ACA Open Enrollment Marketing: A Week-by-Week Plan

Build your ACA open enrollment marketing calendar backward

Open enrollment on HealthCare.gov starts November 1, so that date anchors the plan. Closing dates and the deadline for January 1 coverage have shifted in recent years, and state-based exchanges set their own. Pull this year's dates from ACA Marketplace enrollment dates and eligibility (opens in a new tab) and from your state exchange before you schedule anything.

Next, look at your market before you set a budget. Enrollment moved differently from state to state, and KFF's breakdown of 2026 ACA Marketplace enrollment trends by state (opens in a new tab) is a good place to see where your states stand. Then narrow it to the specific counties you can serve well.

1. Weeks 8 to 6 before November 1: training, licensing and compliance review.
2. Weeks 5 to 3: landing page, consent flow, CRM and follow-up scripts.
3. Weeks 2 to 1: renewal outreach and small-budget ad tests.
4. Open enrollment: a daily operating rhythm with clear rules for adjusting ads.
5. Final stretch and after: deadline messaging, then the special enrollment pipeline.

Put these five blocks on your real calendar this week. A plan that lives only in your head tends to slip once September gets busy.

Weeks 8 to 6: training, licensing and Help On Demand

According to CMS's Marketplace agent and broker registration and training page (opens in a new tab), Plan Year 2027 registration and training is now available for returning agents and brokers on the Marketplace Learning Management System (MLMS), in English and Spanish. If you completed Plan Year 2026 Individual Marketplace registration and training, you are eligible for a shorter training plus optional review modules. For new agents who did not complete training for 2026, CMS says information will be available soon, so check the page regularly.

The same CMS page notes that only agents and brokers who have completed Marketplace training and registration can participate in Help On Demand, a CMS-contracted service that connects consumers with Marketplace-registered, state-licensed agents and brokers in their area. That is another lead source, and it only counts if you are eligible before demand picks up.

Licensing matters just as much. CMS states that agents without an approved health-related Line of Authority, as determined by their resident state, have no access to Marketplace systems and cannot assist consumers with Marketplace enrollment. Confirm your LOA in every state you plan to target before any ad goes live there.

• Complete Plan Year 2027 Marketplace training in MLMS and save your completion record.
• Confirm your health LOA in your resident state and in each non-resident state you will advertise in.
• Sign up for Help On Demand as soon as you are eligible.
• Confirm carrier appointments and certifications for the coming plan year, since timing varies by carrier.
• Re-read the CMS guidelines for compliant Marketplace advertising (opens in a new tab) and each carrier's marketing rules.

Compliance points in this post are general information, not legal advice. Confirm the specifics with your compliance resources, carriers and upline.

Weeks 5 to 3: build the funnel, consent flow and CRM

Your landing page is where a click either turns into a quote or disappears. The strongest pages show real plans for the person's county instead of a vague quote form that ends in a call the person didn't expect. Build and test the page now, while you still have time to fix it.

• Identify yourself by name as a licensed agent, and never imply you are the government or HealthCare.gov.
• Ask for ZIP, county and household first, and contact details after the person has shown real intent.
• Capture permission to contact and permission to act on the Marketplace as separate, clearly worded steps, and store a record of each.
• Send every lead to your CRM tagged with source, county, household size, timing and pipeline stage.

Write your ad copy with the same care. The FTC guidance on truthful health insurance advertising (opens in a new tab) covers misleading claims, implied government affiliation and telemarketing. Skip blanket promises like zero-dollar plans for everyone, because a zero premium depends on income, household and county.

Write your follow-up now too: a text sent within minutes, a call script, and three-day and seven-day touches for people you haven't reached. A simple opener works: 'Hi Maria, this is Dan, the licensed agent you asked for Marketplace quotes. I pulled plans for your county with your tax credit applied. Do you have five minutes?'

If you'd rather not assemble all of this yourself, FastTrack builds it for you. You get a branded quote funnel on your own domain under your NPN that shows real county plans priced with the tax credit applied. Consent is signed separately and filed as PDFs, a GoHighLevel sub-account comes already tagged for ACA, and each quoted household opens in HealthSherpa prefilled.

