How Calls Work: Ad, Greeting, Routing

The seven steps

1. The ad runsAxel PR runs its own final expense life insurance ads on video, social and search. Every ad says the caller will speak with a licensed insurance agent.
2. The caller dialsA person who saw the ad calls the number on it. Nobody is dialed, transferred from a call center or bought from a list.
3. The greetingA recorded greeting of about 20 seconds plays the recording notice first, says a licensed agent will answer and that we are not a government agency, then asks who the coverage is for and the caller's state.
4. RoutingThe call goes only to an agent licensed in the caller's state, Taking calls, inside their hours, under their caps, free to take a call, and set for the caller's language and age range.
5. Your phone ringsYour cell or browser rings with the caller's state, who the coverage is for and their age range, so you know who is on the line before you say hello.
6. The buffer runsYour buffer starts when you answer. If the call ends before it, the call is never charged.
7. The receiptWhen the call ends, the receipt shows the ad, the greeting, the recording, notes, talk time and our billing decision.

The ads

Every caller answered an ad that Axel PR wrote, paid for and runs itself. Buyers say the number one cause of bad calls is ad creative that promises something free (Elevarus), so our ads say what the product is: final expense life insurance, with a monthly premium, explained by a licensed agent. Ads on Meta run in its financial products category, which fixes the audience at 18 and over (Meta); the greeting asks the caller's age range so you can narrow it.

Life insurance ad rules treat any wording, seal or symbol that suggests a government program as misleading (NAIC Model 570, California Insurance Code 787), and the FTC's 2025 settlement with MediaAlpha turned on exactly that kind of ad (summary). The ad library, where you can see every live ad and the calls it produced, is Planned.

The greeting, word for word

The recording notice plays before anything else, because California and about a dozen other states require every party's consent to record (Penal Code 632, state list). The greeting asks no health questions and quotes no products or prices: that is your conversation to have.

Routing rules

A call can only ring you when every one of these is true:

• Your life license is active in the caller's state
• You are set to Taking calls, inside the hours you set, in your time zone
• You are under your daily cap and your balance covers the call
• You are not already on one of our calls (Calls at once is 1 unless you change it)
• The caller's language and age range match your settings (50 to 85 unless you narrow it)

When several agents fit, the call goes to the agent who has waited longest since their last call, so volume spreads fairly. If the agent it rings does not answer, it moves to the next agent who fits, and the missed call costs the first agent nothing.

License checks

Before your first call we check each state on your license against state licensing records using your NPN, and we re-check on a schedule after that. A call is only ever routed to you from a state where your license shows active. Routing a caller to an agent who is not licensed in their state is the one mistake we never want to make, for the caller's sake and yours.

When your phone rings

Before you say hello you see (or hear, on a cell phone) a short whisper: the caller's state, whether the coverage is for themself or a parent, and their age range. Open with your name, your agency and that you are a licensed insurance agent. Your 90 second buffer starts when you answer. When you hang up, the receipt is on your desk with the recording.

What never happens

• No outbound dialing, purchased lists or call-center transfers. Every call starts with a person dialing us.
• No call is sent into a shared exchange, sold twice, or passed to a second agent after you take it.
• Nothing else is pitched in the greeting: it connects the caller and gets out of the way. Inbound calls that answer general ads are largely exempt from the FTC's telemarketing rule, but an upsell to a second product on the call is not (16 CFR 310.6).
• No Medicare, Social Security or government framing anywhere in the funnel.

The billing rules cover what happens after the call.