Bill Rice Internet Marketing > lead marketwatch

Lead Marketwatch–Scammers Beware!

December 14, 2007 By

Sorry I have been on a brief hiatus, but we are working on some very exciting stuff at Kaleidico and it has absorbed my undivided attention. I am wrapping most of those projects up and will be back to my regular schedule. However, I thought a couple of recent events warranted a quick post.

As most of you know Kaleidico hosts an increasingly important tool for both lead buyers (brokers, lenders, and banks) and lead providers (lead exchanges and lead generators)–Lead Marketwatch. This simple widget is the only live performance metric on Internet leads in the market. Lead buyers use it actively in their lead buying decisions, other websites have picked up the Lead Marketwatch widget through Google Gadget syndication, lead providers are given free links in the widget, and some even actively market their performance rankings.

Needless to say, for that reason, we take that responsibility VERY seriously!

This weekend and throughout the week we detected a lead provider attempting to collude with one of our clients to manipulate the application rate for their leads. Upon detection their results were immediately suppressed.

Here is the warning: If you are willing to compromise your integrity in the marketplace we will not allow you to leverage the Lead Marketwatch in that scam. If you are a lead provider your data will be indefinitely suppressed in Lead Marketwatch with no appeal. If you are a lender you will be terminated from the lead management network as a violation of our terms of service.

I hope everyone is enjoying Lead Marketwatch and can be confident in its objectivity, credibility, and integrity!

P.S., If the scammers are reading…our rock-star developers have written a detection module that will automatically catch that scam and a couple more we thought of so suppress is automatic if detected.

Tags: lead marketwatch, leadmarketwatch, internet leads, ,

Filed Under: Lead Generation, Lead Management Tagged With: kaleidico, Lead Management, lead marketwatch, lead providers

LowerMyBills.com Improving Quality Despite Pundits

October 30, 2007 By

LowerMyBills.com has taken it’s fair share of abuse over the last several months. However, there seems to be a trend emerging in application rates that speaks for itself.

If you are not a LowerMyBills.com client or have been in the past you may want to take another look.

If you are selecting online lead providers or looking to add Internet mortgage originations to your current business don’t forget to build a plan and do the math. Lead Marketwatch is a big part of this equation–giving you objective numbers to calculate benchmark marketing ROIs.

If you need assistance or have questions about Lead Marketwatch feel free to call the lead management experts at Kaleidico: 866-667-5253 or www.kaleidico.com.

Also, don’t forget to check out the other consistently strong players in this stack:

Tags: lowermybills, zipsearch, bills.com, leadpoint, , lendingtree, lead marketwatch, kaleidico

Filed Under: Lead Generation, Lead Management Tagged With: Lead Generation, lead marketwatch, lead provider, lowermybills

Lead Quality Decline or Market Change?

October 16, 2007 By

There has been a bit of discussion over “declining” lead quality. Of course, it is easy to lay the blame of declining app and funding rates at the feet of lead providers. I must admit this was my initial reaction.  However, I then got curious and decided to think a bit broader and dive into the data from our client network and tie it to market news during the period of decline.

Here is the chart:

The most notable observable points in this summary is that lead providers tend to stay very close to their general trend line; however, there was a general trend of decline on or about August 18, 2007. I would also suspect as we look at final September data we will see all of the lead providers returning to their typical trend lines.

So, I am not certain that the general assertion that lead quality has declined over the past several months is supported by market data.

However, if you do make the hypothesis that there has been a sudden precipitous decline in lead quality something must have changed–methodology, market, or consumer. We often assume and stop at lead generation methodology. Did lead providers radically alter their techniques and methodologies on August 18, 2007? No, but your application rates did decline in the short-term.

Something obviously changed. That leaves market conditions and consumer behavior. This is where I put my chips (I am currently in Vegas and down $100).

On that day, the mortgage market was being shook to the bone by Countrywide’s announcement they were tapping a credit line to fund loans. Notice the relative correlation between the Countrywide stock trend line and the lead provider application rate trend lines. At the same time, general news and panic media coverage is shaking the confidence of the consumer. Then, the for the triple threat–loan programs are disappearing for the majority of the borrowers needing financing and FHASecure has not arrived yet.

This is what happened to lead conversion rates. Not poor marketing, but poor market conditions and consumer confidence. They inquired, but got shocked, paralyzed, or left without a program.

The ironic part of this story? As rates stay flat, the mortgage market stabilizes, confidence returns, and programs come back, who is going to write about the dramatic, mysterious improvement in lead quality?

By the way, hopefully you have a good lead management system that is allowing you to manage these consumer inquiries over this longer sales cycle because they are ready to apply now!

Tags: lead quality, , , , ,

Filed Under: Lead Generation, Lead Management Tagged With: kaleidico, Lead Management, lead marketwatch, lead providers, lead quality, leadqual

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