Weeks 2 to 1: warm up your book and test your ads

Your existing clients are the easiest enrollments of the season. Reach them before the window opens so your first two weeks of OEP fill with booked reviews, not cold outreach.

1. Export your active clients and tag them by plan, county, and likely changes to income or household.
2. Send a short message: 'Open enrollment starts November 1. Plans and prices for next year can change. Reply YES to book a 15-minute review.'
3. Book the reviews into the first two weeks of OEP, putting clients with ongoing doctors or prescriptions first.
4. End each review by asking for one referral by name.

Get your ads built and approved now. Health insurance ads can sit in review or get flagged, and you don't want to find that out on November 1. Decide whether to use Facebook lead-generation ad campaigns (opens in a new tab) with instant forms or to send traffic to your own landing page. Instant forms keep people on Facebook, while a landing page lets you show quotes and capture consent your way. Our Facebook ads playbook for ACA agents covers targeting and creative in depth.

Decision rule: if a test lead doesn't land in your CRM with the right tags within a minute or two, fix the routing before you raise the budget.

During OEP: run your open enrollment campaign on a daily rhythm

Once the window opens, the agents who stay consistent tend to outwork the ones who improvise. Lock in a routine and protect it.

The daily routine

1. First hour: contact every lead from the last 24 hours you haven't reached yet.
2. Late morning and midday: scheduled reviews and enrollments.
3. Afternoon: follow-ups by CRM stage, starting with households that were quoted but haven't enrolled.
4. End of day: check cost per lead, contact rate and enrollments by ad set.

Decision rules for your OEP marketing spend

• Judge ad sets on enrollments and contact rate, not cost per lead alone.
• Don't change an ad set based on one day's numbers unless something is broken; give it several days.
• If your backlog grows past what you can work within 48 hours, lower spend rather than let leads go cold.
• Refresh creative when the same audience keeps seeing your ads and lead quality starts to slip.

Here's an example with hypothetical numbers. Ad set A brings leads at $20 each and 1 in 10 enrolls, so each enrollment costs $200. Ad set B costs $35 per lead, but 1 in 4 enrolls, so each enrollment costs $140. The cheaper leads turn out to be the more expensive enrollments.

If you supplement with purchased leads, know what you are paying for. Our breakdown of exclusive vs shared health insurance leads walks through the real cost of each.

Final stretch and after the deadline

In the last two weeks before the January 1 coverage deadline and the final close, shift your messaging to the dates themselves. Re-contact every household you quoted that hasn't enrolled: 'The deadline for coverage starting January 1 is coming up. Your quote is ready, and enrolling takes about 15 minutes. Want to finish today?'

After open enrollment closes, demand narrows to people with qualifying life events, such as losing other coverage, moving, or a change in household. Keep a smaller ad budget running with messaging aimed at those events, and keep nurturing anyone who didn't enroll. For year-round channels, see our playbook on how to generate ACA leads.

• Pull a report of enrollments by source, ad set and county.
• Note which scripts and messages got replies, and which didn't.
• Tag non-enrolled leads for a special enrollment check-in and for next year's renewal outreach.
• Write down what to start earlier next year while it's still fresh.

Open enrollment marketing ideas that cost little or nothing

Paid ads aren't your only lever. These open enrollment marketing ideas cost time more than money, and they build on each other year after year.

• Ask every satisfied client for a referral by name, and follow up with a text they can forward.
• Update your Google Business Profile with OEP hours and a booking link.
• Build relationships with tax preparers, realtors and small businesses without group coverage, and check your state's rules before offering anything of value for referrals.
• Post short videos explaining what changed this year in your state, using your own name and license and never implying government affiliation.
• Offer Spanish-language appointments or materials if you can serve Spanish-speaking households well.

Start your OEP marketing plan this week

Pick your anchor date, block out the five phases, and finish the readiness checklist first: training, LOA, Help On Demand and a compliance review. Everything else, from the funnel to the daily routine, depends on that groundwork.

If you want the quote funnel, consent flow, ACA-configured CRM and Meta ads set up for you, start your FastTrack setup online. Ads run on your own ad account, Meta bills ad spend directly, and your leads are never resold or shared.