Working aged MCA leads: a dialing playbook for ISOs

Aged data has a reputation problem: shops buy a file, run it once with the fresh-lead script, get a 3% contact rate, and conclude aged leads don't work. The file wasn't the problem. This is the routine used by teams that fund deals off aged submissions month after month.

Before the first dial

Scrub. Run the file against the National DNC registry, your state's list if it has one, a litigator scrub, and your own internal do-not-call file. Log the scrub date. Re-scrub any file older than 31 days before dialing it again. The vendor supplies data; the compliance decision is yours, and it's the one part of this playbook that is not optional.
Dedupe against what you already own. Match on phone number first, then email. Good vendors dedupe against your past orders automatically; still check.
Sort by the date on the record. Every record should carry the date it entered the vendor's system. Dial newest first. Within a tier, a 95-day record and a 119-day record are not equal.
Load the extra fields into the dialer screen. Stated deposits, time in business, amount requested, disposition, last-contact month. Agents who can see "asked for $75k in June, in follow-up" open differently from agents who see a name and a number.

The opener depends on the age

The single most common mistake is using one script for every tier. The owner's memory of their inquiry fades on a predictable curve; the opener should match it.

30–90 days: they remember applying. "You looked at funding a couple of months back. Did that get sorted, or is it still open?" Short, assumes recall, asks about the outcome.
90–180 days: they may or may not remember. "You reached out about working capital earlier this year. A lot of owners who applied then are looking at a second round now; is that you?" Acknowledges time, gives them a reason it's relevant again.
6–12 months: treat it as a warm cold call. "Your business came up as one that's looked at financing before. Things change in a year; I wanted to see where you are now." No claim they'll remember.
12 months and older: it's a cold call with a good list. Don't reference the old inquiry at all; it invites "I never did that". Lead with the offer.

For worked leads, the disposition rewrites the opener. "Call back requested" gets "You'd asked us to circle back". "In follow-up" gets "We'd been talking about…". "Warm" gets straight to the offer. That's what you paid the premium for; use it.

Cadence: three passes, not one

First-pass contact rates on aged data are low, typically 4–8%. Cumulative contact rates over three passes are two to three times that. A cadence that works:

Pass 1, days 1–3: dial everything, two attempts at different times of day. Text the mobiles (where you have consent to do so) with a one-line, no-link message.
Pass 2, days 10–14: re-dial no-answers and voicemails. Different time of day from pass 1. Email the records with an address.
Pass 3, days 21–28: final dial on the remaining no-answers. Anything still unreached goes to a monthly drip and comes off the dialer.

Track contact rate per tier per pass. After two files you'll know exactly what each tier is worth to your floor, and you'll stop guessing at what to buy.

Disposition everything, and mean it

The value of a worked file comes from its notes. Yours is no different. Every call ends in one of a short list of dispositions (no answer, wrong number, not interested, call back with a date, warm, application sent, funded elsewhere, do not call). "Wrong number" and "do not call" go straight to your suppression file. "Funded elsewhere" with a month is a renewal lead in four to six months; don't throw it away.

What good looks like

Benchmarks vary by floor and vertical, but on aged submissions in the 90–360 day tiers, teams that follow the routine above commonly see 10–15% cumulative contact over three passes, one submitted file per 10–15 conversations, and one funded deal per 8–12 files. At $0.35 a record, that's a data cost per funded deal in the low hundreds of dollars against commissions in the thousands. Run your own numbers; if they're worse than that, the fix is almost always the opener or the cadence, not the file.

Things that quietly kill an aged-data campaign

Dialing from a number with a bad caller-ID reputation. Check it, rotate it, register it.
Skipping the scrub because "it's B2B". Business owners' mobiles are on the DNC list too.
Letting agents skip records with no email or no revenue band. The phone is the product.
Buying the cheapest tier for a closer floor, or the priciest tier for an SMS blast. Match the tier to the channel.

Updated 2026-09-28. Prices quoted are market ranges we observe, not offers; our own lists and current prices are on the Buy Data page. We supply data; compliance with TCPA, DNC and CAN-SPAM for any outreach is the buyer's responsibility.