dip in the preference for email compared to January. In addition, …
February 8, 2022 – In January 2022, 57.6% of inquirers to franchises reported that they were contacted by “all of the franchises they inquired to.” On the other hand, those who reported being contacted by “none of them” dropped to a recent low of 15.4%, according to results from the FranchiseInsights.com monthly Mystery Shopping survey. …
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA — January 25, 2022 — In late January 2022, news roiled markets with the threat of yet another Omicron variant, a potential invasion of Ukraine, and the largest drop in financial markets since March 2020. Nonetheless, 53.1% of aspiring business owners were resolute about starting their businesses within the next three months. Further, …
January 26, 2022 — Even though over 28% of franchise prospects in January 2022 reported being already “somewhat familiar” or “very familiar” with the franchises they considered, they chose to inquire about them at franchise portal sites among hundreds of other listings. These findings are consistent with our prior data from August 2021. When you’re looking …
January 20, 2022 — Despite the disruptions to normal human behavior due to the global pandemic, the control over one’s destiny and financial independence continue to be the most powerful motivations for owning a business in America. In a very large sample over multiple years, working for oneself remains the main motivator cited by entrepreneurs researching …
January 13, 2022 – First, the bad news. Supplies will be tighter, and costs higher for building a pipeline of franchise prospects given: Increasing Competition with Employers – Growing franchise systems will be competing with desperate employers who are offering better pay and more flexible work conditions to retain or add team members in an environment …
December 9, 2021 — In a survey conducted December 1-8, 2021, 61.7% of franchises responding say they expect to spend “more” or “much more” on franchise leads in 2022. Confidence in a better 2022 is seen in franchise systems in all stages of growth. Active U.S. franchises responding to the benchmarking survey hailed from a …
October 20, 2021 — In September, we shared that the uncertainty and disruptions of the global pandemic did not significantly change the mix of drivers toward business ownership as seen in our large monthly sample set. Desire to “be your own boss” is consistently the top motivator. But what is it about being your own …
October 13, 2021 — Over the past few years, paid Facebook advertising has become an attractive source of paid franchise leads for development teams, given its broad reach and extensive targeting options. But 2021 has become a challenging year for this resource. On Monday, October 4th beginning just before 12 pm Eastern time, Facebook and …
October 6, 2021 — Despite never-ending twists in the pandemic, a looming debt ceiling, more volatile financial markets, and even lower consumer confidence in September, aspiring franchise owners are undeterred. Entrepreneurs who agree or strongly agree that “now is a good time to start a business” grew to 73.4% in September, continuing a three month …
UPDATED: How Google and Apple Privacy Initiatives Are Likely to Impact Franchise Lead Generation September 29, 2021 — Google issued an updated timeline for their previously announced sunset of third party cookies. Instead of being sunset by 2022, Google will prevent cookies from being collected in the second half of 2023. The reason given was …
September 22, 2021 – Preliminary results from the University of Michigan’s September 2021 survey of consumer confidence as reported by Business Insider show that the lowest percentage of consumers in four decades think that “now is a good time to buy a home.” High prices and low inventory have taken a toll on consumer enthusiasm …
September 15, 2021 – When you’re looking for information on an unfamiliar subject, you might “Google it.” But what if you don’t know what you are looking for, or what criteria to use to compare the choices, or what options are available in a geography or category or price range? How do you satisfy yourself …
September 1, 2021 — Some things haven’t changed, despite the global pandemic. The control over one’s destiny and financial independence remain the most powerful motivations for owning a business. In fact, working for oneself remains the main motivator cited by entrepreneurs researching business ownership across the leading network of online franchise information directory brands. “Be …
August 11, 2021 — A majority of aspiring owners say that they are most likely to respond to an email as the initial contact about a franchise in the July 2021 “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com. Text messaging was second in order of preference for initial contact, followed by a voice call when respondents were …
July 21, 2021 – The largest multi-year data set of aspiring franchisees reveals historic changes in the makeup of the pool of future franchise owners. The percentage of women seeking information about franchise ownership dipped during the height of the pandemic in 2020. But if the first half of 2021 is any indication, women are …
July 21, 2021 – For the first time in history, more Millennials are seeking franchise ownership than Baby Boomers. While Generation X (ages 41-56 in 2021), has shown the greatest share of franchise interest for some years, that share may have peaked in 2020 at 48.2%, based on year-to-date data in 2021 through June. The …
June 30, 2021 – Apple launched a “Silence Unknown Callers” feature in its September, 2019 launch of iOS 13, but the April 26, 2021 release of iOS 14.5 featured prompts to set it up when viewing the “recent” call list as seen in the graphic above. This development means that many consumers are not going …
June 23, 2021 – In June, franchise sales teams performed at the highest levels in over eight months according to results from the FranchiseInsights.com Mystery Shopping survey. Respondents reporting that they were contacted by “all of the franchises they inquired to” reached 63.5%. Further, those who reported being contacted by “none of them” dropped to …
June 15, 2021 – While Generation X prospects (born 1965-1980) are currently the largest demographic group seeking franchise ownership, Millennials are a much larger cohort. Together, these two generations will combine to create the largest US population at the prime ages for business startup. The next two decades are projected to add over 12.9 million …
June 9, 2021 – Nearly two-thirds of prospects interested in buying a franchise are married, an above-average rate that may factor into the readiness of individuals to take the plunge. Of entrepreneurs contacting franchises to explore ownership, 65.5% are married according to data from the FranchiseVentures network of franchise directory brands over the first four …
May 25, 2021 – Among younger generations in particular, women lead in the number of investment inquiries made to franchises according to analysis of data from January to April 2021. Since we last reported gender demographics in September 2020, women have surpassed men in share of total prospects that are identified as male or female. …
May 19, 2021 — Entrepreneurs step forward at all ages, but the most common age may be older than you think. Analysis of January through April 2021 demographics of prospective franchise owners shows the most popular ages for exploring business ownership range from the mid-30s to mid-50s, peaking at age 51 thus far in 2021. …
May 12, 2021 – Despite the availability of dozens of franchise categories and hundreds of franchise options at FranchiseVentures digital brands, most prospects narrow their focus to a single concept when requesting further information. In looking at data for more than ten thousand prospects in April 2021, almost 46% selected a single franchise opportunity for …